Doctor Henry Link once said “We generate fears while we sit. We overcome them by action. Fear is natures way of warning us to get busy.”
Last year nearly 35,000 cheerleaders had a visit to the Emergency Room with an injury. Concussions, fractures, spinal injuries, are all the most common type of injury in the cheerleading world. Everyday, at every practice, cheerleaders put themselves in danger of injury. Every practice, these cheerleaders show back up, and continue to do what they love. Most of the time, the injuries are a minor bump or bruise from a falling flyer, or a sprained ankle, or wrist from not landing that back handspring the right way.
Sometimes there are injuries that cost cheerleaders their cheering careers.
I joined cheerleading in 3rd grade. I joined the local pop warner team that cheered for the football team. I quickly fell in love. Shortly after that, I joined the local competitive cheerleading team. All competitions, all the time. I loved the football scene, but I loved competitive cheer more. Soon after I began cheering, I began tumbling. I learned back handsprings, front handsprings, back tucks… you name it, and I quickly learned it. I fell in love with the way I could push my body. I could try a back handspring ten times until I could land it on my own. I loved the sore feeling I got after a hard practice. I loved everything about teaching my body to do new things. I was dedicated to my sport. I knew when I went to college, I wanted to be a collegiate cheerleader. I wanted to go to worlds, I wanted the white jacket.
When I was in 8th grade, getting ready to go to high school I tried out for my High Schools dance team. I ended up making the team, and began summer practices. Shortly there after I began having problems, and pains in my hip. I would come home from a practice, and fall asleep with a heating pad on. I would sit in ice cold showers, and ice my hips like nobody’s business. The only thing I would never do is own up, and tell someone about the pain I was feeling. Not only was there pain in my hip, there was pain in my back, and in my groin. The biggest problem I had was the snapping, and popping in my joint. I did the normal teenage wikipedia search, the WebMD search, and came up with Snapping Hip Syndrome.
Snapping Hip Syndrome is an actual medical problem. It is sometimes referred to as “Dancers Hip”. You will hear snapping, or popping when your body makes movements. Now I am NOT a doctor, nor am I WebMD, so please do not run to your doctor, and tell them you think you have this.
I was ready to chalk up my pain, and problems to SHS. I was ready to ignore what I was feeling, and just spend a little more time stretching during practices. During the summer before starting High school our team went away to a college in Wisconsin, and participated in the camp hosted by UDA. Many of you know how camp works. They break you apart into different dance genres, learn a dance, and at the end of the week preform that routine. I was chosen to be apart of the Kick Routine for the week. It was my worst nightmare come true. By the end of the day, I called my mom in tears because I was in so much pain. I didn’t think I was going to be able to finish out. I did. I toughed it out. I preformed 3 routines (including the kick routine) at the end of the week. I spent the next year struggling through practices, games, workouts. I didn’t listen to what my body was telling me. I ignored the pain, worked through the hurt, and just pushed forward.
My sophomore year in high school I spent on 80% of the time on crutches. I didn’t Cheer, or dance, not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t. I could barely put weight on my leg anymore. I was always uncomfortable, couldn’t sleep well, couldn’t walk the stairs at the high school. I finally gave into the pain, and went to the doctor. The doctor told me I had probably strained the muscle, or pulled a muscle, but that I was crazy to think I was feeling anything other than that. They told me there was no way my hip was dislocating, or popping, or clicking. They referred me to a Physical Therapist, told me to work on stretching, and getting my body healthy that way. I spent months, and months, on a bed stretching for the therapists. I gave up, I found a new doctor, told him my story, and he believed me. He explained to me the many options that I could have going on. Told me that because the X-Rays, and the MRI’s came out normal didn’t mean there was nothing going on.
Shortly there after I had my 1st surgery at the beginning of my junior year. I spent months rehabilitating my body, trying to get my body back to were it had been. I spent months working hard on my body, using the crutches, and listening to what the doctor said. I was crushed to find out that the surgery did not work. I was back to square one, back to the pain, back to the popping. I spent more, and more time in the nurses office at the high school, asking her for help, telling her I was literally stuck in the position I was in. I tried again, I wanted to badly to get back to my normal routine, of dancing, and cheering.
The next doctor told me he was going to fix me. He told me he was going to do everything he could do put me back together. He did just that. He repaired bone fragments in the joint. He repaired the muscle that I had destroyed from my back, all the way down to my knee. He fixed the bone that was chipped away from rubbing, and grinding. He put me back together. That was the easy part.
I rehabilitated my body back to where it was. I was ready to get back out on the mat. I was ready to get out on the field. That’s when they told me I would never dance/cheer again. They explained to me that the repairs would never allow me to have total range of motion on my hips again. Doing jumps, kicks, tumbling, I would never have the chance again, due to the muscles not having the option to move that way anymore. It was a sacrifice I had to be willing to make in order to TRY, and get back to my normal life.
I slumped into a depression, I was upset, sad, angry. I worked my butt off to get back on the mat. I will be honest, I let it get the best of me. I stopped working out, stopped running, stopped trying. I was in the worst shape of my life, mentally,physically, emotionally. I let that slump last years. A few years ago, I met my husband, he told me that I could achieve what ever my heart desired, and I should have never given up so easy. He was my voice of reason, he was the light at the end of my tunnel.
Soon after that I fell in love with fitness. I fell in love what it did to the body, and watching the body change, and progress. I started working out again, slowly, and carefully. I started reading articles on the internet. I started educating myself in the body, and fitness. I knew shortly there after I wanted to make it a career. I began school to become a personal trainer. I could now have the education to change, and better myself, while helping others do the same. I wanted to help other Girls, and boys get back to their happy place on the mat, and I now have the education to do just that.
Today, my hip is back to normal, I still work on strengthening the muscles. I sometimes have troubles, and currently am working towards fixing the other hip.
The moral of my story is NEVER give up. Never let the injury take over your life. Don’t let the injury define who you are. If your goal is to be a college cheerleader, and you get hurt, make GOALS, and stick to them until you get there. I did just that, I overcame my injury, and fell in love with fitness, and cheerleading all over again. I altered my goals to fit my current life, and am still pushing through.
Here are a few tips, that I wish someone would have had for me:
1) Get a support system: your family, a boyfriend, your best friend, a husband. Whoever you feel confident with needs to be your rock. They need to be there as your personal cheerleaders. They are there to coach you through the hard stuff so you are not alone.
2) Start off slow: Don’t come off an injury, and start throwing crazy stunts, or tumbling passes.
3) Strengthen your muscles: Go to the gym. Use what you learned in physical therapy, or even in CheerFIT (haha), work on your muscles, retrain them to what they once knew, it’s called muscle memory. Lift weights, light weights, work your way up. Make yourself a stronger person all around.
4) NEVER, ever give up on what your goals are. Don’t let an injury be the end of your career (unless the doctor says absolutely no). Keep pushing until you can no longer push.
5) Listen to your body, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. If it hurts, rest. If it causes you pain, rest. If it hurts really bad, see your doctor. Don’t let the injury fester, it can only make it worse.
I was able to overcome my injury. I was able to get my life back on track. With work being done on my other hip, I am confident in myself to be able to get it back to what it was before. I know now I have what it takes to overcome the problems.
Never give up. Keep moving.
Your CheerFIT ambassador, Jayme
