So far, we’ve established that a cheerleader experiencing stress may be more vulnerable to injury.   In my last post I wrote about the symptoms of stress.  If you’re a cheer coach, you may be thinking…so what do I do about it? 

Well, ideally, you might notice that a cheerleader is in a lot of stress although they can be good at hiding it!  If a cheerleader seems to have a hard time focusing or makes a lot of mistakes or seem preoccupied, those can be signs of stress, too. 

Of course you can simply ask someone if she’s having a rough time.  If the person is forthcoming, then you can decide if it’s a problem that can be alleviated by a brief chat with you or if you need to refer the cheerleader to a counselor.  (This depends on the age of the person; if under-age, you would need to contact the parents.) 

I realize cheer coaches aren’t trained therapists so I don’t expect you to figure this all out and resolve the problems but you might want to have someone you can consult with on these issues. 

Perhaps the best way to manage stress in cheerleaders is to include some simple stress management techniques as part of your overall practice plan.  The first thing to teach is an easy breathing exercise: 

Close your eyes and exhale slowly, as slowly as possible 3 – 5 times.  Expel as much air as possible through the mouth and inhale slowly through the nose.  Repeat this for 5 minutes.  (Always begin with the exhale.)  Say to yourself, with each out-breath, I am relaxing more and more.

 I’d recommend starting each practice session with this – just before you stretch.  It helps people make the transition from school to practice and helps get them focused.

Tags: cheerleader, cheerleaders, Cheerleading, cheerleading injuries

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 8:28 pm by Dr. Pam and is filed under Uncategorized, cheerleading injuries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.