High School How Often Is Too Often For Tumbling Classes?

[Official OWECheer]

Obviously our bodies did not evolve to flip and twist on a regular basis. How many times a week is too many?

 

[Keep_Believing]

Obviously our bodies did not evolve to flip and twist on a regular basis. How many times a week is too many?

I don't have the answer, but look forward to the responses. This is a great question.

 

[Twinklestars]

With regular cheer practice and basketball games, we are lucky to get to tumbling once per week.

 

[quitthedrama]

I think cross training is important in any sport. I think 4 days a week of tumbling should be the max, 3 days is ideal IMO, especially for younger athletes, for both physical and mental benefit.

"You are only responsible for being honest, not for someone else's reaction to your honesty."

 

[omgitssydthekid]

I was in the gym a minimum of three days a week, every week, from the time I was 10 until I was 19. I had level 5 tumbling skills (nothing crazy or impressive but what I had was solid) and now even doing a single roundoff is painful. I'm 21 and my body is shot.

Be careful and mindful of your children and their aches and pains. Looking back, I wish I had been more diligent in getting even "minor" things checked out.


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[CheerBank]

This was posted in high school cheer - was this question directed solely to high school cheerleaders?
At his point in the season the varsity squad does not go to any tumbling classes; not sure if they ever did as a team.
Cp used to go to tumbling at all star gym once a week but stopped when she joined varsity in November as the times conflicted and it was just too much betweem hs and all star practices.

 

[BuegeSmalls]

In high school we had to go to a tumbling class once a week, plus we would tumble at practice. One summer I did two tumbling classes a week, both on the same day within an hour of each other lol.


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[Official OWECheer]

This was posted in high school cheer - was this question directed solely to high school cheerleaders?
At his point in the season the varsity squad does not go to any tumbling classes; not sure if they ever did as a team.
Cp used to go to tumbling at all star gym once a week but stopped when she joined varsity in November as the times conflicted and it was just too much betweem hs and all star practices.

It was, but I welcome any and all responses from all-star parents.

 

[Official OWECheer]

So what would be the ideal number of times per week for middle schoolers vs high schoolers?

 

[Fierce_Elite]

I say 3x a week for middle school. Its important to get as much tumbling experience in while you're young, so that way you can "bounce back" quicker if you end up having an injury. 2x a week for the older athlete because if you do get an injury its harder to recover verse being 12 years if that makes any sense. But also depends on how many hours you plan on training them. I say do more when you're younger simply because there isn't as much "mind blocks" and such. Than the the injuries you recover from faster.

 

[retiredl5cheer]

I'm not sure there's a magic number. It definitely depends on what additional training is being done. How many times a week are they practicing? How often are they conditioning?

I've learned over time that the key to learning tumbling is strengthening your body to perform that tumbling. Properly conditioned bodies lead to better technique and more solid skills. There were some videos a while back of Debbie Love's girls that gave me the impression that they learn skills quickly because of the amount of time they put into their conditioning. She also has a ton of fantastic videos on her website that give some really great strengthening exercises. The point in mentioning this is that numerous tumbling classes a week may not actually be necessary to gain skills at a rapid rate.

That being said, young bodies need a break from exercise, so 6 or 7 days of practice and tumbling probably wouldn't be wise. 5 days of cross-training may be okay, but repeating the same exercises 5 days a week could be very harmful. I'm not a doctor or a physical therapist, but it seems obvious that repetitively training handsprings, for example, may create injuries caused by 5 days a week of pounding on the wrists, elbows, etc.

 

[CheerBank]

Where is the tumbling class taking place, on a spring floor or a flat one? There is no way cp could go to a tumbling class on a flat floor. School practice is already killing her knees, hip and back. We are at a point where we want to talk to the coach about her only tumbling at comps and not during practice - and she has only been doing school cheer since the end of November.

 

[Tosh]

So what would be the ideal number of times per week for middle schoolers vs high schoolers?

I think the answer to this question is going to depend on how competitive the team is. With my experience, Middle School is a harder division than varsity. The reason why I am saying this because usually the top 5 middle school at Nationals can compete against any varisty squad and do extremely well.
That being said, team tumbling once a week at a gym, then there is tumbling during practice and additional 3 nights a week.....and this is for all squads MS and up. Our rec squads take tumbling with a private tumbling instructor at the school.
The important thing, I believe is that you have to train your body to do certain things and when you stop tumbling (you are older now) you should continue to do some sort of a work out and you should be fine; like riding a bike.
Last week my daughter came to help out at practice and one smart mouth girl that she was helping with her tumbling said after she corrected her on something "I am doing it right, if you could do then show me' and I was shocked that she just stepped up and through a RBHS tuck.....she haven't tumbled in 4 years and just had a baby that is now 4 mths.......
So I think if you take care of your body and do some sort of physial workout (walk, streatch) I think the body will will be fine......
Funny fact: I started taking tumbling classes with my girls at the gym when I was 40! Yea me! and I stopped after I got my BHS. Haven't attempted that in years and I doubt that I could throw anything right now.

 

[FlexyTumblerMom]

I read in a book that studies have shown that anything beyond 12 hours a week of physical pounding on a human body is risking "overuse" injuries and long term damage - and that there is also diminishing return on the effort put in to work beyond that number of hours.

This was in one of those shock and awe books about the abuse and pressure of elite gymnastics, so take it w/ a grain of salt. It also doesn't specify if things like conditioning exercises (like jogging, doing chin-ups and push-ups) count in that 12 hours, or if it's really just tumbling and flipping.

I think there may be some validity to it though, as the majority of the non-event injuries I've seen in my time as a gym mom were always in the girls in the levels that had them going more than 12 hours a week. When I say "non-event injury" I mean an injury where something specific didn't happen to cause the injury (like a fall, a rolled ankle, etc.) - like those types of injuries where the gymnast's back or ankle starts to gradually hurt out of nowhere and it ends up being a stress fracture/tissue damage.

I personally prefer my CP to stay under 12 hours a week of tumbling because of this.

 

[Official OWECheer]

I think the answer to this question is going to depend on how competitive the team is. With my experience, Middle School is a harder division than varsity. The reason why I am saying this because usually the top 5 middle school at Nationals can compete against any varisty squad and do extremely well.
That being said, team tumbling once a week at a gym, then there is tumbling during practice and additional 3 nights a week.....and this is for all squads MS and up. Our rec squads take tumbling with a private tumbling instructor at the school.
The important thing, I believe is that you have to train your body to do certain things and when you stop tumbling (you are older now) you should continue to do some sort of a work out and you should be fine; like riding a bike.
Last week my daughter came to help out at practice and one smart mouth girl that she was helping with her tumbling said after she corrected her on something "I am doing it right, if you could do then show me' and I was shocked that she just stepped up and through a RBHS tuck.....she haven't tumbled in 4 years and just had a baby that is now 4 mths.......
So I think if you take care of your body and do some sort of physial workout (walk, streatch) I think the body will will be fine......
Funny fact: I started taking tumbling classes with my girls at the gym when I was 40! Yea me! and I stopped after I got my BHS. Haven't attempted that in years and I doubt that I could throw anything right now.

So true! Lots of tucks and some fulls. It's hard to bust that out when they're so young.