At my gym there are two longs lines of treadmills which were relatively open this morning. Odd, considering it’s only January 12 – don’t those gym resolutions usually start to peter out in February?
So, I’m walking and walking, with not a lot of company (not that I want any – I wear the mp3 player for a reason and will even leave it on when the battery dies, bobbing my head like I’m enjoying some tunes, to avoid conversation), when this guy gets on the treadmill right next to me! The whole rest of the row in that direction was empty – about 8 machines - and yet he chose to do his treadmilling about 14 inches away. Isn’t there an unwritten rule about applying movie theater seating to gym equipment? You know, if the theater isn’t crowded (and, actually, this rule is employed in theaters until it is just too crowded to use anymore) you leave the buffer seat between you and the person you sit next to. I, personally, believe all movie theater seats should be spaced about 4” apart because I’m tired of fighting cranky dads who are being forced to see Desperaux for the arm rest.
I’m just sayin’.
Showing posts with label gymnasts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gymnasts. Show all posts
Monday, January 12, 2009
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Save the cheerleader
One of my friends has a daughter who competes in Extreme Cheer which I totally have to check out, especially after reading this in the paper this morning…
Cheerleading accounted for 65.1% of female high school athlete injuries and for 66.7% of female college athlete injuries.
Most of us over 40 (who will admit to being a cheerleader) are shocked by this. The craziest thing we ever did while cheering was stand on another girl’s shoulders and since most of us weren’t that tall, it wasn’t that bad if you fell. The only other risk of injury I recall is strained vocal cords after yelling “We’ve got spirit yes we do! We’ve got spirit how ‘bout you?!” for 2 ½ hours in cold October rain while your sucky football team slipped all over the field and dropped the ball 400 times.
Ah, good times.
Apparently the cheerleader movie Bring It On, which runs nearly continuously every weekend on ABC Family, is not total fiction. In the 1980’s a lot of schools dumped their gymnastics programs and the gymnasts drifted into cheerleading. Since then, the number of cheerleaders has risen only 18% but the number of cheerleading injuries has doubled.
This leads me to wonder …. just how good were these gymnasts anyway? And why are the cheerleaders putting up with this?
Say there’s a squad of 10 cheerleaders. Two former gymnasts show up, crying and moaning about how the school doesn’t support them and has taken away their balance beams and the cheerleaders – who are ALL ABOUT SUPPORT – take them in and next thing you know those darn gymnasts have those poor, unprepared girls flipping through the air, doing double-tuck handsprings, and greatly increasing their chance of injury.
If these cheerleaders don’t do something to stop this they are going to suffer the same fate that has befallen nearly every other sport and childhood activity … they will be forced to wear helmets.
Cheerleading accounted for 65.1% of female high school athlete injuries and for 66.7% of female college athlete injuries.
Most of us over 40 (who will admit to being a cheerleader) are shocked by this. The craziest thing we ever did while cheering was stand on another girl’s shoulders and since most of us weren’t that tall, it wasn’t that bad if you fell. The only other risk of injury I recall is strained vocal cords after yelling “We’ve got spirit yes we do! We’ve got spirit how ‘bout you?!” for 2 ½ hours in cold October rain while your sucky football team slipped all over the field and dropped the ball 400 times.
Ah, good times.
Apparently the cheerleader movie Bring It On, which runs nearly continuously every weekend on ABC Family, is not total fiction. In the 1980’s a lot of schools dumped their gymnastics programs and the gymnasts drifted into cheerleading. Since then, the number of cheerleaders has risen only 18% but the number of cheerleading injuries has doubled.
This leads me to wonder …. just how good were these gymnasts anyway? And why are the cheerleaders putting up with this?
Say there’s a squad of 10 cheerleaders. Two former gymnasts show up, crying and moaning about how the school doesn’t support them and has taken away their balance beams and the cheerleaders – who are ALL ABOUT SUPPORT – take them in and next thing you know those darn gymnasts have those poor, unprepared girls flipping through the air, doing double-tuck handsprings, and greatly increasing their chance of injury.
If these cheerleaders don’t do something to stop this they are going to suffer the same fate that has befallen nearly every other sport and childhood activity … they will be forced to wear helmets.
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