A new competitive season has started, with hard landings, full routines, and worries about team spirit. Here are 5 high-energy activities to build camaraderie among your athletes:

1. Partner to Partner

• Have athletes get into pairs.  

• Explain that in this game, they’ll be touching each other in appropriate ways.  

• Ask the first partner pair to be ready to follow your command. Call out, “Elbow to elbow” and have youth work together to follow that command.  

• Call out a few commands, and then have partners switch when you say, “Partner to partner.”

Mix it up:

• Play on the beam, switching beams whenever the leader calls out “partner to partner”

• Play while hanging from a bar (obviously, don’t call out anything that requires more than one hand!)

2. Find Somebody Who

• Introduce the activity by saying: “We’re going to get to know each other a bit better individually today by finding people who have things in common with us.”  
• Begin by saying, “Find somebody who…” and filling in the blank. Examples include:  
• Has the same number of brothers and sisters as you.
• Shares the same favorite fruit as you.
• Was born in the same month as you.
• Has the same favorite color as you.
• Once athletes have found a partner who they have this particular thing in common with, give partner pairs one minute to discuss the answer to one of the following questions:
• If you could be any animal, what would it be and why?
• What is one thing you would change about the gym to make it a better place?
• If you could have one magical power, what would it be?
• How do you know if someone is being a good friend?
• Give a 30-second warning so that one partner knows when they should wrap up their answers and let the other partner begin talking.
• Repeat!

3. All My Friends and Neighbors…

• Place cones, mats, carpet squares, etc in a circle. There should be one fewer spot than athletes (a team of 10 would have a circle of 9)
• Ask athletes to stand by the cones. Select one to start as the leader. The leader will stand in the middle.  
• Play begins when the leader says, “I love all my friends and neighbors who…” and they fill in the blank with something true about themselves. For example, “I love all my friends and neighbors who were born in Chicago,” or “I love all my friends and neighbors who have dogs as pets.”
• As soon as they finish with the statement, everyone (including the person in the center) who this statement is also true for moves from their own cone to an empty cone in the circle.  
• The last person left without a cone is the new leader and can share something true about themselves for the next round.  
• Encourage players who aren’t moving (because the statement doesn’t apply to them) to “coach” each other and call out “space” when there is an open cone that a youth can take.  
• Adaptation: If the same player ends up in the middle more than once, allow them to switch out with someone who hasn’t been the leader yet.

4. Find Your Match

• Make sure everyone has a partner. The partner pairs should make up their own unique sound. Allow partners to practice.
• Ask one member of each pair to go to one side of the room and one member of the other pair to go to the other side of the floor
• Ask everyone to close their eyes (or use blindfolds), and then make their noise out loud to see if they can find their partner from across the floor.
• To make it harder, scatter a couple mats around the floor as obstacles

5. Ultimate Rock, Paper, Scissors

• Have youth get into pairs. If there is an odd number of youth, you can participate in the activity as well.
• Review and model the following rules of Rock, Paper, Scissors: rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, paper beats rock.
• Have each partner group introduce themselves and play a round of Rock, Paper, Scissors – or enough rounds to break a tie.
• Everyone who does not win becomes the winner’s cheerleader, following them around and cheering them on
• The winner moves on to play another winning member.
• The winner advances to play again each round, and the non-winners now cheer for that winner.
• The game continues this way until it is down to two players and the whole group is cheering for one or the other.

What are your favorite team building games? Let me know in the comments!