If you tuned into this episode hoping to find a two-week crash course on getting ready for cheerleading tryouts in April, I have to be honest with you: it’s already too late for that. But before you close the tab, hear me out, because that doesn’t mean there’s no hope. It just means we need to completely reframe how we think about cheer tryout preparation.

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Cheerleading Tryouts Are Not a First Impression

Here’s something coaches don’t always say out loud but absolutely know to be true: by the time an athlete walks into a tryout, we already know who they are.

Most athletes trying out have been in the program, fed in from a middle school team, or have competed in the same circuit. We’ve seen them at competitions, talked to their previous coaches, watched their social media, and observed how they carry themselves all season long. A tryout is not your introduction to a coaching staff. It’s a formal showcase of skills you’ve already been building in front of people who already have a sense of who you are.

So what does that mean for how you should approach it? It means the work you put in every single day, in practice, in the gym, in how you treat your teammates, all of that is your real tryout preparation.

Clean Skills Will Always Beat Difficult Ones

I cannot say this enough: cleanliness trumps difficulty, every single time.

If you show me a technically sound layout, I can build a full on top of that. The foundation is there. The mechanics are right. The potential is obvious. But if you show me a rickety full where sure, you take off on two feet and land on two feet, but everything in between is a question mark, that’s a problem. Not just for tryouts, but for the entire season ahead.

Here’s why that matters so much. When we’re deep into a cheer competition season, routines are running back to back, athletes are tired, the environment is loud and chaotic. That shaky skill that barely landed at tryouts? It’s not going to land then. And the moment it stops landing mid-season, you’re on a fast track to a mental block that can derail the whole year.

So please, if you’re gearing up for school cheerleading tryouts and you’re thinking about throwing the hardest pass you’ve ever thrown to impress the panel, don’t. Throw what you can throw confidently, cleanly, and repeatedly. One miracle skill that you can’t replicate is a red flag, not a green light.

What Coaches Are Actually Looking For

Beyond the skills themselves, what I’m really watching for at a tryout comes down to a handful of things: strength, speed and timing, flexibility, general coordination, coachability, and attitude.

A blank slate athlete with solid fundamentals and a great attitude is genuinely more valuable than a talented athlete with bad habits and a rough attitude. You know why? Because it takes half the time to build new skills on a clean foundation as it does to undo bad habits, break down poor technique, and rebuild from scratch. Give me someone hungry to grow over someone I have to fight every step of the way.

Cheer Tryout Prep Starts the Day After Tryouts

I mean this literally. The moment last season’s tryouts end, the next cycle has already begun.

Coaches are watching whether you show up on time. Whether you’re one of the first ones warming up. Whether you support your teammates when things get hard. Whether you’re taking care of your body, getting sleep, eating well, keeping your grades up. If you’re on a middle school team with your eye on a high school program, that high school coach is going to pick up the phone and call your current coach. What that conversation sounds like matters enormously.

Your attitude, your reliability, your injury history, your character throughout the season, these things follow you. They become the context in which every skill you throw at tryouts gets evaluated.

Strength and Conditioning Is the Most Underrated Tool in Cheerleading

This is something our sport is genuinely behind on, and it bothers me because the benefits are so clear. Consistent strength and conditioning builds speed, power, coordination, flexibility, and stamina, and it dramatically reduces injury risk. Those five qualities are the foundation that every skill gets built on top of.

When I coach an athlete through a new skill, what I’m really doing in the early stages is building those physical and movement fundamentals first. Once those are in place, the skill comes together naturally. The problem is that a lot of people want to skip straight to the flipping and the flying without doing the work that makes those things sustainable.

Going to the gym once before tryouts doesn’t count. I’m talking about consistent habits built across the off-season, pre-season, and in-season. An athlete who trains regularly and shows up with stamina, strength, and body control is one I can teach anything to. That’s the athlete I want in the room.

What a Successful Tryout Actually Looks Like

A successful tryout is one where you genuinely enjoy the process. I know that sounds cliche, but I mean it. If you’re shaking in the corner, refusing to talk to anyone, and barely surviving the experience, that energy shows. And it’s not the energy of someone a coach wants to invest in for a whole season.

Show up and be the person who smiles at the nervous freshman who doesn’t know anyone. Be the one who cheers for someone else’s clean pass even though you’re competing for the same spot. Throw skills you’re confident in, be present, and let your attitude do as much talking as your tumbling.

Coaches notice those athletes. We don’t let them walk out the door just because their difficulty level isn’t where we hoped. Work ethic, coachability, and character are things we can build a program around.

What’s Coming Next

This episode was just the overview. In the episodes ahead, we’re going to go deeper into tryout prep from both the coach and athlete perspective, including what you can specifically be doing in your training leading up to the big day. Think of this one as the foundation. More is on the way.