Cheerleading Safety From AACCA. Solutions to address the risks involved in cheerleading.

The American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators announces the addition of Tegan Reeves to their staff.  Ms. Reeves will serve in the position of Assistant Executive Director.

“We are very excited to have Tegan on board here at AACCA” says Jim Lord, Executive Director. “Her experience at all levels of cheerleading and coaching, and especially with the US All Star Federation will be a great benefit to us as an association and to the entire cheerleading community.”

Tegan has focused on education and athletic growth from college through her career.  Her extensive instructional and coaching experience is complimented by her degree from Iowa State University on Health and Human performance.  She has been a speaker at numerous coaches conferences and worked with continued education for leadership for over 10 years, and is previously served as Director of Education at the USASF.

Tegan’s primary responsibilities will be to help develop and expand AACCA’s coaches’ education projects and ongoing safety initiatives.

It’s that time of the year when some teams are preparing their routines for homecoming or competition, or even just filming skills videos for college competition. Here are a few tips and reminders about “routine” safety:

• It goes without saying to follow the rules. If you question a skill your team is working on, contact the organization running the event to make sure the skill is legal. If they have a question about the interpretation, they will contact us, the NFHS or the USASF depending on the rules being used.
• Only include routine elements that are solid. Not only is it a safety issue, but you will gain more points (with the crowd or judges) by having solid stunts that don’t fall vs. harder stunts that are shaky or that fall. Having solid stunts in the routine also allows your team members to show confidence, which is always a plus!
• One of the great things about routines is that you can choreograph to your individual team skills. If the entire team doesn’t have a particular tumbling skill, showcase those that do while having the others perform complimentary skills or have them prepared to immediately follow the tumbling with some solid stunts in the back of the routine.
• Put the routine together in blocks or sections. Learn each part and practice it on its own before combining them into the full routine. You should also have a “run through” version of the routine that doesn’t include actually building some of the more difficult elements of the routine. This will allow your team to work on formations and the flow of the routine with more repetitions.
• As much as possible, utilize the skills you are already using for games or that you’ve perfected for past routines. Build on these skills to add variations or different mounts, dismounts or transitions with them.
• Give yourself time to perfect the routine. You shouldn’t be adding or working on skills the week before you are to perform the routine. Skills should be capped with enough time to work on the details of spacing and synchronization. Attention to these details will be more valuable to your team than adding a difficult skill.
• Find a place for everyone and give them the opportunity to succeed and enjoy being a part of the team.
• Keep in mind the opportunity for teachable moments and how routines and healthy competition fit in with the mission of your organization. Focus on your team and doing the best you can do, and NOT on beating someone else. After all, the only thing you have control over is your performance, not the final outcome.

Putting together a routine can be a rewarding experience. Make sure it’s also a safe one!

The Executive Committee of the AACCA has updated the 2009 – 2010 high school and college cheerleading safety rules to prohibit prone landings from airborne positions. The specific wording of the rules (high school rule D-10 and college rule G-5) is as follows:

Airborne drops to a prone position on the performing surface are illegal. (Examples: A back flip or a jump landing in a push-up position is illegal. A handspring to a push-up position is legal as it is not airborne prior to the prone landing.)

The rule is in effect until it is taken up by the full rules committees for the 2010-2011 school year. Please pass this information on to any high school or college cheerleading coach. Note that this rule does not affect all-star teams.

• High School Rules
• College Rules
• All-Star Rules

Over the next day or two, most college basketball programs (and even some high schools) will be hosting their annual “Midnight Madness” event that ushers in the excitement of college basketball. In most of these events, the university wants to have a “game” atmosphere by having the cheerleaders and even a pep band in attendance.

What a great night to practice traditions or even establish new ones! Take the opportunity to start re-training your crowd on how you use sign cheers in the basketball venue. Teach one new interactive cheer or use a three-point shoot around to show the crowd how to yell “THREE!” when your team hits a three-pointer. However, remember that the crowd isn’t there to learn new cheers. They are there to be a part of a fun event and check out the new basketball teams so keep any “learning” of new material to a minimum – and make it fun.

Most importantly however, remember that you are moving into a new venue for performing. As the cheerleading coach, keep these safety tips in mind:

• Refresh your knowledge of the different rules for basketball court surfaces. Unless on a mat, the following skills are prohibited:
• Basket tosses, elevator/sponge tosses and other similar multi-based tosses.
• Partner stunts in which the base uses only one arm to support the top person. Exception: Cupies/awesomes are allowed with an additional spotter.
• Flips or released twists into or from partner stunts. Exception: Front and back flips to a stunt or cradle are allowed if the top person is braced on both sides by hand/arm to hand/arm contact.
• Two and one half person high pyramids.
• Inversions in partner stunts and pyramids. Exception: Inversions that begin on the ground and go to an upright position where the top person is in constant contact with a base or spotter are allowed.

Note:The actual rules clarify that these skills can only be performed during half-time or post-game on a mat. This is specifically a reference to game situations and is intended to help ensure an environment free of obstacles or foot traffic. Midnight Madness is a unique situation, and since it doesn’t have a “half-time” or “post-game” it is understood that these skills can be done at any time during this event so long as there is a “controlled environment” according to the definition in the AACCA rules.

• Even though this is technically a “practice” for the basketball team, be sure to only perform skills your team can hit every time just as if you were at a game.
• Be aware of your environment and the available space for skills. Midnight Madness events may have different traffic patterns and performance areas than normal games. Establish your boundaries before the event with the venue manager and be sure to communicate these boundaries and skill limitations with your team.
• If you are to perform a routine at the event, remember that the Midnight Madness is about the basketball teams and raising support for them. Keep it short and be sure to include crowd-leading cheers and signs in your routine.

Remember that safety is the priority at every practice, game and special event such as this one. Make it a fun night that your cheerleaders and crowd will enjoy and remember!

AACCA has published its first ever Sports Injury Study.

The purpose of this study is to ascertain the risk of participation in cheerleading and address previous data misinterpretations and sensationalism in recent media reports. A number of recent articles falsely claim that cheerleading is the most dangerous athletic activity, more dangerous than football and hockey. These articles misrepresent information from two primary sources: The National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injuries at the University of North Carolina (NCCSI) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s Emergency Room visit study (NEISS).

The study uses the available data to show the actual risk of cheerleading compared with other sports and athletics along with recommendations to continue and improve cheerleading safety.

The complete study is available at http://www.aacca.org/safetystudy

I get rules questions and notices of violations on a daily basis here in the AACCA office and I’m starting to notice a new pattern – YouTube.

You see, the internet is to modern cheerleading what nationally-televised competition was to cheerleading in the early 80′s. For the entire history of cheerleading up to this point, the highest level of cheerleading most teams could conceive of was what they saw at their own local camps, games or competitions.

Then came ESPN.

Read more »

I was recently interviewed extensively for a Wall Street Journal article. While the reporter did include some of the data I provided and did paint a fair picture of the actual risk of cheerleading compared to things like football and soccer, the article failed to even mention the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators though we’ve been at the forefront of cheerleading safety since 1987.

Therefore, I’ll address some of the points that didn’t make it into the article.

Read more »

Thanks to some very attentive coaches, we realize there were two rules left off of the 2009-2010 AACCA College Safety Rules that should have been included.

The first is a new rule put in place last year regarding handspring load-ins to partner stunts. This skill now requires a spotter if the top person is released during the load-in. This is true for any skill coming from a handstand type of load whether it is from a handspring or stationary. The reason for the required spotter is that in the event that the top person does not get the proper height, or that the skill over-rotates, the top person will not be in a position to get her feet under her body.

The second rule that was left off of the original 2009-2010 rules is in regard to the number of skills allowed in basket tosses, including a table of example legal and illegal basket toss skill combinations.

The updated college rules can be found at http://www.aacca.org/content.aspx?item=Safety/0910collegerules.xml and in pdf form at http://www.aacca.org/media/resources/2009-10%20College%20Rules.pdf

The AACCA just received this communication from Dr. Dawn Comstock with the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio regarding the 2009-2010 National High School Sports-Related Injury Surveillance Study. We are pleased to report that for the first time, this study will include cheerleading programs! This will give us the most comprehensive cheerleading injury data available to date and will be a great addition to the existing injury reports and studies annually published. Read more »

New requirements call for increased safety measures for all event organizers.
Updated Procedure for a team Emergency Plan also released.

Memphis, Tenn. (July, 2009) – As part of an ongoing effort to address safety issues in cheerleading, the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators (AACCA) has announced its new safety standards for cheerleading competitions. Event organizers are expected to be compliant with the standards no later than the 2010-2011 competitive season. All organizations are urged to implement these standards as soon as possible.

“In working with Emergency Medical Technicians, Certified Athletic Trainers and cheerleading experts to develop these standards, our goal is to ensure that competitive cheerleading events are as safe an environment as possible for cheerleaders and are consistent with other athletic contests,” says Jim Lord, Executive Director of AACCA.

The Minimum Safety Standards addresses the proper environment for cheerleading activity, and the need for appropriate equipment including mats, border area and ceiling height, as well as the emergency medical technicians that must be available. The new standards also address the requirements for spotters on the competition floor.

“We believe that when followed correctly, these standards will improve the safety of all participants,” says Lord. “Most importantly, they address the prevention of injuries in the first place, and provide for a vital tool of having trained personnel in the event that an emergency situation does arise.”

In addition to establishing standards for competitive events, AACCA has also updated its Emergency Action Plan to be used by teams at practices and games and made it available to the public. Lord recommends that teams renew their Emergency Plan every season and practice it throughout the year to ensure that all participants are aware of the procedures should a serious injury take place during a practice.

Founded in 1987, AACCA is the recognized leader in cheerleading safety. AACCA has worked on behalf of cheerleading safety with the NCAA and the NFHS to develop safety training for coaches and cheerleading.

Emergency Action Plan

AACCA has also updated their Emergency Action Plan, available as a downloadable pdf in the “Resources” section of the http://aacca.org/ website. Coaches are encouraged to lead their squads in practicing the procedure should an injury occur during a practice, game or performance.

About AACCA

The American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators represents more than 20,000 cheerleading coaches and are the leading advocates of cheerleading safety in the U.S. AACCA is the most recognized source for cheerleading safety education. The AACCA manual, composed by a team of doctors, lawyers, cheerleading industry professionals and Gerald S. George, PhD, has been endorsed by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the University Risk Management and Insurance Association, the Women’s Sports Foundation and the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, as well as the NCAA and NFHS.

Associated documents:

• Download Cheerleading Competition Standards as an Adobe Acrobat Document
• Sample Emergency Action Plan for Cheerleading