A cheer flyer should train strength and flexibility together, about three days a week, every other day. The flexibility gets her leg up there. The strength is what holds it once she is standing on one foot, on top of other humans, while everything under her moves. Most flyers only train the first half, because somebody told them lifting would make them bulky or stiff.
It will not. And the half they are skipping is the half that decides whether the stunt hits. Flyer and top girl mean the same thing, and I will use both.
What most flyers get wrong
Almost every flyer I meet believes her job is flexibility and her job only. So she stretches. Before practice, after practice, on the floor at home while she watches TV. She never touches a weight.
Flyers hear more about their bodies than anybody else on the floor. I am not going to add to that. What I care about is what your body can do at the top of a stunt.
And here is the thing about being bendy. Being bendy without control just means your leg topples over. Flexible enough to get there, strong enough to hold it. Both, or neither one works.
Your bases cannot move you if you are not activated
Your stunt group works with your tension. During an inversion they need something to push against, and that something is you, activated. That is what gives them something to throw. Loose is what is hard to move.
It is the difference between a stunt that goes where it is supposed to and one that gets away from everybody. That is a strength you build, and it is the reason you lift.
Will lifting make a flyer bulky or stiff?
No. Getting strong through your full range is what makes that range actually yours, instead of a shape someone pushed you into that falls apart the second they let go.
What strength does give you is speed. A top girl with a faster reaction time can handle the demands of the position, and those demands are real. You are being thrown, caught, tipped and corrected in the air, and you have to answer all of it in a fraction of a second.
There is a second reason, and it is the one nobody says out loud. We want you to know where all those muscles are on your body so you can talk to them at any given moment and activate them when you need them. The more you work a muscle on its own, the more aware you become of how to switch it on. That is the real reason a flyer lifts. Not to add anything. To find what she already has, faster.
Reach first, then hold
If you cannot reach your foot, you cannot engage your core. If you cannot engage your core, your hips go and you fall backward. So the leg has to come up first.
That is why the flexibility work belongs in every single session and not just the ones that feel like stretching. The range comes first. Then you can hold it.
Why single leg strength decides everything
Single leg squats are one of the most important things a flyer can do. Every joint in that standing leg has to hold her entire body weight on its own, without wobbling, because the other leg is busy holding the position the way it is supposed to be performed.
Think about what that means in a heel stretch. One leg is the whole foundation of her body. The other leg is doing the shape. If the standing leg is fighting just to stay stacked, the shape leg has nothing left to give, and the stunt looks soft even when her flexibility is fine.
Both legs. Every time.
You have a good leg. Everybody does. You stand on your right and pull your left over your head, and that is the side that is always trained. Which is exactly why the other one needs it. You should be able to stand off both, and the way this sport is going, you will have to.
Why a heel stretch keeps dropping
Typically it is a lack of flexibility. But it is also hip flexors. The hip flexor is what initiates that stretch and pulls it through, and it is what makes it look easy when it is strong.
So what you are actually looking at is hip flexor strength on top of enhanced flexibility. That is why more stretching alone does not fix it. She can have the range lying on the floor and still lose the leg in the air, because nothing up there is strong enough to hold the range once she is standing on one foot and staying tight everywhere else at the same time.
Your hips drive. Not your shoulders.
Top girls spin with their shoulders. It is the most common thing I fix, and log rolls are how I fix it.
Roll down a hill leading with your shoulder and you go crooked. Lead with your hip and you go straight. Hip up and over, hip up and over. Your hip decides where you go, not your shoulder. Once that is your default, your spins get cleaner and you did not have to think about it.
The test nobody uses: how fast you stand up
Coaches watch your body line. Watch how fast you stand up instead. Speed off the bottom is what makes a stunt work, and it is trainable in a way body line is not. It is also a number you can beat, which is what makes it a test worth having.
The rule that sorts all of this out
If someone has to push you into it, it is not yours.
Your own hand, your own leg, your own core holding it there. That is the whole rule. Nobody is pushing your leg up in a stunt, so a position that only exists when a coach is pushing is not a position you own yet.
The positions build in two ladders, and a flyer is usually at a different place in each one. That is normal.
- Hamstring flexibility: heel stretch, then bow and arrow.
- Back flexibility: arabesque, then scale, then scorpion, then needle.
They build on each other. A scorpion is harder than a scale. They are not the same position, and owning one does not give you the other. Train the ones you own plus the next one up. Moving up a step in eight weeks is the win. Holding a position you cannot control for five more seconds is not.
How often should a flyer train?
Every other day, so about three times a week. Tumbling nights, stunt nights and team practice stay where they are, and the strength work goes in the gaps. Eight weeks of that is enough time to feel a difference in what you can hold.
And most of it is holds, not reps. You do not do reps in a stunt. You hold a position while everything under you moves. Reps train getting through a position. Holds train owning one.
One more thing, and it is not physical
A top girl does not get to blame her bases. I hold everybody to doing their part equally, and that includes the person at the top. When a stunt falls, the honest question is what your part of it was. The athlete who can answer that question is the one who gets better fastest.
The Top Girl Program
Eight weeks, twenty four workouts, three a week. Written for high school and college flyers to do on their own around practice. Flexibility in every session, both legs every time, and holds instead of reps, in order, so you are not guessing.
See the Top Girl Program