Weights Training

"Technique and Strength, which is more important?" This is a debate that never ends. From the first day I joined cheerleading till now, I have heard many who tell me that technique is more important and also many who tell me that strength is more important. I myself also has gone through phases when I think strength is more important and phases when I think technique is more important. This is the 2nd time I am touching on this topic on my blog, the first time was back in April 2008: weakest guy that can do cupie (cupie back then is not so simple as it is nowadays)

A little extract from my previous post:

If one is in cheer long enough, one will get to experience the constant grapple of strength and technique. At some point of time, your technique will be more than sufficient for your strength, and then at another point of time, your technique is not enough, then at times your strength is alot and yet you do not have the technique to use it. There are some stunts, having overpowering strength, and you do not need much technique to do it, also there are some stunts, having all the strength in the world with no technique, you still cannot do it. One will have to learn to juggle between this 2 entities as they work their way up the ladder of cheerleading.

It is pretty cool to be reading your post from almost 3 years ago and find out how some things had changed and how some things had remained the same. It is also very comforting to know that I had shown improvements in my strength department. As of today, my answer to the debate is strength and technique is equally important.

Another question that was constantly bugging me since the early days of my cheerleading is, "how strong is strong?, how much strength is considered sufficient? what is the gauge?" The frustrating thing is that while there are many videos or articles showing and explaining how (the techniuqes) to hit a particular stunt, but there are very few or no videos or articles to tell you how strong you need to be. I think just like weight, this (strength) may be a rather sensitive issue too, so it is seldom brought up and discussed openly. When I just started doing partner stunts, I always wanted to find a reference; like when I see that guy can do a full up in a video, I would want to know how strong he is in quantifiable ways (i.e: how much he can bench? how much he can squat? etc), so that I can train harder if required.

Does anyone share the same kind of frustration as me? Things are not so bad now compared to the past, information is more readily avaliable; but still not everyone knows where to find them. I have put together a little video showing the 4 main exercises that I do in gym, in fact they are the only 4 exercise I ever do these days because of my hectic schedule. Pls pardon me if my form is not "perfect" in the video as like I always tell people, I am not a body builder, I do weights to specifically increase my strength for cheerleading only (In the gym sometimes I do some "cheerleading specific exercise" that will seem damn crazy to people).

I must say that I am not the biggest or strongest around, but I just wanted to share and hope that it helps. My aim for the video is to give some insights to people, a form of motivation, or a sort of gauge or anything that you can get out of it. I know my own frustrations in the past, and I do not wish to see new cheerleaders feeling the same frustrations, confusions or disillusions that I had back when I just started.

Enjoy the video.



Remember while technique is important, strength is very important as well.


P.S: I am still working hard to take on bigger weights.