Training — How much running is too much for teens?

Coach Dean Hebert

My daughter runs on a local cross country team. They start running every morning in the summer, 3 miles to 4 miles a day. In August they begin running 4-6 miles a day with races every weekend. In September they begin running 4-5 miles in the mornings and 3-5 miles in the afternoons. They had a retreat over the weekend and ran 20 miles of practice. Every year by this time of year…. the girls team of about 15 members, ages 13 years old to 18 years old at least 1-2 girls have stress fractures in their legs. Are they being trained too hard? Is this too intense for this age group? Marki

The proof is in the pudding. Though teen runners are more likely to encounter injuries due to their initial lack of conditioning and lack of year round training something like stress fractures at that rate is extreme. In all my years of coaching runners of all ages (including teen girls) I would be exaggerating if the incidence of stress fractures are 1 in 100 (or more) per year. 1-2 out of 15 is indeed excessive.

The rule of thumb is still to increase mileage about 10% per week. So let’s do the math together. If the team runs everyday 3 or 4 miles per day then they are running 15-28 miles per week to start out. By September, they are running as much as 8-10 miles per day, which is 50-70 miles per week! And add to that 20 miles in a single weekend retreat. This would be a lot of miles even for marathon runners, but the question I have is for what purpose are all these miles being run? Their cross-country race is only 5k!

It is no wonder these girls are hurting. Indeed there are differing philosophies – lots of miles versus the quality-over-quantity school. But even for those who embrace high-mileage this program is excessive for this age group. As another data point, many college level runners won’t run that kind of mileage.

Let’s compare this high-mileage approach to the science of a quality-over-quantity approach. Moving from about 15 miles per week up to 30 miles per week (perhaps 35-40 for a very talented upper-classmen) will reduce the likelihood of injuries. The number one predictor of injuries is your history of injuries, but a close second is the total miles run; NOT the speed of those miles. By integrating more quality runs with less miles, you improve overall conditioning without the pounding. Period.

The proof is also in the results column. Take a look at the results and compare what these high-mileage programs to lower-mileage runners. While I can’t say that my teams, for instance, are faster than your daughter’s team — for sake of comparison, my teams are running 25-30 miles per week I have male runners who run 15-18 minutes and girls who can run 18-21 minutes. I think we have had one stress fracture in 3 or more years. This is a very competitive result and it shows that the low-miles with higher-quality can get great results. So ask yourself, are the high-miles delivering such a result that they warrant the extreme trade-off in injuries?

Here’s the remedy to this situation:
– Train year round to get stronger to handle harder and longer workouts.
– Keep mileage modest.
– Keep quality training as part of your weekly workouts year round.
– Avoid drastic increases in weekly mileage or in longest run of the week.
– Avoid excessively long long-runs.
– Perform lower-leg running-specific strengthening drills.

Coach Dean Hebert, Tempe, Arizona, USA
Special to Running Advice and News
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