Cheer camps are one of the most popular sports-themed camps out there!
Whether you’re targeting beginners or those looking to hone their existing skills, cheer camp is an amazing way to learn, grow, and have fun before the season begins.
However, while the basic premise of cheer camp may be well understood, it can be tricky to know what a realistic day-to-day schedule looks like.
If you want ideas to make your cheer camp an amazing experience for campers and get an edge on your competition, you’ve come to the right place! We’ll cover everything you need to know, including:
- Fundamental cheer skills
- Team building and leadership
- Creative routine development
- Fitness and conditioning
- Mindfulness and mental preparedness
- Cheer tech and innovation
- Cheer camp traditions and spirit
- Performance and competition prep
Ready, set, let’s go!
Fundamental Cheer Skills
The primary thing your cheer camp needs to offer is the development of cheerleading skills.
You and your coaching staff will need to know how to foster the learning of new talents, as well as the development of existing techniques.
By keeping focus on the three main areas of excellent cheer, everything else will fall into place more easily.
Stunt Basics and Safety
Safety first – always. Aside from the obvious downside of getting hurt, an injury can delay or even end a camper’s time in cheer, as well as being a liability for your camp.
A lot of safety concerns will be taken care of when setting up your camp, such as having trained coaches and staff, proper facilities and equipment, and an enforced dress code with reasonable athletic shoes and clothing.
However, teaching your campers how to cheer safely is also an extremely important and priceless skill.
Make sure to include plenty of stretching and warm-up time into your day-to-day, work on slow and steady conditioning and skill development, and advise your campers on proper first aid protocol for sprains, exertion, and other common cheer injuries.
Jumps and Tumbling Techniques
Jumping and tumbling are also basic cheer essentials. It’s great to focus on honing these skills while at camp because many techniques can’t be learned at home as safely without proper flooring and equipment.
Some basic jumps at are ideal for beginners include:
- T-Jump: Straight up with legs together and arms in a straight t-shape. While this jump may not be counted as an official style in competitions, it’s an essential starting position to master
- Spread Eagle: Arms and legs out to form an “X” shape. Synchronizing the motion of all of the limbs is a difficult and important thing to work on
- Tuck Jump: Arms up and knees tucked to the chest. A great jump for working on timing and safe landing.
If you’re including tumbling, make sure to educate your campers on safety first – especially when it comes to minimizing head and neck injuries.
Great tumbling moves for beginners include handstands, back handsprings, cartwheels, back walkovers, and round-offs.
Precision in Motions and Dance Moves
Having control over your body and precise, deliberate motions is another key cheer skill!
Having regular conditioning exercises (with spotters if heavy weights are involved), balance practice and fun challenges can act as a great supplement to training routines.
Make sure to praise consistency and form in stunts, tumbles, and jumps. If you’re struggling to find a precise area of focus, it can help to reference competition scoring guides.
For instance, the most recent US System Scoring Rubric is looking for the following:
Arm Placement:
- Approach
- Consistent entry
- Swing/prep
- Arm position within jumps
Leg Placement:
- Straight legs
- Pointed toes
- Hip placement/rotation/Hyperextension
- Height
- Legs/feet together
- Chest placement
- Landings
Team Building and Leadership
Of course, cheerleading is a team sport! It’s important to work to facilitate teamwork, cooperation, and leadership skills within the camp environment!
Here are some activity ideas that work to develop these areas:
Group Choreography Challenges
Letting the camp (or groups if you’re a larger camp) design and execute their own routine can be a lot of fun!
It fosters creativity and a greater understanding of routine creation – and perhaps most importantly, requires the campers to work together towards a common goal.
Leadership Workshops for Team Captains
At higher levels, it’s likely you’ll have existing teams come in for further training.
While they only have you for a limited period of time, you can impact their whole season by helping train their captain.
Along with practical cheer skills, it’s highly beneficial for team captains to have some knowledge of conflict resolution, bringing up spirits and motivation, and team building.
Trust-Building Exercises and Partner Stunts
If you’re looking for some fun bonding exercises that bring the campers closer together, cheer camp is the perfect situation for trust-building exercises.
After all, for complex routines, you need to have absolute trust in your teammates to be where they need to be when they need to be.
Things like trust falls, blind obstacle courses, and human knots are fun and effective trust and team-building activities.
You can also pair campers off and have them work on partner stunts. Random pairings are a great way to diversify cliques and get everyone talking to each other.
Creative Routine Development
Many cheer camps focus on developing a final routine, either as a simple celebration for the end of camp or even as something in the repertoire for the upcoming competition or game season.
Getting your campers involved in the routine development process will make them more engaged and on board, as well as foster creative thinking.
Music Selection and Custom Cheer Mixes
Having the right music is the first step to having an awesome cheer routine!
Ideally, you want recognizable songs with a strong tempo that work well with your theme.
You also need to consider what music is available legally; for competition and public performances, it likely has to be licensed and potentially even originally composed for use in cheer.
Once the practical concerns are taken care of, it’s great to get your campers’ input in music selection!
Themed Routines: From Concept to Performance
Choosing a theme can be a bit of a tricky process. You want your theme to be trendy, and liked by your campers, as well as unique and standing out from the competition.
However, it’s also important that it’s not too out there, and is recognized by judges and audience members.
Try brainstorming theme ideas, and then working together to make the top options realistic!
Fitness and Conditioning
As briefly mentioned above, fitness and conditioning are the foundation for all of cheerleading’s essential skills.
Hone your campers’ baseline by introducing workouts in these areas!
Strength Training for Cheerleaders
While access to weights is a big plus, strength training is still possible with body weight alone!
Key areas to target are the core (planks, crunches, Russian twists, leg raises, etc.), upper body (Push-ups or pull-ups), and lower body (lunges or squats.
In addition to these exercises, there are many resources out there with recommendations – and definitely let your campers choose their own favorites as well!
Flexibility and Balance Workouts
It’s also key for your cheer campers to work consistently to improve and maintain their balance and flexibility.
Try exercises like walking backward, standing on one leg, arm extensions, and standing from a sitting or lying down position without arm assistance.
Cardiovascular Endurance Drills
Having a cardio routine also ensures your campers will be able to keep the energy up for the entirety of their routines, as well as being excellent for general fitness.
You can do basic cardio drills like laps, beep tests, pop-ups, or jumping jacks, but it’s also fun to mix things up with games and sports, dancing, and competitions like relay races.
Mindfulness and Mental Preparedness
If you can imagine it, you can achieve it! Like most sports, mental strength is just as important as physical strength in cheer.
Visualization Techniques for Performances
Employing visualization techniques has been shown to improve success during performances.
Have your campers settled in a relaxed, quiet environment – ideally in a similar situation to what they will be in during the event itself – and engage their creative imagination and emotions to envision how the act itself will feel.
Stress Management and Relaxation Methods
Cheer, like any other competitive sport or activity, can be super stressful even when it’s fun!
Make sure to have downtime, games, and fun, and try out meditation and breathing exercises.
Cheer Tech and Innovation
If you want your campers to be at the top of their game, it’s important to use modern tech if you can. This includes things like:
Video Analysis for Routine Improvement
At the very least, make sure to record the late-stage run-throughs of your routines to see where your team can improve.
Be careful about giving your campers direct access to recordings of less-than-ideal routines, however – especially if they’re younger. This is because it can be a hit to self-esteem.
Utilizing Apps and Online Resources for Training
There’s so much out there these days, from individual performance trackers that run on your campers’ cell phones to activity generators and progress trackers for coaches and staff!
Have a look and see if you can find a resource that suits your individual needs!
Cheer Camp Traditions and Spirit
From its inception, cheer has been all about team spirit! Do what you can to boost this vibe at your camp:
Camp Cheers and Chants
Have some ideas for camp cheers, and encourage campers to create their own.
Try to keep things positive (i.e., about how great they are, rather than negatives about others).
Spirit Days and Themed Attire
No matter how rigorous your camp program is, remember to have fun!
Themed days or weeks, and dress-up days are great for bringing the mood up.
End-of-Camp Pep Rally and Performance
The end of camp is always bittersweet, but in many cheer camps it’s the most important part as well: the final performance!
Make sure all your campers support each other, and allow for age-appropriate means of sharing contact info and forging lasting bonds before it’s time to head home.
Performance and Competition Prep
For older or more elite camps, it’s likely one of the primary purposes of the program is preparing for competition. If this is the case for your camp, there are some extra steps you can take:
Mock Competitions and Judging Panels
It can be so scary to perform for officials, or even in front of peers who aren’t on your team.
Camp can be an excellent opportunity to experience these pressures in a safe and risk-free environment.
Performance Etiquette and Stage Presence
Having a formal performance segment also prepares your campers for the appearance and performance standards they will have to face in the coming season. It’s a great time to practice!
Feedback Sessions and Performance Analysis
Give realistic feedback to campers so they can know what to expect from real judges, as well as to learn what they’re doing right and wrong so they can improve.
At the same time, keep age and level in mind – and don’t be too harsh!
Final Words
Cheer camp is highly popular for a reason!
It’s such an amazing opportunity for campers to learn new talents and hone existing ones. With the right level of preparation, your camp is sure to be a hit!
