Rest and Recovery: The Overlooked Secret Ingredient for Young Runners
As many Stryde parents can attest, sometimes getting kids to do things they don’t necessarily want to do can be a challenge. Kids don’t always understand that delaying instant gratification and doing hard things is essential for long-term progress.
On-the-other hand, sometimes they don’t know when to stop. They don’t always recognize the signals when they’re physically doing too much. They compete with friends and their own personal records, and are eager to please parents and coaches who sometimes demand too much. It’s easy to drive them too hard.
An often overlooked component to all effective training plans is rest. You don’t improve without it, and actually, it’s not the training itself that causes an athlete to get better, it’s the recovery from that training that allows you to adapt and improve. You have to have the proper balance between the two, and understanding this balance is essential for long-term development and injury prevention. This is especially true for younger runners.
Understanding the Stress Adaptation Model for young runners
The stress adaptation model, or SAM, (also known as the General Adaptation Syndrome) explains how our bodies respond to training. This model, pioneered by scientist Hans Selye, shows that physical improvement happens during recovery periods—not during the actual training itself.
When applied to youth running, this model works in three stages:
Training Stress or the Alarm Phase: When a young runner experiences a challenging workout, something that puts stress on the body - such as muscle damage or depleted energy stores - the body senses that stress. Performance declines and fatigue increases.
Recovery Phase: During periods of recovery or rest, the body begins to recover from that stress. Damaged muscles are repaired, glycogen is restored, and the body begins to increase aerobic capacity and mitochondrial efficiency.
Supercompensation Phase: If the recovery from the initial stress is adequate (proper recovery, nutrition, and sleep), the body not only returns to its pre-stress level, but exceeds it. This is the supercompensation phase, and is the natural process of our body adapting to its environment.
It is in this phase of supercompensation where we are able to train most effectively, and if we add a little more training and a little more stress than we did before, we begin the SAM process all over again. If recovery is adequate, we continue to progressively get stronger, faster and fitter.
Timing is everything. If we don’t get enough rest, we don’t improve, and actually begin to overtrain and get worse. If too much time passes during the supercompensation phase, the body returns to its original fitness before training and we miss out on that opportunity to train and get better.
This model applies to all athletes, but with younger runners there are special considerations. For young people, their bodies are already devoting significant energy and resources to growth and development, and they don’t have the physical capacity and resilience to train like adults.
Why Younger Runners Often Need More Recovery
Younger runners have unique physiological circumstances that require a different approach to recovery.
Growing bodies create their own stress: The energy needed for natural growth and development is substantial and needs to be factored into any training plan for young runners.
The musculoskeletal system is still developing: Growth plates are open during this phase. The muscles, bones and connective tissue are still developing and are susceptible to overtraining and injury.
Maturity levels vary: At Stryde, we have kids ranging in age from 8 up through high school. The level of development is going to vary widely, and the level of training needs to take this into consideration.
What are some signs your young runner needs more recovery?
Always feeling tired, even after a good night’s sleep
Performance is declining in spite of consistent training
Getting sick more than usual
Unusual irritability
Loss of enthusiasm for running and practice
Nagging injuries that don’t improve
Disrupted sleep patterns
What are some practical recovery strategies for younger runners?
Recovery from training is not just lying on the couch. There are active and proactive strategies we can take.
Things to do at home:
Adequate Sleep: Young runners need more sleep than we adults. Aim for 8-10 hours of quality sleep.
Active Recovery: Recovery is not just doing nothing. Active recovery, such as an easy walk on rest days, and our usual stretch routine, typically help with recovery.
Proper nutrition: You need proper fuel. Aim for wholesome foods with the proper mix of carbohydrates, protein, healthy fats, and nutrients to support growth and repair.
Hydration: drink consistently before, during and after workouts
Ways to Schedule Recovery Into a Training Plan:
Hard/Easy principle: When you have a hard day, it’s good practice to schedule something easy the day after. If you had a hard weekend of training or a hard race, plan for recovery on Monday or even Tuesday.
Growth-adjusted training: During a growth phase, it’s important to monitor signs of excess stress and reduce training accordingly.
Seasonal periodization approach: After the competitive season is over, we can reduce the level of training and focus and base training, cross-training and core training for the next season.
Planned recovery in the SAM model: A common model is to progressively increase training load for a three week block, then reduce training on the fourth week to allow for recovery and adaptation. It’s important not to increase the training load too rapidly. Aim for no more than a 10% increase in mileage per week.
With this in mind, it’s important to build a recovery mindset, both in terms of how you look at your days off and recovery, and how you design your own training programs. Ultimately, we want our kids to understand this process and know how to train properly on their own into adulthood.
The focus on this stage of your child’s development is to balance shorter-term competitive goals with long-term development that focuses on a process. Our goal with Stryde is to get our kids to understand this process so it becomes intuitive.