When you think of ‘cheer’, you probably think of waving pom-poms and yelling and cute outfits.  However, there is more to cheer than the cheering. It’s actually a highly competitive sport.

A sport is ” an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.” Cheer can be All-star, sideline, school, and recreational. This means you could be cheering for a team like football, or you could be going against other cheer teams. With all-star cheer you would work on a routine with stunting, tumbling, jumping, but not chanting. Following that, you would go against other gyms with new and creative routines for medals.

However female dominated sports such as cheer, gymnastics, dance, have a much harder time getting recognition then others although they fit the definition of a sport.in most films and movies cheer-leading is not considered a sport and cheerleaders aren’t portrayed in a good light.

I’ve asked four people’s judgment on whether they think cheer is a sport or not. first statement I got from Harper while asking “do you consider cheer-leading a sport?” was “well yeah of course we work just as hard or even more just like any other sport, people think cheer is only clapping your hands and looking pretty but it’s actually way more. We throw our bodies in the air flipping and throwing others in the air too and yeah there’s more to it.” These next two are from the point of view of two people who don’t cheer. Elizabeth and Gracie, they say “yes because there is a lot of teamwork involved.it is also very athletic.” Next is “Yes because you have conditioning and it’s very competitive.” Last but not least another cheerleader Mia, says “cheer-leading is a sport because you have to be strong to tumble, stunt, and you have to be flexible to be a flyer to do specific poses. Which takes a lot of power to do.” Though the question “is cheering really a sport?” sounds like a simple no, there’s many different kinds and a lot of information to it.