Do all High School coaches overtrain their distance runners?

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It's not common for HS coaches to train kids as if they are college runners, no. It is however pretty common for parents to blame a coach for their kids problems when it may have a lot more to do with their DNA and environment the kid grew up in.

Are you sure that this is a result of overtraining during the season, as opposed to undertraining prior to the season?

Unfortunately, the vast majority of HS coaches are woefully under qualified for the job. Oddly in the USA people seem to idolize HS coaches in many sports when in actual fact most have no formal qualifications or training other than "experience".

They may have been runners in college so they think they are qualified, others read a book and copy the training programs or worse they get advice from this forum.

However the training of HS runners is significantly different than the training of college students or adults. The teenage body has not fully developed yet in many areas especially aerobic capacity. Full skeletal development of teenage girls has not occurred yet either which increases the risk of stress fractures.

Ask the coach what his/credentials are and experience.

There is are excellent books that deal with distance training of youth runners. I strongly recommend reading one or two then compare what your daughters coach does.

Does her coach make them do long runs or any runs on the road? If so they clearly are not aware of the risks and have questionable qualifications.

I hope you doctor better than you write, but your comments about stress fractures lead me to believe you have limited knowledge in that area as well. You obviously don't know much about training either.

Not enough info. What do you mean by "college training"? HIgh mileage, high intensity, both? Is she the only one on the team injured? Are all the other kids able to handle the training? Are the freshmen newbies doing the same workouts and mileage as the seniors who have been running for 4 years?

There are some coaches, usually of large school, historically successful programs, who just get a bunch of kids out, run them hard, and let the weak fall by the wayside. They can do that because they have numbers. Is that what is going on?

Good cross country coaches modify training based on the background of the kid, prior sports activities, etc. They don't just throw all the kids into the same training plan. Our incoming freshmen start in June doing run-walk at first. Now, those same freshmen kids, 8 months later, are running anywhere between 25-50 miles per week. That is quite a range. But some of them had great sports background, or even running background, and others were couch potatoes and not athletically gifted at all.

Having said that, I have coached a few kids who get injured doing next to no running. Most of these kids have little sports background, are weak, did not do any summer training, might be overweight, don't get enough sleep, have poor running mechanics...lots of factors add up to injury. It's still my job to work with these kids and bring them along slowly, but if you have a large team, as a coach, you often have to ask yourself whether your time is better spent working with your healthy athletes or sitting in the weight room watching the injured ones do the elliptical and a lot of hip and glute work.

If your kid is easily injured better make sure your kid is doing the extra work she needs to stay healthy. Does she get enough sleep? Does she eat healthy? Is she taking Vitamin D? Often, it can't all happen at practice, some of it has to be done at home on their own time for the kids who are really injury prone.

1. No colleges offer the major "Track Coach". What "formal qualifications" would one obtain other than that of being a runner themself and reading (which you alternately ridicule and endorse)?

2. You also ridicule, then endorse, "experience".

3. Most HS runners do not become injured and the injury rate is likely lower than some other sports.

4. Most HS coaches do not overtrain, imo.

5. I wont argue that many are unqualified but those are the ones doing it for the extra pay or because nobody else will.

OP, more info is needed to answer your question.

I'd offer the counter that most under train their runners. I'd guess most HS kids are putting in 25-35 mpw. That's not over training.

Also they are training kids to win meets NOW. You know how many kids don't show up to track practice until March? So how is the coach going to spend all season sending that kid out on slow distance runs or are you going to get them ready for the season at hand?

Are you saying that there aren´t any coaching eductions in America?

curious... wrote:

pompous asz detector wrote:

1. No colleges offer the major "Track Coach". What "formal qualifications" would one obtain other than that of being a runner themself and reading (which you alternately ridicule and endorse)?

2. You also ridicule, then endorse, "experience".

3. Most HS runners do not become injured and the injury rate is likely lower than some other sports.

4. Most HS coaches do not overtrain, imo.

5. I wont argue that many are unqualified but those are the ones doing it for the extra pay or because nobody else will.

OP, more info is needed to answer your question.

Are you saying that there aren´t any coaching eductions in America?

There are many excellent training programs offered through USATF as well as seminars and clinics provided by other coaches. Coaching like all careers is about your own long term development and continuing to learn. Coaches that do not further their own development even after 25+ years of coaching are lazy and should be avoided.

Over use injuries are very common in high school track and XC programs. Where are you getting your facts?

Listen to many of the running podcasts available and specifically listen to the guests who are high school coaches. I have heard many talk about 100 mpw programs and training 6 days a week and training 11+ months a year!! This is insanity to put teenagers through this type of training. No wonder most kids hate track!!

What these coaches do with these programs is get short term results from a select few athletes but at what cost? How many athletes are injured during the season? How many quit? How many do not return after one season?

High school sports is about long term athletic development, participation and a learning experience not about producing a select few elite athletes to stroke the coach's ego and in a few years these great athletes are out of the sport.

No. When I was in HS in the late 1980s, my coach undertrained us at least in terms of mileage. I definitely could have been better in HS, but he left some meat on the bone for future growth.

I only ran outdoor track because I was captain of soccer and basketball but got cut from baseball - played soccer in college. It's obvious now (17 years later) my best talent was running and it was never fostered. My High School team didn't have a lot of injuries but our coach never really trained us so we would achieve peak results.

I had no idea how many miles I was running, we usually only did one hard workout a week. Coach was more concerned with making sure we were good enough to win dual meets and league championships.

At the time I wasn't aware that I could train harder I just did what the coach said. If he said run XX time for our 5 mile run that day I did it even if I could have run faster. I think I could have been 30 seconds faster in the mile with a little good coaching and broke 2m in the 800.

He had most of the athletic people on the team running 2 events, doing 2 field events and a relay to make sure we scraped together as many points as we could to win meets.

2001 Stats

800m: 2:05:xx

1 Mile: 5:00:xx

Run Doctor wrote:

Does her coach make them do long runs or any runs on the road? If so they clearly are not aware of the risks and have questionable qualifications.

LOL - no running on roads?! That eliminates like 95% of teams training locations. I'll be sure to spread the word to all local XCt/track coaches!!

No. There are numerous quality programs and coaches in every area of the country that train kids in a sensible manner.

A few of issues that is arising with high school programs are -

1) the lack of activity of children prior to them joining organized sports. Far too many kids do nothing or next to nothing as far as physical activity then want to become a superstar overnight.

and 2) the lack of movement / activity in different planes of motion done by kids. Play and playing of a variety of sports is lacking in many kids.

then 3) of the lack of preseason / off-season conditioning done by kids in order to prepare for their upcoming season. Many programs / coaches look bad because they are working under the constraints of a season and true fitness is a longer than 2 1/2 month process.

Athletic parents wrote:

Our kid is a freshman and has been hurt twice already since beginning cross country in August. Is it common for HS coaches to train the kids as if they are college runners? Some of the workouts the coach has them doing are more suitable for college age runners with much more experience and mileage. We've already had to hold our kid out of a few things and get her a note to tone it down a bit.

Just wondering what others have experienced?

Thanks in advance!

In my experience, there is a mixture of many types of situations.

There certainly are coaches out there who try to train their athletes way too hard, as if they were college athletes as you said.

On the other hand, there are also coaches who are very cautious and undertrain their athletes.

And there are coaches out there who don't know what they are doing. This is sometimes also the case with both scenarios above.

And there are also situations where athletes don't properly prepare themselves for training. This can amplify problems with scenarios where the coaches either train athletes too hard, or make otherwise sane training loads become too much (though often times, the coach will try to adjust their training when they know about this situation).

And there are other times when parents are used to different training programs and don't fully understand what the coach is trying to accomplish or how they are going about it.

In general, when talking about high school girls, it is not uncommon to be an issue with the coach training the girls too hard (often times trying to coach them the same as the boys without understanding the differences), and often time this can lead to injuries. About all you can do in these types of situations, short of pulling your child from the program, is to make sure you are doing everything you can to minimize the risk: make sure she is getting enough sleep, make sure she is getting enough to eat including all the necessary vitamins and minerals, make sure she is taking easy days easy and not overdoing it on those days, and make sure she is icing and/or stretching as much as is appropriate.

Saratoga Springs, NY,and other schools around there are notorious for it.

To be good at anything it takes dedication and hard work..This is especially true in distance running and cross country. Most HS coaches I've been associated with understand this concept well.. Unfortunately, most parents Ive met who's son and /or daughter is entering the world of xc/distance running for the first time in HS do not..When my son entered the 9th grade and joined the xc team I was a little better prepared than most parents because I did run in college..but still it took some getting used to the amount of work my son was being asked to do..I dislike the comment in this thread that most HS coaches are unprepared to do their jobs..I find that statement very untrue and not keeping with what Ive experienced.. What I might say ..Are many parents are unprepared and uninformed and unwilling to fairly evaluate their sons and or daughters experience in running..that is more truely what I've experienced..My advice support your sons and daughters and go to the meets and politely cheer on the whole team as best you can..enjoy the experience because it taught my son some great life lessons...and please..let the coach do his job..

To be good at anything it takes dedication and hard work..This is especially true in distance running and cross country. Most HS coaches I've been associated with understand this concept well.. Unfortunately, most parents Ive met who's son and /or daughter is entering the world of xc/distance running for the first time in HS do not..When my son entered the 9th grade and joined the xc team I was a little better prepared than most parents because I did run in college..but still it took some getting used to the amount of work my son was being asked to do..I dislike the comment in this thread that most HS coaches are unprepared to do their jobs..I find that statement very untrue and not keeping with what Ive experienced.. What I might say ..Are many parents are unprepared and uninformed and unwilling to fairly evaluate their sons and or daughters experience in running..that is more truely what I've experienced..My advice support your sons and daughters and go to the meets and politely cheer on the whole team as best you can..enjoy the experience because it taught my son some great life lessons...and please..let the coach do his job..

curious... wrote:

[quote]pompous asz detector wrote:

Are you saying that there aren´t any coaching eductions in America?

Some but not a lot. USATF Level 1 is a superficial overview of everything. I can roughly describe hammer throw now. How useful.

Experience (prior as an athlete) and just on-the-job experience are the usual training that HS coaches have. Sure a degree in exercise physiology or something is great but unrealistic.

Seminars, networking, reading is great too. (But some of the books out there are not that helpful honestly.)

Really, for distance runners, its not brain surgery.

Also agree that avoiding hard surfaces is ideal but often unrealistic. Any sensible coach will seek out trails or specify trails for weekend/long/off season running. In season, some schools just dont have options.