Cheer or gymnastics classes?!

You don't need to be quite young to start gymnastics, you can start at any age. Some even have classes for adult beginners!
However the gymnasts that are at elite level - often those started in the pre-school 3-4 year old class.. but that's not what most people are aiming for.

Why don't you trial both or just ask your daughter to decide? Whatever she prefers is going to be best for her anyway!

My daughter did gymnastics for around 3 years and then started cheerleading and loved it so just does that now. It is quite a commitment as have to attend every session and 4 competitions a year. She does 1 team training and one tumbling session a week.
I agree with trying it recreationally and if she likes it can try out for a team.

My DD started at nearly 9 and couldn't even do a cartwheel!

If she does a recreational class or even just a tumble class she could get a feel for it first. Depends what your local club offers.

Cheer can definitely be started later if there’s a gymnastics background. A gymnast will have the tumbling element down and the cheer unique stunt aspect is easy enough to pick up. I also know dancers who came late to cheer and did fine as routines allowed them to do less of the difficult tumbling versus teammates, but it’s more popular these days than it used to be so the dancers might find it tricker, when I was at uni we didn’t turn anyone away and still managed to win competitions!

Plenty do both tbh as they mostly compliment each other.

I guess check out if the Cheer club does recreational classes or only competition squads - if so you may need to join up quick or wait as the new season has started for most as the age groups work mostly along the lines of school years.

Also, worth noting that cheer needs small, flexible flyers, strong bases and tall backspots so you see a variety of bodyshapes compared to gym or dance.

One of my daughters does cheer and the other does gymnastics.

Cheer has offered my older one so many opportunities. She's won numerous national champion titles, competed (and done well) in America and at the World championships. She's got a great group of friends through her sport and learnt a lot about teamwork and self-discipline. Some clubs offer rec programmes which can be a lot of fun, but even at a lower level commitment is required as it ready is a team sport. If someone doesn't turn up to training, potentially that's a wasted session for that stunt group as consistency and trust are key. She trains around 10 hours a week with two high level teams (think she did 2 x 2 hr sessions with her first competitive team).

My other daughter does gymnastics and trains twice a week with an advanced rec group (4 hrs total). She's good, but doesn't want to go down the competitive squad route. If she wants to miss a session because of a party or if she's tired, that's not a problem. She has fun, keeps fit and is gaining new skills. I'm not sure she'd have coped well with the pressure of elite gymnastics.

That said, at 7 let her try either or both and see how she gets on.

Gym. Or contemporary dance if you can find it.

I don’t like the origins of cheerleading, I think it’s pretty horrible stuff to indoctrinate girls into. And it’s nowhere near as well rounded for the body as gym.

Good comments from helpel but just to say they there are plenty of gymnastics disciplines that involve groups / team competition! Acro / team gym involve group routines and mine do various comps with d trios / duo routines

Gymnastics as a hobby varies massively between recreational hour long classes through to county level then regional and national (elite), where hours and hours a week are required. Some of the comments here talk about only the latter. If your daughter just wants to have fun learning some gymnastics moves and keep fit, recreational is great. I don't know so much about cheerleading - all I know is my daughter who already does 9 hours of gymnastics a week wants to do cheer as it looks 'fun'. I have to agree, compared to the discipline required for elite gymnastics, cheerleading looks more enjoyable, learning routines to upbeat music and more of a sense of team work, rather than the individuality of gymnastics. Either way I guess cheerleading is similar to gymnastics that if you do it recreationally it's a different ball game to national competition level. Just pick whichever your daughter wants to do more.

If she’s starting at 7, then happily for you and her, she’s unlikely to be on the elite track and therefore ice baths, weighing and mad bullying are unlikely to be an issue.

there are competitive bodies for the recreational track, with their own rules and different targets so you can theoretically avoid British Gymnastics altogether. Schools also have their own national competitions which are not hot beds of body shaming and harassment. Whereabouts in the country are you?

Ignore this ignorant comment. My 2 daughters do cheer and have done for many years. It has helped teach many values such as team work, sportsmanship, perseverance. They both do it at competitive levels and have had great opportunities. Comments like the above are from people who think cheerleaders just parade around in pom poms supporting soccer players. They don't realise the skills involved in learning all the tumbling for example. It can be an expensive sport however, but I highly recommend it.

I don't have direct experience of it only from our friends and their daughter. She really enjoyed it (even the shouting on the pitch). I suspect like everything else it depends on the coach, her coaches were really good. She loved competing and it was tough, I went to one competition and have no idea how it was judged though my friend did try to explain. Everything had to be done correctly and everything had to be done in time.

I tend to think competition cheer is more akin to acrobatics like you used to get on Saturday night variety shows.

The uniforms were a bit girly but then they often wore similar on nights out.

There were a couple of lads and I was surprised at how athletic they were ( at one point they stood with an arm raised with a seventeen year old standing on their hand).

I think the American style of Cheer puts a lot of people off.

A friend is here obsessed with it and I think when her DD stops doing it eventually friend will be more upset than her.

The outfits are terrible though. Tiny hot pants crop tops and JoJo bows.

I think it's the freestyle dance of this decade.

@RandomMess I meant it’s not as technical as gymnastics. If you do a backwards walk over you just do it and not have to worry if it’s technically perfect whereas gymnastics, it matters more.

In my experience anyway.
We’ve been members of a couple of gymnastics clubs and only one cheer squad.

I think both can have a pretty toxic culture so honestly wouldn’t be keen on my DD doing either and have tried to steer her into dance instead. I did cheer at university and was a qualified coach, yes it’s real competitive sport but studies in the states have shown it causes more injury than any other sport, including American football, and it can be cult like in terms of intensity and commitment expected even at the youth level. Some awful things have come out recently about gymnastics too. Maybe gymnastics would be ok if you’re lucky enough to have a chilled club near you.

The gymnastics school is great around here, I did it growing up and didn't experience anything bad- of course not saying it doesn't happen but I'd check out the particular school she'd be going to and see what it's like, try and speak to others locally. Personally I'd start with gymnastics and then can join cheer in the future.

Also costa depend on local club too.

Our local gymnastics makes you make their tracksuit and so on, local Cheer you don't. One competition uniform around £100 (over 8s younger ones just wear a t shirt) and that is worn for 3 years and they help with the buying and selling of them 2nd hand.

Many Cheer clubs offer recreational only squads. Also they offer squads that only do say 2 competitions or as many 6 per year.

How "neat" it is does matter at competition?? The scoring is very particular.

Cheer is much more expensive and couldn’t really be done ‘just for fun’
It was more that you have to sign your life away and attend every competition the club attends which was many at the one DD was at.

At one time she was doing both gym and cheer but chose gymnastics ultimately
and was very good.
She doesn’t currently do any sport as unfortunately she is very unwell with an eating disorder but my other daughters also have done gymnastics for years and competitions and don’t have EDs so I don’t think it can be attributed to gymnastics.
In my opinion it was lockdowns, schools closing and the anxiety and social loss that came from that which has contributed to the ED.
Their gymnastics coach is amazing, they have been with him for years and I trust him 100%.
They don’t ever have to go to the competitions if they don’t want to, whereas with cheer it was
non -negotiable. You sign the contract, you have to go.

Cheer is ‘do the skill and it doesn’t have to look neat’
Gymnastics is ‘do it perfectly and you’ll lose marks if you don’t point your toes enough’ so really depends where you think her skills lie and if she’d rather be with a team or solo.

We have a friend in the States who's daughter did cheer in high school she did the cheering on the field for the football team and did competitive cheering. She loved it and the girls she was with are still her friends years later. I seem to remember somewhere it said that cheering was the sport with most injuries so I'd check out their safety record.

@CoastalWave my DD does Cheer not gymnastics for all the reasons you specificity I wouldn't let her do gymnastics in case she was good enough for elite.

The fact they have to parade around with half their bum cheeks hanging out also just makes