Question by Curly: How long will it take for me to get awesome jumps (cheerleading)?
Ive been doing cheerleading for a while and my jumps are really bad. I need help with my toe touches hurkies and pikes. I want to know
1. How long it will take before they get good?
2. What are some stretches I could do for each jump?
3. How long should I stretch and how often?
Best answer:
Answer by Cheer4life
1.It depends on how well and often to stretch and practice.
2.**Toe touch:sit in a straddle and stretch by leaning to each side for at least 30 seconds(Don’t forget middle)Sit in a butterfly and lean forward until you feel a slight pull,Then pull one foot in and stretch to the extended leg then repeat on other side.
**For hurkies stretch out you slits and sit in a hurkie make sure you have your back leg correct(Doing the last stretch for toe touches will helpyour hurkies!)
**Pikes sit in a pike a touch your toes hold for 30 seconds.Stand up and places your feet shoulder length apart and try to walk your hands as far behind you as you can.
Work on your timing in your jumps that can make all the difference of how high your jumps are.
3.Stretch everyday or every other day to let your muscles rebuild.
Add your own answer in the comments!
1. It really depends on how often you are working on them and how long it takes your muscles to get the hang of it. I improved my jumps majorly within the season just doing a little bit not even every day. If I had done something every day or twice a day like I am doing now for my heel strech, I would have had very well improved jumps in like two weeks.
2. Toe touch: splits(straddle especially), do typical streches like sit on the ground in a half straddle and lean to get your nose to your knee and also to get your hand farther down your flexed foot, pikes(legs together and reach for your toes sitting and standing), do butterflies once getting your knees to touch the ground and once they do pull them closer to you and then once farther out and lean over to touch your nose to your feet.
Hurkies: All of the toetouch streches, and then do a half straddle(you sit in a straddle, not the actuall split but sit with your feet at your sides as far as you can get them, and then take one foot and bend your knee and pull it into your thigh) but instead of pulling the leg into the inner thigh like normal, turn your leg out and put your foot near your outher thigh like a hurkie then strech along the straight leg and then circle around to the bent leg and it should get it higher.
Pikes: do all of the toetouch streches with empasis on the pike strech.
For all jumps make sure you are doing correct crunches(at least 200 a day) and you can always lay on the ground and do a toetouch(lift your sholder blades off the ground and reach to your legs which are off the ground in a toetouch) to work your core muscles so you can get higher. If you whip your arms around and keep them really really tight when you are doing a jump(hit every motion in your prep) it will help you get hight.
3. Strech one or two times a day for as long as it takes you to do everything correctly. It could take half an hour or so. Do each strech for at least thrity seconds. When doing streches like the splits I recommend not counting but doing them to a song you know all the words to. That way you can say “I will hold these to the beginning of the second refrain” for me that is about two minutes but since I know all of the words it feel shorter because I can sing along and I know I am getting a good strech. Another way to do the splits is to find a really big empty wall. Lay with your legs up the wall with your back on the floor and your butt right up to the wall. Then spread your straddles and lay there reading or watching tv and let gravity do the work.
Hope I helped!!