All-Star Starting A Discussion: The Safety Of Spring Floor Vs... Well.. Anything Else

[Mclovin]

Sideline cheer I think is awesome! Let's the kids have fun, do some jumps, maybe a couple of tucks or hand springs. Maybe do some basic stunting and cheer on their football/basketball teams. But the thought of Emileigh pushing herself to get her arabian to full, standing full, two to full, etc. on the hard floor just frustrates me. Then to even think about kids at her high school who haven't even been taught to stunt beyond level 2 or 3 trying to base her in full ups, double downs, etc. just scares the ever living day lights out of me. She has already said she will not do school cheer if it pulls her away from all star practices, but in the event that it doesn't conflict, I'm in for a trip down injury lane I'm sure. :-/

 

[yojaehs]

Here are those mythbusters stickers I was talking about: http://www.shockwatch.com/impact-tilt/impact-indicator/selection_guide.php#SWLabel

I guess the question is are they refined enough to actually detect anything? I could buy 4 of each, get a dummy, throw them on the dummy, drop the dummy from a set distance, lets start at 4 feet, and increase by a foot each time until all the stickers break. Do it on both surfaces. Film it. call it a day?

Here is the Sport Science video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvpgqT5vh6s aired in 2009 but def shows what NOT to do in a basket. I'm not 100% a fan of this video but it does calculate the impact of a basket. A spring floor is safer than flat in every aspect and should be encouraged to be used whenever possible. I completely understand where @kingston is coming from bc we have similar issues of our athletes being injured due to performing (often times skills they shouldn't be doing bc of lack of knowledge from the coach) on the improper surfaces. Regardless of the coaches knowledge any skill is safer on spring, period.

 

[King]

Here is the Sport Science video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvpgqT5vh6s aired in 2009 but def shows what NOT to do in a basket. I'm not 100% a fan of this video but it does calculate the impact of a basket. A spring floor is safer than flat in every aspect and should be encouraged to be used whenever possible. I completely understand where @kingston is coming from bc we have similar issues of our athletes being injured due to performing (often times skills they shouldn't be doing bc of lack of knowledge from the coach) on the improper surfaces. Regardless of the coaches knowledge any skill is safer on spring, period.

I think that one of the huge problems with cheerleading is the barrier to entry to attempt a skill that is potentially dangerous does not match the barrier to entry to learn said skill.

 

[King]

I just wanted it embedded.

 

[kcpack22]

this may just be a mental thing with my prefering spring over anything else (x1000000), but after using flat mat or track or whatever I definitely feel more wear on my knees and elbows.... not good.

 

[Aussiekat]

This is an interesting point, and I've often wondered why we don't go through the learning phases of stunting with some sort of protective equipment. A thin soft helmet during pyramid learning sounds stupid, but could prevent a lot of injuries to flyers and bases. Perhaps elbow padding could do some good. I know on my daughters team several girls have mouth guards that they put in while a flyer is being something new. Once she gets it they stop wearing them. I would like to see this explored further.

A thin soft helmet would have helped my temple when I slammed it into a shoulder learning kick double baskets and had a minor concussion. Mouth guards are such a smart idea. Maybe this could be another thread, don't want to hijack the mat safety discussion.

 

[Nothanks]

i cringed watching that video, every. single. time. they A) showed the crash dummy fall and B) when they kept showing the simulated body.

 

[yojaehs]

The difference in impact between spring and flat is undeniable however there are also MAJOR technical differences when teaching a tumbling skill on spring and flat. If they aren't approached differently, ouch.

 

[King]

The difference in impact between spring and flat is undeniable however there are also MAJOR technical differences when teaching a tumbling skill on spring and flat. If they aren't approached differently, ouch.

I guess we can try the reverse... what are the negatives of teaching and competing ANY skill on a spring floor? Are their negatives?

 

[MomOf2ThatsMe]

I'm not an expert, by any means. But I know that if that major stunt crash (she was not caught at all- just a straight forward drop) and faceplant my daughter had at her first 2-day nationals had been on a cafeteria floor the tears would not have been from embarassment when they watched the video backstage. She would have been sobbing because of the pain and she would not have even had a chance to watch the video because she would have beeen off with paramedics somewhere being examined and probably carted off to the local hospital in MB.

 

[yojaehs]

I guess we can try the reverse... what are the negatives of teaching and competing ANY skill on a spring floor? Are their negatives?

The ONLY negative I can think of would be learning the skill "spring floor" technique, THEN switching to flat floor attempting the spring floor technique. While I coached in college there were many meetings that coaches had in regards to switching colleges to spring floor, ultimately the decision isn' t for the UofL, UK, HPU, SFA schools bc they have the facilities and finances to do it. The reason schools are NOT on spring floor is for the schools that CAN'T afford to do it. So the option becomes, do those schools just NOT have a cheer program? I for one would like to see at least an option, like back in the day when you could choose between all-music or music-cheer-music. Adjust the score sheet, spring floor schools compete against spring floor schools and non-spring compete against non-spring. The concern becomes what are the numbers? Are there enough of each to have 2 MORE divisions?

While continuing this debate, think of the poorest, least experienced, with a rookie coach school you can think of and ask yourself, "What should can we do?"

 

[King]

The ONLY negative I can think of would be learning the skill "spring floor" technique, THEN switching to flat floor attempting the spring floor technique. While I coached in college there were many meetings that coaches had in regards to switching colleges to spring floor, ultimately the decision isn' t for the UofL, UK, HPU, SFA schools bc they have the facilities and finances to do it. The reason schools are NOT on spring floor is for the schools that CAN'T afford to do it. So the option becomes, do those schools just NOT have a cheer program? I for one would like to see at least an option, like back in the day when you could choose between all-music or music-cheer-music. Adjust the score sheet, spring floor schools compete against spring floor schools and non-spring compete against non-spring. The concern becomes what are the numbers? Are there enough of each to have 2 MORE divisions?

While continuing this debate, think of the poorest, least experienced, with a rookie coach school you can think of and ask yourself, "What should can we do?"

Then you get into a situation where if you make the barrier to entry to high no one will get into cheerleading... BUT if the barrier to entry is to low people can flat out hurt themselves (and have!).

There is no shortage of high schools or high school cheerleading. There are shortages of good coaches in high school. I think severely limiting what you can do on a hard floor (and basketball court) is a smart move. On basketball court no back tucks, no twisting baskets, no twisting entries or transitions (OR release moves) and only straight cradles. Same with football tracks.

For competing I think a mixture of level 3 and 4 rules. No twisting on hard floor. Only handsprings can follow jumps. Only standing tumbling is handsprings OR single back tuck. Only single twist baskets (you can do four kicks in front of that if you want). No double downs, only single downs. No release moves that land at the top. (spouting these off the top of my head).

Allstar on a spring floor has it down and can stay the way it is.

Colleges though its hugely different. For every HPU there is a lot of HPNots. I would hate to kill off college cheer, but staying this open is going to kill off college cheer on its own. The NIU incident is just another high profile move away from doing in all of college cheer anyway. I don't have a good answer anyone would like except cheering at games has nothing to do with elite level skills. Therefor elite level skills should not ever be thrown at games.

 

[Cheer_Explosion_Coach]

2 problems I see with limiting skills in high school are..

1. On the sideline, dumb coaches will still be dumb. The same coaches throwing back tuck baskets at games will still throw them. They wont stop bc nothing will happen to them if they're caught (except if you do it in my presence and I call the principal the next day haha done it a few times)

Competitions like UCA and NCA high school nationals would shrink in half.... I wouldn't take my kids to an expensive competition like UCA NHSCC if they were limited to level 3 skills. I'm sure I'm not the only one either... We'd all just stick to AS

And JW would not sign off on that restriction.

I love high school competition. I just feel like until school principals and AD's make cheer coaching and safety a priority, kids will be the one to suffer, if high schools continue to compete. Most high school coaches either are under qualified or clueless. And have no common sense as to what should and should not be done on hard ground or spring floor. Until cheer safety can catch up to it's difficulty, I think competitive cheer should be limited to spring floors and AS gyms, where coaches do this for a living. It might not be safe, but it's way safER.

 

[TheVipersMom]

I agree with what has been said. Yes spring floor is a safer way to go. No it doesn't guarantee you will not have an injury but definitely minimizes one if it was to occur and could potentially save someone's life more so then if that same injury happened on a cement floor. How do you get this information out there for the people who lack common sense, idk.

Just for the record, and these may be graphic to look at but standing and falling back... Not from like a stunt but just your head hitting the concrete may make your head look like this. Sorry if these pics gross anyone out... Here is my head which I had to get staples in because me being the smart person I am waited several days before going to the hospital lol

The day it happened

The next day.

Now imagine if I was a flyer and fell out of a stunt to a hard ground it would have been crucial.

I think part of this comes with people lacking common sense and the other problem is mistakes happen. It could be that mistake on a round off or that mistake on a full. Same for stunting. I know alot of schools don't have access to this unless practicing at an all star gym or something similar. It would be nice if the state allocated money for the schools like they do for the football field or the band. I know that's not possible and no matter how much we know they aren't going to see it is a necessity and I believe if my daughter cheers in high school 8 years from now she will probably be practicing the same way they do now. In areas not sufficient to help reduce injuries. Football players get all kinds of pads, helmets, and gear to keep them safe. I think even to schools with outstanding cheer teams no one really views them as something to help them improve the way they have been doing it.

 

[scottish_cheerleader]

Being a mechanical engineer I look at this in a bit more of a geeky way, everyone learns newton's laws of motion. Everything has an equal and opposite reaction. So if you press your hand against a concrete wall, the wall doesnt move as it has an opposing force to the one you hand is applying. This force would be far greater than one if you were to put your hand against a wall of foam, the foam does not have the same strength as the concrete and will give a little, making the opposing force smaller. This is essentially the difference in the impact from hard to spring floors

unfortunately my team dont have a spring floor, although we compete on one, we have 5 rolls of foam/carpet and we make up 2 outside strips using judo style matts. With tumbling my kids have had to learn on hard floor and that is all their bodies really know. They have had no issues learning backhandsprings, round off tucks takes a while they work on it endlessly with a spot but have a fear they just wont get enough height once over that its easy street they will layout no problem. STANDING tucks on a hard floor are almost a mental block for my team they have a huge fear of it because they see it as such a hard landing.
My athletes have been learning to full now and I've had only one injury (a rolled ankle) which actually happened the one day we had access to a spring track.
I do not think that if you stunt with good technique and are giving your kids skills within their capabilities then you can stunt hard or spring floor.
Learning tumbling on dead floor and then competing spring floor isn't too much of an issue Ive found. But i could understand learning to tumble on spring floor and then having to put your skills on a hard surface would be a big difference and would seem like a massive impact on your joints.