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Jun
By Steve Pawlyk
Published June 3, 2026
A JV coach posted a question on Reddit that a lot of you will recognize. Her team made nationals last year, looked sharp at every local comp, then fell apart in front of a packed arena.
She has 26 years in cheer and still couldn’t believe the size of that crowd. Her girls are good enough, she says. They just got scared. Here is how to help them handle it before next time.
Your girls didn’t forget their routine at nationals. They forgot they knew it.
You said they looked ready at every local comp, and I believe you. The skills were there. Then they walked into a room with thousands of people instead of a hundred. The room changed, and their bodies did the rest.
Here is the good news. You can train for the room, not just the routine.
The crowd is the opponent, not the routine
Nerves don’t show up because athletes doubt their tumbling. They show up because the brain reads a giant, loud, packed arena as a threat.
The heart races. The hands shake. The memory goes foggy. That is the nervous system reacting to scale, not skill.
So running the routine one more time won’t fix it. Changing how a big room feels to them will.
Recreate the chaos in practice
Your gym is quiet. Nationals is not. That gap is the problem you need to close.
Make practice loud and uncomfortable on purpose. Blast crowd noise through a speaker at full volume during full-outs. Pull up arena audio on YouTube and play buzzers, cheering, and announcers while they perform.
Invite people to watch, too. Ask other teams, parents, siblings, and the front desk staff to fill the gym. A bigger crowd in practice makes the real one feel smaller.
Give them a routine before the routine
Pressure makes athletes forget what to do with the ninety seconds before they take the floor. So hand them a script.
Same warm-up. Same stretch order. Same words in the huddle. Same spot in line, every single time.
A repeatable pre-performance routine tells the body it has done this before. Familiar actions quiet a panicked brain.
Teach them to breathe on command
Anxiety speeds up the breath, which speeds up everything else. Slow the breath and you slow the panic.
Teach box breathing and drill it until it sticks. Breathe in for four counts, hold for four, out for four, hold for four.
Run it at every rehearsal so it turns automatic. Then they can use it in the lineup without thinking.
Rename the feeling
A pounding heart before you compete feels almost the same as a pounding heart from excitement. Your athletes get to choose the label.
Stop telling them to calm down. Tell them they are excited and ready to go.
Athletes who treat nerves as fuel perform better than athletes who fight the feeling. So give that feeling a better name.
Shrink the goal to one 8-count
Standing on the mat thinking about winning nationals is too big. The brain freezes under a goal that size.
Teach them to think about the next eight count and nothing else. Hit this section, then the next one, then the next.
A whole routine feels like a mountain. One 8-count feels like a single step.
They are watching your face
Athletes borrow their coach’s energy. If you look tense in the warm-up room, they will feel it before they hit the floor.
Stay loose. Crack a joke. Walk like you have done this a hundred times, even on the first time.
Your calm spreads to them. So does your panic. Pick one on purpose.
Talk about it before you go
Last year the nerves ambushed them. This year, take the surprise away.
Tell them straight. The arena will be huge and loud, their hearts will pound, and their legs might feel weird. That feeling is normal and expected.
When the nerves arrive right on schedule, they feel like part of the plan instead of a sign something went wrong.
Your team is good enough. You said so yourself, and I trust your read after 26 years in this sport.
They don’t need better skills. They need reps in the chaos, a routine they trust, and a coach who looks unshakeable in the tunnel.
Train the room this season, not just the mat. Then walk into nationals like you own the place 😊
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