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The Real Risk of Tryout Week Isn't the Roster
The Warm up
Two Kinds of Nerves Are Peaking at the Same Time This Week
This is peak tryout week. Across the country, the pattern is remarkably consistent: football and golf started practice back in the first days of August, and now soccer, volleyball, cross country, and field hockey are catching up. Section 1 schools in New York's Lower Hudson Valley have varsity football underway since Aug 17, with every other fall sport starting Monday. Rhode Island's entire fall season, football, soccer, and tennis alike, opened statewide on August 17. In Texas, UIL teams are running their second scrimmage of the preseason this week, one week out from opening night. If your family hasn't hit tryout week yet, you almost certainly will in the next seven days.
Elsewhere this week:
Little League is mid pool play in Williamsport, with games running through August 26 before elimination rounds begin. All ten U.S. regional champions enter the tournament undefeated and untested, no repeat teams, everybody starting from zero. The MLB Little League Classic between the Braves and Brewers plays this Sunday at nearby Muncy Bank Ballpark.
NFL Preseason hits Week 2 tonight, headlined by the Raiders at the Texans on ESPN and the reigning Super Bowl champion Seahawks visiting the Titans Sunday.
College football is still quiet. Week 0 doesn't kick off until August 27, so if your high schooler is watching for inspiration, they have another week to wait.
Soccer families get the Premier League's opening weekend starting Friday, Arsenal hosting newly promoted Coventry City. NWSL runs a full slate all week.
Tennis is in its US Open lead-up. The main draw doesn't start until August 30, but qualifying and the Cincinnati Open finals fill this week's calendar.
Every one of those pro and elite-youth athletes trained all summer to be ready for this exact week, and your kid, who was mostly off since June, is walking into the same intensity cold.
The Lead Off
The Injury Spike Nobody Warns You About
THE SCIENCE:
Most tryout-week worry goes straight to the roster. Did they make it, will they make it, what if they don't. That worry is real and we'll get to it. But there is a second, quieter risk this week that has nothing to do with a coach's decision, and it is more predictable and more controllable than the roster ever will be.
It comes down to a simple idea sports scientists call the acute:chronic workload ratio, or ACWR. Think of it as comparing this week's training load to the rolling average of the last month. A body that trained steadily all summer has a high "chronic" baseline and can absorb a hard week without much risk. A body that mostly sat still since the school year ended has a low chronic baseline, and when tryouts arrive at full intensity, that is an "acute" spike landing on top of nothing. In Tim Gabbett's foundational research on the training-injury paradox, when that ratio reached 1.5 or higher, meaning the current week's load was 1.5 times what the body was prepared for, injury risk in the following seven days was 2 to 4 times greater. Push the spike higher and load without enough preparation behind it, and a 2017 study of elite youth soccer players found overall injury risk rose 3.84 times and non-contact injury risk rose 5.11 times.
This is not an elite-athlete problem. It is a summer problem, and most families have it without knowing it. A 421-runner study of high school cross country athletes found that kids who trained eight weeks or fewer over the summer had 2.7 times the odds of getting hurt in the first month of the season, an effect that showed up most clearly in girls. The mechanism is exactly the ACWR story: low chronic load meeting a full-intensity season start.
The fix has a number attached to it, and it is smaller than you'd guess. The National Athletic Trainers' Association recommends training load increase by no more than 10% per week, and the American Academy of Pediatrics echoes a 10% to 20% weekly ceiling. Gabbett's own data shows why the number matters: push a weekly load increase past 15%, and injury risk jumps to 21% to 49%, compared with a fraction of that when the week-over-week change stays close to that 10% band.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOUR ATHLETE:
You cannot undo a quiet summer in the three days before tryouts, and you shouldn't try. What you can do is watch this week and next like a coach would watch a load chart. If tryouts are two-a-days, that is already a spike. Push for extra rest between sessions rather than extra reps at home. If your athlete complains of unusual soreness that doesn't ease with a normal night's sleep, that is the body flagging exactly the load-spike risk this research describes, not a toughness test to pass.
🔄 TRANSLATE TO YOUR SPORT:
Soccer: Rec-league tryouts are running right now in most towns, right on the heels of a summer with few organized sessions. That's the exact ACWR setup. Ease into full-speed scrimmage play over the first week rather than going all in on day one.
Hockey: Off-ice conditioning tends to fall off hardest in summer. If tryout camp starts with full-ice, full-speed sessions, ask about a gradual ramp for anyone who hasn't skated much since spring.
Football: This is the sport the load-spike research was largely built around. NATA's heat-acclimatization guidelines call for single practices and minimal equipment for the first several days precisely because of this risk. Ask your program if they follow it.
Cross country: The 2.7x stat above is literally about your sport. If your runner logged fewer than eight weeks of summer mileage, treat the first month as build-up, not race pace.
Volleyball and field hockey: Both often run tryout camps as dawn-to-dusk multi-session days. That is the steepest possible ACWR spike. Fatigue on day two is expected, not a red flag on its own.
Baseball and softball: Fall ball tryouts after a summer off from throwing are a classic setup for arm overload. Watch throwing volume specifically, separate from overall conditioning.
The Fuel Station
The Two-a-Day Recovery Shake
Tryout days often run kids through two sessions with a short window between them, and there usually isn't time for a real meal in that gap. This is the shake that fills it: five minutes to make, and it replaces what a hard session actually costs.
THE PLAYERS: (makes 1 large shake, double for two-a-day sibling households)
1 frozen banana
1 cup frozen spinach or a big handful fresh
1 cup frozen mixed berries
1 cup milk or a fortified plant milk
1 scoop plain or vanilla protein powder, or 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp honey or maple syrup, to taste
Ice, as needed for thickness
THE BUILD:
Add the milk first so the blender has something to grab onto.
Add the spinach, banana, and berries.
Add the protein powder or yogurt and the salt.
Blend until fully smooth, adding ice a few cubes at a time to reach the thickness your athlete likes.
Pour into a lidded jar or bottle they can drink on the drive between sessions.
THE GOAL:
Drink this in the 15 to 30 minutes right after the first session ends, then again after the second. If tryouts run as a single long session, this works just as well as the recovery drink on the way home.
WHY IT WORKS:
Milk, yogurt, or protein powder. Muscle repair after a hard session depends on protein, and nutrition guidance for young athletes points to fast-digesting protein sources right after exercise as one of the most useful recovery windows in a young athlete's day.
Banana and berries. Carbohydrate restocks the glycogen a hard tryout session burns through, which is exactly what gets a body ready for the second session of the day instead of running on empty.
The salt. A pinch replaces sodium lost to sweat, which matters more on a two-a-day than almost any other detail in this recipe. Fluid and electrolyte guidance built for two-a-day practices treats sodium replacement as essential, not optional, once a session runs past an hour in the heat.
Spinach. A source of iron, and the NIH sets iron needs at 8 mg a day for ages 9 to 13, then 11 mg for boys and 15 mg for girls 14 to 18, with teenage girls in demanding sports the group most likely to run short.
Berries. Vitamin C, which the NIH notes helps the body absorb the iron coming from the spinach in the same glass.
Swap: No blender at home base? Pack a shelf-stable protein drink and a banana in the cooler instead, and add a salted snack like pretzels or a handful of trail mix.
The Lab
Three Reps That Matter More Than the Ones on the Field
None of these are conditioning drills. Coaches running tryouts this week are watching for exactly what these three reps build, and none of them require more than a ball, a driveway, and ten minutes.
THE PLAY:
Talent gets a kid noticed. These three things are what keep them on the roster and get them more playing time once they're there.
DRILL 1: The Coachability Rep
Setup: Any skill your athlete's sport uses. A parent or older sibling to call out one correction per rep.
The drill: Athlete performs a rep (a pass, a shot, a swing, a stickhandling sequence). Immediately after, the parent calls one specific correction, just one, and the athlete has to apply it on the very next rep without arguing or explaining. Ten reps, ten corrections.
Progression: Once that's automatic, add a correction the athlete disagrees with on purpose, something slightly off or already fixed, just to practice absorbing feedback without pushback in the moment. Discuss it calmly afterward, not mid-rep.
Why it works: A hockey tryout evaluation guide names coachability as "arguably the most important quality of a player, even above talent", specifically the ability to take direction and apply it immediately rather than needing to be told twice. Coaches are watching for this exact behavior at every tryout this week, whether they name it out loud or not.
DRILL 2: The Bounce-Back Rep
Setup: Any drill with a built-in chance to fail. A missed shot, a dropped pass, a bad rep.
The drill: After a miss, the athlete has three seconds to reset, no slumped shoulders, no muttering, no walking it off, and go again on the next rep. Time it if that helps. The rule is simple: the miss gets three seconds, then it's over.
Progression: Once the reset is automatic on their own mistakes, add an unfair moment on purpose, a bad call, a rep that doesn't count even though it should, so they practice the reset when it isn't even their fault.
Why it works: Coaches specifically watch how a player responds after losing the ball or making an error, and research on what separates tryout standouts notes that "slumping shoulders, walking back, or complaining shows a lack of resilience," while recovering quickly shows the mentality coaches want. This is a trainable habit, not a fixed personality trait, and ten minutes a day in the driveway builds it.
DRILL 3: The 10% Week
Setup: A notebook or the notes app. Ten minutes on the first night of tryouts.
The drill: Write down roughly how many minutes of hard activity your athlete did today, tryouts plus anything extra. Do the same the next few days. If this week's total lands far above what a normal week looked like all summer, that's the load spike described in The Lead Off, not a training plan to push through harder.
Progression: Next week, don't let the total climb by more than about 10% over this week's number, even if tryouts are over and regular practice has started. That's the ceiling both NATA and the AAP point to for avoiding overuse injury.
Why it works: This is the take-home version of the ACWR concept from The Lead Off. Making the number visible is what turns "they seem tired" into a specific decision about whether to add an extra training session or let a body catch up first.
🔄TRANSLATE IT TO YOUR SPORT:
Soccer and field hockey: The Coachability Rep works well with a wall pass, since the correction can be footwork, first touch, or pass weight.
Hockey: Run the Bounce-Back Rep on a shooting pad. A missed shot resets fastest when the next puck is already moving.
Football: The Coachability Rep maps directly onto route running, where a single corrected angle or depth is exactly what position coaches grade at camp.
Baseball and softball: Soft toss is built for the Bounce-Back Rep. A swing and miss gets three seconds, then the next toss comes regardless.
Basketball: Free throws are the cleanest version of the Bounce-Back Rep. A missed front-end shot resets before the second attempt, every time.
Cross country and swimming: The 10% Week matters most here, since these are the sports where kids quietly stack sessions. Count total minutes, not workouts.
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Parent Playbook
What to Say Before, and What to Say No Matter What Happens After
Tryout nerves in a kid are not a warning sign. They are, mostly, a sign the kid cares. The research backs that up directly, and it changes what you should say before your athlete walks in.
THE STRATEGY:
A 2025 review of sport-related performance anxiety found that athletes are not more anxious than the general population, sport itself doesn't create the nerves, it just gives them a stage. The physical sensations of nervous dread and competitive excitement are nearly identical, racing heart, tight stomach, so reframing "I'm nervous" as "I'm excited, this matters to me" is a real, evidence-backed coping tool, not a parenting trick. And if the outcome doesn't go their way, sport psychology researchers who study kids being cut from teams found something worth knowing ahead of time: when a decision comes with no clear reason, or an unchangeable one, kids are more likely to conclude they simply lack ability and to predict they'll fail again. How the news lands matters as much as the news itself, and you have more influence over that part than the coach does.
THE PLAY:
Before tryouts, keep it short and skip the pep talk entirely. "Have fun, listen to the coaches, try every drill" beats any version of "go get 'em" or "you've got this," because the athlete already feels the stakes and doesn't need you adding more. After tryouts, whichever way it goes, the single most useful question researchers point to is not "how did you do." It's "did you have fun." Fun is the top reason kids play and its absence is the top reason they quit, so that question tells you more than a scoreboard would. If the news is a cut, "console first, talk later" is the research-backed order of operations: sit with the disappointment before you try to problem-solve or find the silver lining. That part can come the next day. Retrospective interviews with athletes who were cut as teens found that, given time and support, most eventually named real gains from it: humility, perspective, and a clearer sense of what the sport actually meant to them.
THE CONVERSATION STARTER:
"Did you have fun out there? What's one thing you want to remember for next time?"
Ask it in the car, not across the kitchen table, and let whatever answer comes be the whole conversation for that night.
🔄TRANSLATE IT TO YOUR SPORT:
Soccer: Rec-league cuts this week often come with little explanation. If your athlete doesn't make a team, ask the club directly what the plan is for players still developing, most have one.
Hockey: Evaluation camps can stretch over several days. "Did you have fun" is worth asking after every single session, not just the final cut.
Football: Roster size means most kids make the team, but playing time is its own version of the same emotional territory. The same conversation starter works there too.
Volleyball: Tryout cuts in this sport tend to be blunt, a posted list with no explanation. That's exactly the scenario the research flags as hardest on kids, so plan the console-first conversation ahead of time.
Cross country: No cuts, but plenty of tryout-week anxiety about varsity versus JV placement. Same nerves, same conversation.
Baseball and softball: If this is your family's first fall ball tryout, know that most rec leagues place every kid somewhere. The nerves are real even when the roster spot mostly isn't in question.
🏆 Play of the Week
Watch Williamsport Like You're Scouting for Character, Not Talent
THE PLAY:
Tonight's Little League World Series slate in Williamsport includes Australia against Mexico and Curaçao against Japan, with Great Lakes (Hamilton, Ohio) facing Mountain (Henderson, Nevada) and West (Bonita, California) facing Midwest (Davenport, Iowa). These are eleven and twelve year olds performing on national TV under more pressure than your athlete will ever face at a Tuesday tryout, and watching fifteen minutes with your kid gives you three specific things to point out.
Watch what happens after an error. A routine grounder gets booted or a strikeout ends an inning. Point out the kid who resets fast versus the one who doesn't, and ask your athlete which one they think the coach notices more.
Watch the dugout, not just the field. The players cheering teammates between innings are doing something that shows up on no stat sheet and matters to every coach watching.
Watch a kid who clearly isn't having the best game. Nobody at this level is perfect for seven innings straight. Ask your athlete what they'd want a coach to see them do on their worst inning of a tryout.
THE GOAL:
These are the best eleven and twelve year old players in the country, and they still strike out, boot balls, and have bad innings. Watching that normalizes your own kid's tryout nerves better than any conversation could, and it hands them a real-time example of the exact bounce-back behavior from this week's Lab drill.
🔄TRANSLATE IT TO YOUR SPORT:
Football families: NFL Preseason Week 2 runs tonight too. Watch a fringe roster player fighting for a spot and talk about what he's doing beyond the highlight-reel plays.
Soccer: The Premier League's opening weekend starts Friday. Watch how a substitute who hasn't played in weeks handles their first touches back on the field.
Any sport, no broadcast: Pull up a short highlight of any athlete recovering from a bad start to a game and ask your kid what they notice about the recovery, not the eventual result.
THE FINAL WHISTLE
Their Body and Their Nerves Are Both Trying Out This Week
Two things are happening to your kid this week, and only one of them is on the roster sheet. Their body is absorbing a training spike after a summer that was probably quieter than it should have been, and that alone raises injury risk two to four times over. Their nerves are doing exactly what nerves are supposed to do when something matters, and that is not a problem to fix, it's a signal to work with.
You cannot make either of those things disappear, and you shouldn't try. What you can do is watch the load instead of just the roster, keep the pre-tryout pep talk short, and ask "did you have fun" no matter which way tryouts go. That's a smaller ask than it sounds, and it is the difference between a kid who walks away from a hard week still loving the sport and one who walks away carrying something heavier than a missed spot on a roster.
Whether this is your first tryout week as a sports family or your tenth, the body and the nerves both deserve the same attention the scoreboard gets.
See you on the sidelines,
The Seasoned Sidekick Team
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Medical Disclaimer: The content in The Seasoned Sidekick is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to replace the advice of a licensed physician, registered dietitian, or certified athletic trainer. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your athlete's nutrition, training, or recovery plan. Individual needs vary. The information presented is based on available research and general guidelines for youth athletes.