Before the first practice back, meet with your staff

Do not wait until athletes walk into the gym to decide what happens next. Set aside 45 minutes for the coaching staff. Include assistants, choreographers and any captains who need to understand the plan.

Bring your camp notes, score sheets, instructor feedback and videos. Put everything in one shared folder before the meeting. If four coaches each have different clips on their phones, nobody has a complete record of what happened.

During the meeting, answer these questions:

1. What improved most during camp?
2. Which corrections did athletes hear repeatedly?
3. Which skills only worked with instructor assistance?
4. Which material fits our actual season?
5. What caused the team the most trouble?
6. Did anyone leave camp injured, unusually sore or mentally discouraged?
7. What do we want to look different 30 days from now?

Be specific.  “The stunts got better” isn’t super helpful…“Our main bases stopped stepping forward during full-ups after the instructor changed their starting position” gives you something you can coach.

“Game day improved” is too broad….“The team’s volume dropped whenever they added signs and poms” tells you what to test at home.

End the meeting with no more than 4 priorities for the month. Your team may have learned 20 things at camp. They can’t treat all 20 as equally urgent.

Do not spend an hour rebuilding a routine nobody retained. Save the video, decide whether the material is worth relearning and keep practice moving.

A sample first practice back

Try this structure for a two-hour practice:

First 15 minutes: Athlete check-in, light movement and mobility

Next 20 minutes: Review cheers, dances and motions without extensive coaching

Next 25 minutes: Revisit stunt grips, body positions and timing on the ground or at a reduced level

Next 10 minutes: Water break and staff discussion

Next 30 minutes: Test the two or three camp skills most likely to become part of the season

Next 15 minutes: Review the correction that helped the team most at camp

Final 5 minutes: Explain the 30-day plan and tell athletes what they should review before the next practice

The goal is to collect information. You are not trying to recreate the final night of camp.

Days 4 through 7: Test camp skills in your own environment

Camp conditions are different from home.

The floor may feel different. Ceiling height may change what athletes are comfortable throwing. Your normal practice could be shorter. An instructor who helped identify a timing problem is no longer standing beside the group.

This week, find out which improvements survive those changes.

Start new stunts below their highest camp level. Check grips, feet, timing and athlete confidence before adding difficulty. If the group learned a full-up to extension, begin with the entry at prep level. If they learned a new pyramid connection, test each piece separately.

You are looking for repeatability.

A stunt that hits once and falls four times is not ready. A stunt that requires a different save on every attempt is not ready. A skill that only works when the strongest coach spots one side is not ready.

That does not mean the stunt was a bad choice. It means you have found its current place in the progression.

Track the following for each stunt group:

• Number of attempts
• Number of clean hits
• Where the skill breaks down
• Whether the same mistake repeats
• How much coaching or spotting is required
• Whether athletes can explain the correction themselves

The last point matters. Athletes who understand why a correction works are more likely to reproduce it when the coach moves to another group.

Keep the language athletes heard at camp

Ask athletes what words the instructor used when the skill improved.

Maybe the instructor said “wait for the dip,” “hips under,” “finish through the top” or something else that clicked with the group. Write that language down and use it consistently.

Coaches sometimes replace a successful correction with their own preferred wording. That can create unnecessary confusion. If the camp cue worked and it is technically sound, keep it.

Week 3: Connect camp lessons to regular practice

By the third week, camp should stop feeling like a separate event.

The useful parts should now appear in your normal practice structure.

If the team learned a better jump warmup, put it into the warmup. If athletes improved their motion placement, hold that standard during every cheer. If a stunt correction worked, use it across groups instead of treating it as a one-time camp note.

This is where coaches often lose progress. They review camp material for two weeks, then return to the same practice habits they used before camp.

Choose one camp lesson for each part of practice:

• Warmup
• Motions and jumps
• Stunts
• Tumbling
• Game day material
• Conditioning
• Team communication

You do not need a new lesson in every category. Use only what made a measurable difference.

Give athletes ownership without handing over practice

Captains and experienced athletes can help maintain camp material, but their role needs boundaries.

Assign one athlete to call a cheer review. Ask another to check whether a stunt group is using the agreed starting position. Have captains maintain the shared video folder.

Do not ask athletes to correct advanced technique they are not qualified to coach. Athlete leadership works best when the assignment is specific.

“Help everyone remember camp” is vague.

“Run the first five minutes of the sideline review using the videos in our folder” is clear.

Week 3 pressure test

Once material looks comfortable, change the conditions.

You are checking whether the team can perform the material while handling the distractions that come with the season.

Clean skills should survive small changes.

What to do with all those camp videos

Create one shared folder for the team. Do not rely on social media posts or group-message history. Those are difficult to search, and important clips will disappear beneath hundreds of unrelated messages.

Organize the folder by subject:

• Cheers
• Dances
• Stunts
• Pyramids
• Tumbling
• Jumps
• Instructor corrections
• Team performances
• Leadership notes

Name files clearly. “IMG_4837” tells you nothing. “Varsity full-up correction, left group, day two” is much easier to find in October.

Keep a second folder for coaches only. Use it for lineup discussions, injury information, athlete evaluations and anything else that should not be shared with the full team. Choose a few team videos for at-home review. Do not send athletes 40 clips and expect them to know which ones matter.

A simple camp follow-up assignment for athletes

Give each athlete a short reflection during the first week back.

Ask them to answer:

1. What correction helped you most?
2. What skill do you understand better now?
3. What material do you need to review?
4. Where did you struggle?
5. What is one job you can take responsibility for this month?
6. Is there any pain, fear or confusion the coaching staff should know about?

This gives quieter athletes a chance to communicate without speaking in front of the team. Read the answers. If athletes take the time to be honest and nothing changes, they will stop giving you useful information.