High School Jump Help

Welcome to our Cheerleading Community

Members see FEWER ads... join today!

Mar 11, 2014
231
230
So now that state is over, and we have competition tryouts next month I really need to revamp our jumps. This is our weak point and I'm really hoping to improve them this next season. Any advice, tips, drills? Needing some help :)
 
So now that state is over, and we have competition tryouts next month I really need to revamp our jumps. This is our weak point and I'm really hoping to improve them this next season. Any advice, tips, drills? Needing some help :)

Over the years, I have came up with my own stretching routine that I do and it usually takes me anywhere between 20-30 minutes. After I do that I do a few different exercises my coaches throughout the years have done with me.
Some of the exercises are:
  • Sitting in straddle and doing leg lifts (right, left, then both). You turn your upper body toward the leg you are lifting then put one hand in front and one behind and I hold each for 10-15 seconds.
  • Controlled t-kicks
  • Around the world kicks
  • Splits
  • Wall splits
  • V-ups and pike-ups
  • And I do every jump 10 times with ankle weights and 10 times without the ankle weights
I also use the ankle weights with any of the other exercises I mentioned. I hope this helps! :)
 
I remember reading somewhere that one of the big name gyms who is known for their jumps (Spirit of Texas or Stingrays) spends at least 20-30 minutes EVERY practice on jumps. I tried doing this but kept making other sections priority so jumps would get forgotten about.

Easiest fix I've found was to incorporate jump exercises and t-jumps/TT jumps in to your warm-up. As soon as you are done stretching, go straight in to straddle leg lifts and then perfectly sync'd standing leg lifts (not kicks).
Arms to T 5,6
Head look 7,8
Lift leg 1
Leg snap down 2
Lift leg 3
Leg snap down 4.... etc.
Clean on 8.

Then we do 3 perfect T-jumps to warm up the legs and timing. Then approximately 10 TT's with minimal breaks btwn. Sometimes we will do jumps for an entire routine music (jump an 8-ct, rest an 8-ct...).

The first couple times we added these in to our practice plan, we spent ALOT of time working on the sync (like 30-40 minutes). But, it paid off in the long run because now we can bust out the exercises in 1-2 tries to get perfect sync and our jumps are looking so much better than in years past.

Hope that helps!
 
Back