Every program has run one: the guest-coach clinic that athletes loved, parents paid for, and that changed absolutely nothing by the next practice. Clinics fail predictably — too many athletes per coach, no level grouping, no follow-up. They succeed predictably too. Here's what to plan for, whether you're hosting Renee or running your own.
1. Pick One Goal, Not Five
"Tumbling clinic" isn't a goal. "Twelve athletes throw their first standing back handspring with a light spot" is. A single-focus clinic — one skill family, one outcome — beats a survey of everything. It also tells you exactly who should attend and what success looks like.
2. Group by Level, Ruthlessly
The fastest way to waste a clinic is mixing an athlete working on her first handstand with one polishing a layout. Group by current skill (not age, not team), cap each group, and give each its own station rotation.
3. Respect the Spotting Ratio
Skill breakthroughs come from spotted repetitions, and spotting doesn't scale — one coach can genuinely spot one athlete at a time. If the format promises new skills, the coached-station ratio needs to stay small; other stations (drills, conditioning, flexibility) can run larger. This ratio is the single best predictor of whether athletes leave with new skills or just a t-shirt.
4. Build Stations With Purpose
Every station should feed the goal: a drill station rehearsing the skill's shapes, a conditioning station building its power, a flexibility station opening its range, and the coached station where breakthroughs happen. Athletes rotate; nobody stands in line.
5. Plan the Follow-Up Before the Clinic
A clinic is a spike; progress is a slope. Send athletes home with a written next-step plan, brief your staff on what each group worked on, and schedule reinforcement — in practice or through virtual follow-up sessions — within two weeks, while the gains are fresh.
Or Skip the Planning — Host One Instead
This checklist is exactly how Coach Renee's clinics are built, from single-skill bootcamps to tryout intensives, anywhere in the U.S. See what hosting involves.