Fitness Friday Prepares the Cheerleaders for the Upcoming Season

Nashville, TN-The Tennessee Titans' cheerleaders are renowned for their spirit, dedication, charm, physique, and personality. While the ladies possess all of these qualities from the beginning, they continue to strive for further excellence. Just as the Titans' football players must train to prepare themselves for upcoming season, so must the cheerleaders. 

This year's training camp was marked but not only practices three times a week, but also with a physical fitness training regiment every Friday. This program, designed by track and field Olympian, Gary Kinder, consisted of many different exercises with the hope of giving the cheerleaders a workout as they had never experienced before. For three Fridays during the month of June, the cheerleaders arrived at Brentwood High School, for an intensive hour and a half workout that included mile-runs, sprints, stair exercises (carried out on the bleachers), hurdles, crunches, push-ups, and light weight-training. Though the workout was conducted in early evening, the June sun was still sweltering and the ladies had to endure dehydration, muscle cramps, vomiting, and even exhaustion. These intense workouts were not in vain, however, for many ladies began to see improvement. All of these "Fitness Fridays" were in preparation for a final fitness test, a test in which those who passed not only received inaugural "Fitness Friday" t-shirts, but also the pride in knowing all of their hard work finally paid off.    

    This final test, held on the last Friday in June, consisted of five parts. The first part of the test required the ladies to run a mile in under eight minutes. Then the cheerleaders had to perform twenty-five push-ups and twenty-five V-ups, which were abdominal exercises in which the ladies' bodies were as planks and they had to bring their hands and feet together in the shape of a V. Once these tasks were finished, the girls were required to complete a three hundred meter shuttle run, running twenty-five meters twelve times in under seventy-five seconds. The final, and perhaps most daunting task, was the step-up test. In this test, the ladies had to step up on a twelve inch block, as many times as they could in two minutes, with a minimum requirement of one hundred steps in the allotted time. Many ladies found this part of the test to be the most difficult and in the spirit of camaraderie, the ladies grouped around one another, counting the number of steps for one another and cheering each other on to victory. Without this support, many of the ladies felt they would not have been able to make it through this grueling, physically-demanding test. 

    Once all of the tasks had been completed, the cheerleaders were physically and emotionally drained. Tears of joy, joy in the knowledge the test was finished, were shed; hugs of comfort and support were given as though this were a group that had been in battle and had come out on the other side, stronger and with greater resolve. Of the thirty cheerleaders who tested, twenty-one passed with flying colors. Those who were unsuccessful their first time around will have other opportunities to continue their training. All of the ladies, whether they passed or not, gave one hundred and ten percent to the cause and for that, we say CONGRATULATIONS ON A JOB WELL-DONE!
 
 
Record Holders:
Mile Run: Lesslye- 6:39 minutes
Shuttle Run: Mindy, Natalie, and Kristina- 65 seconds
Step-Ups: Meghann- 114 steps in 2 minutes

Congratulations to Mindy, Carrie, Kerry, Kristina, Jenny, Melanie, Julia, Shauna, Heather, Tonia, Meghann, Melissa, Chocez, Laurie, Whitney, Natalie, Kindle, Valerie, Lesslye, Lindsay, and Stefanie for their successful completion of Fitness Friday 2007!