The University of Minnesota Cheer Team is driving the sport forward. Here's how.

The University of Minnesota Cheerleading Team is named for its chanting, but known for its members' sheer athleticism.

"They need to have a tremendous amount of core strength and a lot of body control, too, a lot of the inverted handstand stunts where you're in the air on a handstand," said coach Dan Weaver. "And then at the bases, I mean, they need to be incredibly strong. They need to be able to hold bodies in the air, and not only hold them in the air but also have enough power to get them up and enough speed and technique to get up. So there is a lot of fast-twitch muscles that need to go into that."

Weaver was recruited to coach the team. A national champion himself, he came to raise the difficulty level, and he's doing just that, pushing the athletes to do things with their bodies most people never have, with precision and polish.

"They're able to be great tumblers so they can move their own bodies and flip their own body and flip and spin at the same time and do all the crazy things that go into that," Weaver said. "But then they also are strong enough and powerful enough and have enough core stability to hold bodies in the air and to do all of the stunting side that goes into it, too. So it's kind of fun to find the dynamic duality of being able to both."

Part of his mission to keep raising the bar is his new assistant coach, Sarah Klinck. Weaver hired her from Georgia, where cheer is an even bigger sport.  

"These girls put in so much because of the team makeup. They go through a lot of stress of holding someone their size or a top girl on top of them, like, for those pyramids and they're in there doing the same thing as guys in the weight room and stuff outside of practice, getting stronger," Klinck said. "And just the ability to keep raising the standard and push the sport so it continues to grow, rather [than] it just getting stagnant."

There are nine men on the team who anchor the stunts, but several of the 27 women do their own heavy lifting, too. To even try out, athletes have to be advanced in acrobatics and in gymnastics, having skills like running 360 full flips and standing back tucks.

The cheerleaders come from all over the country, each with years of training, even when training was hard to access.

Isabel Standheim grew up in an area of rural Minnesota where there weren't many tumbling gyms or All Star Cheer teams.

"So, I went, like, to a nearby gymnastics club, and I was OK. So, I needed to learn a full, but it's for cheerleading, and I started doing privates with one of the coaches and I got to, eventually, where I would throw them on my own and threw them at clinics," Standheim said.

In a state more known for dance than cheer, they also stepped into the national spotlight with back-to-back national titles for coed game day.

As they continue to cheer others on in their competitions, they are winning competitions of their own.

"It's very exciting to be able to cheer at Minnesota," Standheim said. "Being from Minnesota, obviously, in a small town, being able to represent what I've worked for as a very competitive program, so game days are so much fun. You're like looking up at everybody, and the band's behind you and you have just, like, dances there. The football players are all out there, and you're just like, 'oh, I'm here,' and we're spiriting, and there's cameras and it's just, it's a crazy feeling."