Should Cheerleading Be Considered A Sport?

Imagine a group of people holding each other up, flipping backwards, memorizing moves, and not breaking a sweat. Imagine these people having to stay fit and workout as much as they can so they can perfect their routines. This is a group of hardworking individuals putting their best effort into what they do. This is a cheerleading squad. Most people do not consider cheerleaders athletes. Cheerleading should be considered a sport because cheer squads can compete and they are required to maintain a healthy lifestyle. To begin, cheerleaders have competitions and can win trophies and medals. Competitive cheer squads show commitment with two to three hours of practice varying in intensity depending on the day. There are squads that only train to compete and do not cheer for other sports teams. However, squads that cheer for sports can still compete. Other sports like football and lacrosse compete against other teams and win trophies similar to cheerleading. Secondly, cheerleaders are required to be extremely fit. The members of the squad use upper leg and hip muscles, lower leg muscles, core muscles, and the shoulder girdle in
This point of view makes sense because competitions only occur once a year and some cheer squads do not compete at all. Brea Darnell of the Daily Republic wrote, “It is an activity solely dedicated to entertain and motivate the crowd during sports events. One of the most important requirements of a sport is to compete against another opponent, not just cheer to support your team.” However, the squads train all year and if they were given the option, they would most likely compete more than once a year. Olympic sports teams only compete once every four years and they are still considered sports. “They get very into their routine and can get as into it as somebody could get into a football game.” wrote Dan Popoloski. Therefore, cheerleading should be considered a