Women Gym/Cheer Day Camps

[coachmolly]

The gym I coach at is experimenting this summer with several cheer and gym camps. They each run Mon-Fri for 3 hours/day and as I have experience coordinating at a traditional overnight summer camp, I've been enlisted to help with planning/scheduling. I feel pretty good about the gymnastics camps, but the cheer camps are where I'm stuck. They are advertised as consisting of tumbling, stunting, and jumps, and we have 2 coaches with cheer experience. I just do not know how much time to allot to those types of activities, what appropriate group sizes are, how many coaches needed for those types of activities, and how to stretch it to last 3 hours!
The groups are split by age, and I have a better idea of what to do with the younger girls as we can add games, but the middle/high school girls have me stumped as they all seem to just work on back handsprings, and anything else (even drills for bhs) push them out the door. So any suggestions for activities that are fun and productive would be great.
I am really open to whatever anyone has to offer- personal experiences, links to brochures, games, etc. from coaches, parents, gymnasts, anyone at all! Thanks in advance!!!

 

[cbifoja]

the middle/high school girls have me stumped as they all seem to just work on back handsprings, and anything else (even drills for bhs) push them out the door.

This DRIVES me crazy!!! So many girls come in for our cheer tumbling or private lessons and the BHS is ALL they want. Coaches have them working handstands and the parents complain!

Ummm.....your kid doesn't have the upper body strength to hold themselves in a handstand. How on god's green earth do you expect them to be able to do a BHS????

So the coach is doing 95% of the work to spot these girls "doing a bhs" but the parent are happy because their girls are "so close" to getting their bhs.

Gotta go chase down my eyeballs now.....

 

[coachmolly]

I'm right there with you! A mom and daughter came in yesterday and without doing a single skill the mom wanted to know how long it would take her daughter to learn a bhs. So glad I wasn't the one who took that question!
We've had HS cheerleaders stop coming because they we had them doing basics because they couldn't do a backwards roll or solid handstand. And the spotting! Goodness gracious, don't get me started!

 

[sce]

I don't know a ton about cheer classes, but I have some thoughts for you. First, there should be a warm-up time (at least 15 minutes). Then I would think 3 rotations in the day, addressing the 3 areas: jumps, tumbling, stunts. For tumbling - there should be a station with spotted backhandsprings (or tucks for those who have the handspring.) There should also be 2 round off stations, 1 for doing round-offs (for those with more skills this could be a round-off backhandspring station), 1 with a drill (like round-off off a panel map rebound back on.) Then have stations with the barrel and/or backhandspring mat (we call it the pac-man.) Maybe a conditioning station too.

You could even do four rotations, if you also have a tumble track, where again round offs and back handsprings (Or more advanced tumbling) can be worked.

 

[kandkfunk]

This DRIVES me crazy!!! So many girls come in for our cheer tumbling or private lessons and the BHS is ALL they want. Coaches have them working handstands and the parents complain!

Ummm.....your kid doesn't have the upper body strength to hold themselves in a handstand. How on god's green earth do you expect them to be able to do a BHS????

So the coach is doing 95% of the work to spot these girls "doing a bhs" but the parent are happy because their girls are "so close" to getting their bhs.

Gotta go chase down my eyeballs now.....

This is sooo true! We've had a couple girls leave our gym's cheer tumbling program because 1) we are a little more expensive than the new gym down the road; and 2) our coaches work stations and build these girls up to doing the BHS. But, all they want is the BHS and they want it yesterday. They don't understand that they are older and bigger than the little gymnasts learning this skill. They don't understand the strength and technique required to learn the skill correctly. Well, going to a place that let them skip the necessary steps to build up to this skill landed two of these girls in the hospital within two weeks of each other. I guess you get what you pay for!

To the OP, one thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the cheer girls won't be as conditioned as the gymnasts (especially the older HS age girls). You might want to build in more rotations or give more down time. And, be sure to sneak in some conditioning so they can build up strength to get that elusive BHS.