With cheer being ranked #2 as a source of serious injuries, you can’t ignore that these young athletes are in a dangerous sport. I love cheerleading; I lived it, I coached it, I watch it — and I’m well-acquainted with the devastating and brutal injuries that can occur.
It’s important we care for young athletes by giving them a break and providing downtime to rest and recover. Overuse is a huge factor, whether it’s too much throwing or pitching in baseball or a gymnast training like a professional year-round, it can hurt a body that’s not yet fully developed.
In this episode of Hustle & Pro, we share clips from a discussion with Children Health’s Dr. Troy Smurawa on what they see at the Andrews Institute, plus preventative tips in relation to cheer and dance.
Enjoy episode #61, and, listen to more episodes from the Hustle & Pro archives.
Show Notes
- [01:29] Injuries Dr. Smurawa Sees
- [04:00] Overuse & Specialization
- [06:18] Back Injuries
- [07:35] Pediatric Dance Medicine Program
Resources within this episode:
- Netflix series Cheer: Navarro College Website
- Troy Smurawa, M.D., Director of Sports Medicine, Children’s Health Andrews Institute: Bio
- Pediatric Dance Medicine Program: Website
- Kelly Walker: Instagram @kelly_walkertexas | Twitter: @kelly_walker_TX
Connect with Lifestyle Frisco:
Transcript: (machine-generated)
Welcome to Hustle and Pro season two talking sports and Frisco from youth to pro. Now here’s your host, Kelly Walker.
Today we’re talking about cheer. So yes, we’ve talked about cheer before, but the Netflix series that got so popular cheer really got me thinking. And um, I’ve been wanting to talk about it lately and I love it so much. I love watching those athletes. I love watching the behind the scenes of them training. And one of the things that kinda came out of that, that’s been making me think is all of the injuries that we’ve seen on that show. Now, I love cheer. So I’m not a cheer hater. I’m not bashing cheer as a sport. I love it. I participated in it when I was young. My children or my daughter has participated in it. I’ve been involved with it. So I do love it and I like to watch it so I’m not hating on it. But you also kind of, as a parent, you should also, you know, realize that it’s important to talk about.
I found it really interesting when I read that of the 22 most popular sports in the U S cheer has the second highest proportion of injuries resulting in time lost of at least three weeks. So I’ll say that again. Of the 22 most popular sports cheer is number two when it comes to serious injuries and they’re saying those are injuries that result in lost time of at least three weeks. So yeah, we know that the football players are out there getting hurt. That’s another topic. But what we don’t really think about as much is that the cheerleaders on the sidelines and the cheerleaders competing for their club or their school or their gym are really getting hurt more than 20 of the other most popular sports in the U S so I had a conversation with dr Troy Smurawa at the, he’s the director of sports medicine at Children’s Health Andrews Institute. And so we talked a little bit about why he’s seeing some of these high injury, um, numbers, you know, he’s seeing them in the ankles and shoulders, ribs back and concussions.
What are you seeing when we talk about chairs specifically as the most common injuries?
Yes. So when we talk about cheerleading, I think cheerleading, um, most of the increase in injuries that we’re seeing has a lot to do with the, uh, the high level of competitiveness and the higher level of skills that the cheerleaders are doing. So like anything, as you become more competitive, you try to do more things to make yourself seem better. So we’re starting to, we start to see as a lot of cheerleaders and cheerleader groups are doing more stunts and, um, and type of activities. So because of that, uh, we’re seeing more acute injuries in cheerleading versus more overuse injuries. Um, and what we can see is that probably the most common type of injury we see are strains and sprains. And that probably counts for about a little over half of all injuries are due to his sprains and strains. Um, then there’s also, um, fractures and dislocations. Uh, and I think the biggest thing that we’re seeing a large increase in injuries are concussions in cheerleaders. And, uh, I think because of the nature of the high level of skill and high level of stunting that now we’re, we’re seeing a larger number of cheerleaders are getting concussions. We see that because they’re there, there’s a lot more stunting where they’re more likely to fall or hit their head get landed on if they’re a bottom row. Correct. Yeah, exactly.
So I also want you to kind of understand why these are happening, what he’s seeing specifically when you’re talking about overuse. So why is overuse even happening? Dr Troy explains to us that those specializing in sports so early is really like, it’s you’re competing like a professional on professional schedule and you’re applying it to a young athlete whose body isn’t really fully developed. Their bodies are not ready to take on that amount of stress over long periods of time.
We do find that in youth sports that early specialization has resulted in a lot more overuse injuries. Um, so we know that, uh, like things like baseball, um, that’s is a very prominent one where kids are specially early in baseball and do a lot of throwing and pitching, um, and doing it year round. So it’s, it’s kind of a combination of early specialization, um, year-round, uh, participation in one single sport and being, uh, trained and competing like a professional. And I mean by that is that they’re taking the training schedules and the the types of things that they do and professional athletes and adults trying to apply them to younger athletes. And the problem with that is that a young athlete’s body is not yet fully developed and have the capability to, um, handle that amount of stress over that period of time with the same type of activity.
This is where the parents side of it comes back in. And I understand we all want our kids to be great at something and Excel in a sport, but I feel like we are doing them a disservice when we put them in a sport and have them do a year round focus and specialize in a specific competitive when they’re too, when they’re young, these younger athletes need rest. They need recovery time, they need time away from doing that repetitive action so that their body can heal. And when you don’t give them that time and they’re just going, going, going, going, going, you’re going to see those strains and sprains and the fractures and the increasing all of these longterm injuries. Back injuries are a really big one. We talk about tumbling in that over, over, over time, after time, after time, they’re hurting their, their back possibly and they’re just continuing to do it because they’re really not taking the appropriate amount of downtime
Back injuries in cheerleading and gymnastics, that’s more of an overuse injury than an actual catastrophic or traumatic injury to the lower back. Yes. There are some that do get, uh, strains and sprains and contusions that their lower back. But with the overuse component where they’re doing a lot of training. So a lot of the tumbling, um, requires a lot of back extension and back extension activities. And there’s a condition called spondylolysis, which is a stress fracture in lower back and gymnast is probably an athlete that’s the highest risk. And these stress fractures usually developed between the ages of 12 and 16. And then as you mentioned, four peak age for the high competitiveness and gymnast are at the ages of 12 to 16. Um, that’s kind of a, uh, a unique thing that we see in gymnasts as well as true leaders who are doing a lot of tumbling as well.
I learned talking to dr Troy that, um, children’s health Andrews Institute, they have a pediatric dance, um, medicine program, which I thought was pretty cool. I didn’t realize that they kind of especially looked out for dancers and cheerleaders. Um, and they have specific rehab special for them based on their dance type or the cheering that they’re doing. And they have modified, um, recovery programs for them. They’re trained to prevent specific injuries because, you know, cheerleaders and dancers have a completely different range of flexibility than your average athlete. They are so beyond flexible that, they have to, they have to be prepared differently and they have to be rehabbed differently to get past their injury and get back to that same, uh, range and flexibility to keep them at their competition level.
So our dance program, basically it focuses on a couple of areas. The most important is when an, when a dancer is injured is we want to make sure that they have the appropriate rehabilitation that’s specific for getting back into the things that they do in dance. And we do that by having a facility that has, um, a, you make a dance floor, um, a bar and mirror so that the therapist can mimic car, do some of the things that the dancer will do on a dance floor and show them some modifications since that they can do during their recovery period. And also guide them through and get them back to the dance movements that they’re going to typically do in the dance studio. The second thing is, is more of an injury prevention type of dance injury prevention type of assessment.
So looking at a young dancers body alignment and look at flexibility, um, strength and stability and not just in just a normal athletic movement, but what they have to do, in a, in a dance because dancers, uh, do certain types of movements and certain types of positions that aren’t, that are unique to dance, it aren’t done any other sports. And then the third thing that we do, we do what’s called a pre point assessment. So we’ll look at a dancer and look and see if they’re ready and what they need to do to be fully ready to go on point and give them guidelines, prepare them for feed on point. The goal is that they come in at least a year before they’re starting to go on point so that for a year’s time we can help them and guide them with that with in conjunction with their studio as they prepare to go on point.
I guess the bottom line is that overuse is causing so much more injury than I realized. I really didn’t ever expect for cheer to be ranked number two out of all these 22 sports. And so I think it’s important that we care for our young athletes and giving them a break. I’m taking them off the mat every little while that we, every time we can, every off season give them an off season. So year-round isn’t always the best thing for them to get better at their sport because it might actually be making them take a couple steps back in the long run when they’re getting injured because they don’t have downtime and their body doesn’t have the time to rest rest and recover. So, I don’t know. Parents just take that into consideration as you’re, as you’re pushing your child athlete forward or as they are pushing themselves forward, maybe it’s not even you wanting them to do year round sports, um, or sport year round, rather. Maybe it’s them, but urge them to take an off season, let them heal and they’ll be better off for it in the long run.
Thanks for listening to today’s episode of hustle and fro. I hope that you subscribe on iTunes or wherever it is that you listen to podcasts and we’ll see you next week.