Can a highschool coach really “burn out” their athletes to the point where they are worse in collegr

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/research/pro_beyond/2023RES_ProbabilityBeyondHSFiguresMethod.pdf

Probability of competing in college athletics.

Several HS runners have done that and ran well in college. I’ve never heard of one claiming to be exhausted all the time. For most elite HS runners, less than 10 of the those races would be anywhere near all out.

100mpw freshman? You know a lot of those?

The change from High school to college involves a social and emotional change. Being away from home. Being at a new school.
Coaches coach differently. Adjusting to a new training schedule. Not being the best on the team. The level of competition increasing. Going from a 5k to a 10K. Some kids catch up and improve more, others may have injuries and are not able to compete at the same level.

All these issues and others need to be adjusted to. If not it may be perceived as burnout.

As long as the high school coach is using safe progressions in training the success is great. The top 5 percent will likely be able to contribute immediately. Most teams would love to take the top athlete in the nation because they have a chance to be great at the next level.

I think it's important for high school coaches to do sensible, conservative progression rather than trying to wring every bit of talent out of their athletes, mostly because trying to ride the redline increases the risk of big setbacks. There's also the psychological aspect that comes with making progression every year. A kid who manages to run 70 mpw as a freshman is more likely to have trouble progressing than a kid who runs 30 mpw, because the kid who runs 30 mpw can easily add 10-15 mpw every year. While they might end up in the same place by the end of high school, the kid who started low and ramped up is more likely to be motivated to continue since he's had more consistent improvement.

With girls, there's the added factor of making sure you don't interfere with development. Having high school girls train so hard they lose their periods, for example, does hurt long-term development, since they'll have lower bone density for their entire lives. They can still run more mileage than a lot of coaches think, but managing intensity is really important.

I also think it's important to make sure that kids are able to safely make the transition to college. There are kids who make the jump from 30 mpw in high school to more rigorous college training without any ill effects, but there are a lot of kids who just end up injured, many of whom you never heard of because they weren't on the national scene as high schoolers and don't get any better in college. The girls I've coached who went on to run in college are really happy they ran 50-60 mpw in high school so that they didn't have to adjust to higher mileage at the same time that they were adjusting to higher intensity.

This^

Where are these teams where all their HS athletes are going on to compete in college? 99.9% of HS runners will never spike up again.

It says that 6.5% of girls compete in college. You said .1%. That means you are off by 6000%.

Name 3 current runners who did 100MPW freshman year. Name 3 who did 100MPW senior year.

No, the other poster suggested that, but 2 years of 100 mpw should be enough to result in constant exhaustion if there is such a thing.

I generally like to push back against the idea of "burnout" as a results of a particular training system or prolonged mileage. The reality is that most people stop running after high school because they are not fast enough to run in college and just move on to something else to fill time. This decision has nothing to do with their training or any kind of "burnout" but just the reality that running is going to take up a less important spot in your life as you get older, unless you are part of the increasingly small number of people who are incentivized to continue training.

If you are a runner on a top high school program, I think it can also be a kind of perfect situation for a lot of people to really maximize their running without realizing it. Living at home makes it easier to be more focused on running and school. Also the coach will have his runners for key development periods from ~14-18 so runners can be built up for the training to have big junior and senior years. In college, however, the runners are on their own for meals, laundry, time management, and a host of other real world responsibilities and this can be hard to manage or at least take some focus away from running. Also being thrown into a college program where you may be expected to file into a workout group with more mature runners who are accustomed to the particular program may be a tough adjustment or may simply not work.

I also want to add that an aspect of burnout is also motivation. For a high school runner in a top program, it is likely very worth it to grind out mileage and work very hard because you are on a team with friends you have grown up with and you have a lower threshold to be great. A high school runner running 15 minute 5Ks can be someone who wins races, contributes or leads a competitive team, and just generally feels that whatever investment they make in training is worth it because they are a high level competitor. But in college, you'd have to be a 13 minute 5k runner to have that same level success and the reality is not many runners have that kind of talent. For some, once they stop winning or leave that environment of close friends motivated towards a goal (state champions, NXN, etc) they will not find the training is worth it anymore.

I have probably rambled and rehashed ideas in this long post but I do feel strongly about how often the phrase "burn out" is thrown at high school athletes and used to dissuade training hard. Obviously, a high school athlete shouldn't be replicating the training logs of Jim Ryun or Gerry Lindgren but I don't think it is a bad thing for high school runners to run mileage and even train a little stupid if they find it enjoyable. High school running really is a special environment where you things aren't as serious and you can have some very cool accomplishments with close friends. I just always think of someone who could train at 30 mpw and be a decent runner, 4:30 mile and crack 10 for 3200, but if you throw that guy on a team competing at a state level or trying to make NXN, he steps up and can squeeze down to sub 4:20 and low 9 minutes. Even if the runner never improves after that, either because he's gotten everything out of himself or that the injuries start to rack up, the opportunity to run in college wasn't there without the hard training. And people just find other interests in college anyways, so I am very hesitant to blame coaches.

On the idea of motivation being a factor. I think that what looks like "burnout" is often a runner who was good in HS not being good in college and losing interest. The things that make a HS runner good are sometimes different from the things that makes a college runner good. For example, I had many college teammates who were physically mature early in HS and had advanced aerobic development for that age. This made them stand out from their HS peers, go to state meets, win some medals and other accolades (especially in XC). However, in college (talking at the higher levels), every event requires a degree of speed that is simply less important in HS. The 9:20 2 miler who could only run 1:59 for 800 is absolutely and utterly screwed in college unless that 1:59 has some other explanation. A 4:10 mile, 8:20 3k, 14:20 5k (etc.) all require some serious wheels and to actually compete in races in college you have to have closing speed.

Those early bloomers who ran 9:20 in HS don't always have that speed or even the potential to develop it. They might gradually improve in college but they'll be running in the back of packs and finishing 12th in a heat with a small PR. This can be psychologically devastating for runners who were the best in their area from 9th-12th grade. They might actually be improving at the same rate they were in HS but they're doing it at the back of the pack and getting their doors blown off at their conference meet.

This doesn't have to be the end of the world (and some of them may be capable of great things in XC/10k) but many aren't able to motivate themselves to find out when the winning stops. I say this because I don't think it's about burnout. It's about context. Jakob never stopped winning. The Newbury kids never stopped winning. The kid from your local school that "burns their runners out" probably just stopped winning and lost the motivation to grind for incremental improvements. (I don't necessarily blame them)

Did you read "hypothetical extreme"? My point is for those that say "burn out" isn't possible. Is there a spot where it actually is possible if someone completely over does it in HS?

I personally think there's a physiological aspect to this that is hard to measure or figure out without some real in depth studies. My guess is that there might be some physiological implications (long term) for athletes who are training like college athletes while they are in the stage of development that a typical 14-18 year old might be. My hunch is that when you push high volumes, AND lots of intensity (See Great Oak HS some years ago) that there might be some implications for further development. Certainly there's a psychological aspect to measure, but I think there's more to it than that. Just look at the numbers of those who improved after 3-4 years of high level training during those HS years.

Many runners burnout after high school. Too much racing and travelling are big factors.

The bigger issue is some coaches still loving dual meets and invites. We see coaches loading up on Thursday and Saturday meets and racing kids 2 times a week throughout the season instead of being smart with their racing efforts.

Yes! I think this is an important factor as well. I remember a conversation I had with someone about D1 college runners and they said that a college runner should be able to run a sub 2 800 basically at the drop of a hat. Even if you are a 10k xc aerobic monster, you need to have some basic level of speed so you can kick down at the business end of a conference championship and nab points.

I knew a number of guys who were on either side of making a college xc team (some barely hanging on to their spots and some busting their butts to walk on). What was interesting was the guys who were barely hanging on the team were still improving and most would split their high school 5k PR in an 8k xc race but, as you say, they're doing it buried in a pack and pushing just to score. The guys walking on were lower mileage or less developed in HS but then they got caught in the place like I mentioned earlier where they now have to chase a spot and most would just settle for running PRs in open meets. I think all those guys would trade being a 14:xx PR 5k guy for being a guy who ran 15:xx in HS but got to run D1 and be a state-level competitor or even a champion.

Agreed 100%. The only top NCAA runner I've seen with truly zero leg speed is Habtom Samuel. But he still probably could run 51-52s in an all out 400. That being said, if you can't run 26:53 10k (or a female 30:50), you need more leg speed to be prepared for a fast finish at the end

I know a (talented) hobby jogger whose best time / event is a bit under 8:20 in the 3000. I'd be shocked if he couldn't run under 1:54 in the 800. And he's not especially speed-based, at all

What is interesting to me is the way this kind of speed can develop in college, or sometimes not develop.

Nico Young came out of high school know as a great aerobic 5k xc runner and he had a notable win over Cole Sprout in a fast Arcadia 3200 but I don't think anyone thought he was a traditional "fast" closer. This even dogged him in the NCAA until last year where people often questioned his wheels to win NCAA level competition and vie for future US team spots. Then in 2024 he came out as the complete distance package and closed out championships and made the Olympic team (albeit he did not need to kick for that spot).

Meanwhile, in 2016 Isaac Cortes was a top CA prospect from Great Oak who was a scorer on their NXN winning team but really came to attention at his senior year state meet when he won both 800 and 1600, showing some devastating closing speed in both events. I don't honestly know the specifics of what happened at Stanford but all results on his TFRRS are slower than high school and it seems that his closing speed and overall fitness just did not progress to college level.

I bring up these two athletes as both were part of top national programs but profile very differently for adjusting to college racing. I don't think it was unreasonable to, at the time, wonder if Nico could adjust to college racing and if there was much room for him to improve after going through Brosnan's program. Of course, Great Oak was notorious for the idea of "burnout" this thread started about but I don't think Soles could have set up an athlete like Cortes any better for college. From Soles' perspective he made a pretty complete distance athlete who had enough strength to score on a national championship cross country team and the closing speed to win two state titles.

I dont really follow other sports close enough to have an informed opinion, but do sports like swimming, gymnastics have "burn out" similar to running? I can only imagine that they do.