I help families of athletes get upstream—putting health & happiness first so they feel strong, fueled, focused, confident, and supported before, during, and after competition—because when they feel their best, performance follows.
Game days finally stopped feeling like complete chaos.Amanda R., mother of a 13-year-old soccer player
Kelly Brooks BeckFormer D1 + Pro Volleyball Athlete, Coach & Sports Mom
The Upstream Livin Game Day Playbook is a complete, step-by-step lifestyle guide: practical biohacking tools, real-life sports-parent advice, conversation examples, meal ideas, checklists, and printables across 8 stages.
Preparing for the week ahead? Dealing with a challenge right now? Trying to start a conversation without your teenager disappearing into their hoodie? Your spidey-senses are telling you something is off with your kiddo's health? This playbook gives you somewhere to begin.
What they actually need
And adults who put health and happiness first.
Performance is the byproduct.Sports math is mathing, and somehow you are already behind.
Do they need encouragement, advice, food, quiet, a hug, or five minutes without another adult telling them what to do?
Are they sleeping enough?
What should they eat before an early game?
Is that soreness normal?
Are they drinking enough water?
How do I help their body recover?
Are they happy with this sport and still having fun?
Is this physical, emotional, or both?
Should I ask about the game, or leave them alone?
How can I motivate them to work hard without pushing them away?
Is their coach challenging them in a healthy way, or is something happening I need to pay closer attention to?
How do I teach responsibility without reminding them about every single thing?
How do I support my kid without becoming the parent the whole bleachers are side-eyeing?
Fueling a growing athlete
Spotting concerning health patterns
Protecting the parent-child relationship
Supporting recovery
Talking with coaches
Knowing when discomfort deserves attention
47 open tabs. Three completely different opinions. And somehow more confused than when you started.
Your athlete does not leave the rest of their life in the parking lot. They bring the whole week with them.
Packed in their bag this week
Slow reaction time, irritability, or trouble moving on from mistakes.
Low energy, poor focus, or hitting a wall halfway through the day.
Stomach pain, racing thoughts, freezing, rushing, or suddenly not wanting to play.
Not every "off day" needs an emergency family meeting. Sometimes the ball simply refuses to cooperate because apparently it has personal beef with your child. But noticing patterns gives your family a place to begin.
Health and happiness come first.Performance follows.
Their statistics will change. Their playing time will change. One day the uniform comes off for the last time. The relationship you are building with your child, and the one they are building with their own body, travels with them for life.
The athlete I was.
The health struggles I survived.
The coach I became.
The mother I am now.
The parents who kept asking me for advice.
One small change may not look impressive today. Then another builds on it. And another. Before long, those little choices flow together and shape how your athlete sleeps, eats, hydrates, recovers, thinks, prepares, and cares for their body.
You just gotta keep livin, man. L-I-V-I-N!As Matthew McConaughey would say. Around here, we are learning how to keep upstream livin.
Help your athlete get upstream—putting health & happiness first so they feel strong, fueled, focused, confident, and supported before, during, and after competition—because when they feel their best, performance follows.
240+ pages, organized into 8 stages, so you can jump straight to what your family needs this week.
This is not just a packing checklist or another list of “five foods your athlete should eat before a game.” This is a lifestyle playbook showing how sleep, food, hydration, mindset, breathing, nervous-system regulation, communication, preparation, and recovery work together.
Keep it handy all season. A long tournament weekend, an early game, a difficult loss, a recurring symptom, or an athlete ready for more independence may each send you back to a different section. It grows with your athlete.
Health and happiness first.
Performance follows.
Kelly Brooks Beck Founder, Upstream Livin
Move through the whole game-day experience, or go straight to the section your family needs right now.
Preparation begins days before the game.
Look at sleep, food, hydration, school, training, responsibilities, and the family calendar together. Help your athlete ask questions early, see that playing time is often earned in practice, and own what they can control.
Notice the little health whispers during the week, before they become full-blown screams on game day.
Win the morning before it begins.
Bedtime routines, screens and doomscrolling, morning light and dim evenings, room temperature, darkness, breathing, visualization, food, fluids, and getting everything ready before bed.
A routine that tells their brain and body: “We are prepared. We are safe. We can rest now.”
Start calm and stay ready.
Enough time to wake up, morning light, a body check-in, familiar food, hydrating without flooding the stomach, and simple movement. Plus how parents set the emotional temperature of the morning.
Nothing says “calm nervous system” like someone screaming “WE ARE GOING TO BE LATE!” while looking for a missing sock.
Pressure is information.
Understand nerves, identify controllables, choose a useful performance cue, use honest confidence statements, rehearse the game mentally, build a mistake plan, and use the drive intentionally.
Not every athlete wants a TED Talk from the driver’s seat.
Shift from preparing to competing.
Arriving with enough time, phone away, a purposeful warm-up, connecting with teammates, a repeatable performance routine, and being fully present for their first job. Plus when parents should observe, check in later, or trust the coaches.
Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is let your athlete lock in.
Stay steady when the game changes.
Mistakes, coaching feedback, lineup changes, frustrating calls, body language, coachability, the next play, and staying engaged from the bench. Athletes learn the “So what? Now what?” mentality and how to become a goldfish after mistakes.
Your athlete already has a coach. Your job is to cheer.
Connection before correction.
What to say after a win, a loss, or a disappointing performance. Protect the car ride, let emotions settle, rehydrate and refuel, check for pain or injury, and why right after the game is rarely the time to question the lineup or confront a coach.
Murky water only clears when left alone.
Complete the recovery loop.
Check soreness, energy, mood, hydration, and sleep. Easy movement, intentional rest, family walks, recovery meals, and reflection without rumination. Your athlete names what went well, what felt hard, and one focus for the next practice.
Review film without turning it into a two-hour documentary about everything your child did wrong.
Print them, customize them, and put them where your family will actually see them.
Your athlete packs their own uniform, equipment, food, fluids, recovery tools, backup clothing, extra socks, slides, and personal items.
Let the checklist be the bad guy reminding them about their mouthguard, for once.
Simple ideas for the night before, breakfast, lunch, before competition, between games, and afterward. Your athlete checks the foods they would actually try.
The “perfect” tournament snack does not help if your child refuses to eat it.
A quick reminder for the fridge, closet, or medicine cabinet: what your athlete needs from you in the stands, after mistakes, around officials, and on the drive home.
A private place to process the game, their response to mistakes, and what to work on next. It is not extra homework, and they never have to turn it in to you.
Notice patterns and create a safe space to talk about pain, digestion, fatigue, sleep, menstrual health, eating, mood, or anxiety. Organize it all for a more useful conversation with a qualified healthcare professional.
See sleep, meals, hydration, travel, school, training, and recovery together, before the chaos starts.
Conversation examples for nerves, frustration, disappointment, injury, playing time, and when they are finally ready to talk.
The goal is teaching them to pack the bag themselves, preferably before everyone is sitting in the car.
How food, hydration, sleep, breathing, mindset, light, movement, and recovery work together for the whole athlete.
Know when they need encouragement, a question, a boundary, professional support, or room to work it out.
Love, approval, and peace at home never depend on performance. Sports end one day. Your relationship should not end when their sports career is over.
Changes in energy, mood, pain, digestion, sleep, eating, menstrual health, and enjoyment, without fear or self-diagnosis.
Preparation, self-awareness, resilience, communication, responsibility, teamwork, and asking for help.
Our mornings feel calmer now, and my daughter has a routine she trusts.
Before working with Kelly, our biggest challenge was the anxiety that seemed to take over our entire house before tournaments. My daughter would stay up late, barely eat breakfast, complain that her stomach hurt, and then become frustrated before we even reached the field. I thought I was helping by giving her constant reminders and encouragement, but I was actually adding more noise.
Kelly helped us look at the whole week instead of trying to fix everything on game-day morning. We worked on sleep, familiar meals, hydration, packing the night before, breathing, and giving my daughter more ownership of her routine. The Playbook also helped me understand when to encourage her and when to stop talking—which may have been the hardest lesson for me! Ha!
Our mornings feel calmer now, and my daughter has a routine she trusts. She still gets nervous because she cares, but she knows what to do with those nerves. Most importantly, we are no longer starting every tournament already stressed and arguing with each other.
He has become more composed after mistakes and more willing to communicate directly with his coaches.
My son was struggling to recover after mistakes. If he missed an assignment or received a correction from his coach, I could see it all over his body language. I would try to help by yelling instructions from the stands and then breaking down everything in the car afterward. I had good intentions, but our conversations usually ended with both of us frustrated.
Working with Kelly helped me see that my son already had coaches. What he needed from me was a steady parent. We used the Playbook to create a simple mistake-reset routine, talk about controllables, and change the way we handled the ride home. I also learned to ask whether he wanted me to listen, help him problem-solve, or simply drive.
He has become more composed after mistakes and more willing to communicate directly with his coaches. Our relationship feels lighter because every game no longer turns into a performance review. I still cheer loudly—but I leave the coaching to the coaches now.
Caring for my health is not separate from performance—it is the foundation of it.
I used to think being tough meant ignoring everything. I played tired, skipped meals when I was busy, stayed up scrolling, and did not tell anyone when my shoulder or stomach bothered me because I was afraid of losing playing time.
Kelly never made me feel weak or dramatic. She helped me notice patterns in my sleep, food, hydration, stress, recovery, and menstrual cycle. We also worked on visualization, breathing, positive self-talk, and a reset routine I could use after making an error.
I feel much more prepared now because I understand what my body needs before, during, and after competition. I have also become more confident speaking with my parents and coaches when something does not feel right. Caring for my health is not separate from performance—it is the foundation of it.
You do not need to hand your athlete a 240+ page playbook on Monday and announce that the whole family is changing by Friday. Please do not do that. Ha!
Get the full picture before you change anything at home.
Start with one or two swaps, like the ideas below, and build from there.
Game day is not the ideal time to introduce 5 new foods, a new sleep routine, or an unfamiliar mental-performance plan. Use these tools on school days, practice days, and ordinary weekends leading up to the BIG GAME! Again, this is a lifestyle guide, meant to help the ENTIRE family, and not just the “athlete” of the house.
Division I Big 12 Volleyball at Texas Tech University
Professional volleyball in Puerto Rico, Germany, and Italy
Coaching across Youth, Club, High School, Collegiate, USA Volleyball, and National Club settings and Camps
Degrees in Exercise and Sports Science and Human Development and Family Studies
200-hour Registered Yoga Teacher + Trauma Informed Teacher Training
Health coaching, breathwork facilitator, nervous-system regulation, and bio-hacking education
Raising two young competitive athletes with her husband, a former European Professional Baseball Player and Coach, now a select Baseball Head Coach and Organization Owner.
From planning a packed week to knowing what to say after a difficult game: one complete resource to help your athlete prepare, compete, recover, and grow.
Because the questions do not stop once the season starts, and raising an athlete gives us plenty of them.
240+ page playbook + 5 printable tools
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No! The Game Day Playbook is a lifestyle guide you can use all season and beyond. It walks you through preparation, competition, and recovery while helping you build everyday habits around sleep, food, hydration, mindset, screen time, and communication.
My goal is to support your whole family holistically. The changes you make to support your athlete can also make a meaningful difference in your entire family’s health and happiness.
These are habits you can grow together and carry well beyond sports.
No! For years, I’ve worked with athletes of all ages, from kids as young as six to professional athletes.
This playbook is for families with athletes in any sport, whether they’re just getting started in local rec leagues or competing at a high level.
You can adapt the questions, checklists, and habits to your athlete’s age, sport, and level of independence—so the guidance grows with them.
No. Families in recreational leagues, school sports, club programs, select teams, and highly competitive environments can all still use it. The goal is helping young people prepare, care for themselves, enjoy their sport, build confidence, and develop skills for life.
Absolutely not! This is meant to support your family, not give you one more thing to feel like you’re falling behind on. Choose the sections that feel most helpful and start with one or two small changes that work for your family.
Perfection is not the goal. Tiny changes add up over time, and you can build on them as you go.
“Tiny brooks make great rivers.” 🌊
Paying attention to the habits and environmental factors that affect how the body and mind function, then making thoughtful adjustments: food, hydration, sleep, light, screens, breathing, mindset, movement and recovery.
This Playbook does not encourage children to copy extreme adult protocols, complicated supplement routines, or unsafe internet trends. We begin with the foundations.
The playbook is educational and does not replace assessment, diagnosis, treatment, or individualized advice from a qualified healthcare professional. The symptom conversation guide helps you notice patterns, organize what you see, and prepare questions.
Persistent or concerning symptoms, pain, injury, significant mood changes, or concerns about eating should be discussed with an appropriately qualified professional.
No ethical coach or educator can guarantee a specific athletic outcome. Performance depends on development, health, training, coaching, competition, opportunity, and more, and everyone still has to do the work.
The playbook helps families build habits and environments that support the whole athlete. Health and happiness come first. Performance is the byproduct, not the promise.
The information, strategies, stories, and results shared by Upstream Livin and within the Upstream Livin Game Day Playbook are provided for educational and informational purposes only. They are not guarantees of individual results. Every athlete is different. Outcomes may vary based on age, development, health history, training, coaching, environment, nutrition, sleep, recovery, consistency, effort, access to care, and many other individual factors.
The Upstream Livin Game Day Playbook provides practical education, tools, strategies, and lifestyle practices designed to help parents better support their young athletes before, during, and after competition. No specific athletic, health, performance, recovery, academic, emotional, financial, recruiting, scholarship, or other outcome is promised or guaranteed.
The information provided by Upstream Livin is not medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, injury, mental-health condition, or other health condition, and it is not a substitute for individualized care from an appropriately qualified healthcare professional.
Children and adolescents have unique health and developmental needs. Parents and caregivers should use their own judgment and consult qualified healthcare professionals when they have questions or concerns regarding an athlete's health, symptoms, medications, supplements, nutrition, eating behaviors, injuries, mental health, development, or ability to participate safely in sports.
Any examples, personal experiences, testimonials, or success stories shared by Upstream Livin represent individual experiences and should not be interpreted as typical or guaranteed results.
By purchasing, accessing, or using the Upstream Livin Game Day Playbook, community, workshops, videos, resources, or other educational materials, you agree to conduct your own due diligence and accept responsibility for the decisions you make and the manner in which you choose to use the information provided.
Upstream Livin, its owner, contributors, coaches, and affiliated professionals are not responsible for individual outcomes or for actions taken or not taken based on the educational information provided through its products, programs, community, or services. Results depend upon factors unique to each athlete and family. No specific result is guaranteed.