Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: The Science on Track podcast; Week-to-Week Changes in Running Volume

Transcript

BONUS: The Science on Track podcast; Week-to-Week Changes in Running Volume · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

0:00
It's bonus time Today. We want to present to you a new
0:04
podcast that you might interest you and you should maybe check
0:06
it out. It's from Evan Nelson.
0:08
The name of the podcast is called the Science on Track
0:11
Podcast. Great name, really.
0:14
Evan takes it from a real scientific approach here for
0:17
track and field and for all events.
0:19
And this episode that we're presenting here is the weekly
0:22
mileage progression for high school runners.
0:24
I think this is really an important topic.
0:26
Wanted to share it with you. Have a take, have a listen here
0:29
and then go. On your favorite podcast at the
0:31
same one you're listening to right now, right here in search
0:34
Science on track podcast. Give them a follow and receive
0:38
some value. Thanks guys.
0:39
Enjoy. Welcome to the Velocity Projects
0:42
Science on Track podcast. This show discusses how research
0:46
specific to high school runners, throwers, or jumpers can be
0:49
implemented in track and field or cross country practices.
0:52
We're excited to give you information that is fresh off
0:55
the tap to keep you and your program on the cutting edge.
0:58
This information provided in the show should not be considered
1:01
medical advice. With that, let's get started.
1:05
Ready, set, go. Welcome to this episode of
1:10
Science on Track, the show that brings a researcher and a track
1:14
and field coach together to discuss the bait and dialogue
1:17
about how the findings of a research study can be put into
1:20
practice. I'm really excited about the
1:22
show that we have today. Our topic will examine weekly
1:25
running volume and running related injury in high school
1:28
cross country runners. As a distance runner myself,
1:32
I'll concede that distance runners have a deep infatuation
1:35
with mileage. This topic is guaranteed to
1:37
pique the interest of a lot of coaches and runners.
1:40
Let's get going because we have two exceptional guests.
1:43
Doctor Michael Joachim is a research program manager in the
1:47
Badger Athletic Performance Lab at the University of Wisconsin.
1:51
Doctor Jawakam, will you share a little bit about your work and
1:53
your connection with running? Yeah, absolutely.
1:56
Thanks for having me on today. So I've been a researcher at UW
2:00
for quite a while and primarily have built my line of research
2:04
in my career on studying injuries and injury risk
2:07
profiles and collegiate runners. And through that, I've kind of
2:11
observed that quite a few runners come in already a little
2:14
bit banged up already with some pretty notable injury histories.
2:17
And so when I was starting my doctoral work at UW, I really
2:21
wanted to get a little bit earlier in the life cycle of a
2:24
distance runner and see if we could move the needle a little
2:27
bit on what we know about risk factors for injury and high
2:30
school runners. Because ideally a lot of them
2:32
become the collegiate runners that I see who already have an
2:35
injury history. And so the work we're going to
2:38
talk about today and a few other studies that I've been able to
2:41
lead and be a part of are really just starting to dig into that
2:44
study population and see if we can improve health, you know,
2:49
kind of throughout the spectrum of distance runners lives.
2:52
Wonderful. We're so happy to have you.
2:55
Our 2nd guest is Jane Wheeler. She's the head cross country
2:59
girls cross country coach for Pleasant Valley High School in
3:02
Bettendorf, IA. Coach Wheeler, can you share a
3:04
little bit about your running background and your experience
3:06
with our audience, please? Yeah sure.
3:09
I as you mentioned I'm a runner myself so love anything running
3:13
related. I started running junior high,
3:16
ran through high school and ran collegiately at Luther.
3:19
So that's How I Met Evan. Then after right after college I
3:24
was hired at Pleasant Valley in Bettendorf, IA and have coached
3:28
cross country here for 22 years. Also during that time, I have
3:32
coached high school track, girls track as well with my husband
3:37
currently stepping away to be with my kids during the spring.
3:40
But so and we've been fortunate to have great programs, large
3:45
numbers, lot of success, good kids to work with.
3:48
So it's been, it's been great to continue my running interest by
3:51
helping others at the high school level.
3:55
And Coach Wheeler, I knowing you, I knew that you would be a
3:58
little bit humble and not really tout your team's accolades.
4:02
The running history and success that you've had at pleasant
4:06
value is, is really remarkable. And you are, your teams are
4:11
perennial state championship qualifiers with an impressive
4:14
history of, of placing high at the state championships, a
4:17
couple of state championships. And then you alone are a state
4:22
champion in high school yourself a very successful career at NCAA
4:27
Division 3 when you're running at Luther College.
4:30
And so I didn't want you to be too humble, but I want to share
4:35
with our audience the deep depth of experience that you have as a
4:38
runner yourself running very successfully in high school,
4:41
then progressing that through to collegiate success and, and a
4:44
high level of running. And now for over 2 decades,
4:49
really working with a lot of athletes in a very successful
4:51
program. And runners that have gone to
4:53
run very successfully in high school and then some have gone
4:57
to run on post collegiate or post high school at the
4:59
collegiate level as well. Yes.
5:00
Thank. You so I I failed to introduce
5:03
myself. I'm Evan Nelson.
5:04
I'm an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin and
5:09
I'm the director of the lot velocity projects, which host
5:12
this Science on Track podcast. And for the audience, I am
5:17
connected with Coach Wheeler. We, we ran at the same college
5:20
together. So we've known each other for a
5:23
lot of years. And I'm really happy to to bring
5:26
her into the show today. But I also have connection with
5:29
Doctor Joe Occam here. We're we're colleagues and
5:31
collaborators here at the University of Wisconsin in the
5:33
study that we're going to talk about today.
5:36
We were both involved in. So I've got a little bit deeper
5:38
knowledge than some of the studies that we talked about on
5:41
this topic in particular. But let's let's get right into
5:44
it. The title of this study is week
5:46
to week changes in training. We're not prospectively
5:49
associated with injuries among Wisconsin high school cross
5:52
country runners. And this was published in the
5:54
journal Injury Prevention in 2024.
5:58
And the title kind of gives away the ending on this.
6:02
Did not bury the lead. And so our show format here is
6:08
we're going to go point counterpoint.
6:10
And so and Doctor Dewakam, as the author of this study, we're
6:14
going to give you the chance to go 1st.
6:16
And our first question for you is what is the problem or what
6:20
are the problems that led to the question that this study aims to
6:25
address? Yeah.
6:27
So there's a lot of research on adult runners, adult
6:32
recreational runners in particular.
6:33
And there was some fairly rigorous research that came out
6:36
of Europe to sort of propose what we think would be safe
6:40
increases in training volume. And so those kind of resulted in
6:43
some recommendations of maybe 20 to 30% / a two week period would
6:48
be safe to sort of attenuate injury risk and stay tolerable
6:53
to the to the runner themselves. But we have never really
6:56
evaluated that in youth runners. And I think and engaging with
7:00
the youth running population, that's one of the biggest
7:02
questions from runners, that's one of the biggest questions
7:04
from their parents is what is safe running volume, How do I
7:08
progress them? When am I setting them up for
7:11
injury? And so this was our first
7:14
attempt to answer that question. Coach Wheeler, how how do you
7:22
think that that resonates with the runners that that you work
7:25
with? And and so how impactful is this
7:29
question that this study aims to address?
7:32
Yes, this has a huge impact on us as high school coaches, even
7:36
I'd say middle school coaches. One of our biggest concerns, I
7:42
guess goals every year is to keep our athletes healthy
7:46
because as we know, if you're healthy and can consistently
7:49
train, you're going to improve your performance.
7:52
So any variables that we can control to decrease injury is
7:58
huge. And obviously working with high
8:01
school athletes, there are a lot of uncontrolled variables.
8:05
So the the training volume, the training intensity are two of
8:10
the variables that we we do have a little more control over.
8:14
And I would just reiterate, I guess what was said at the
8:19
beginning about seeing college athletes come in banged up.
8:23
And that's one of been one of Kenny, my husband and I's goals
8:27
with our athletes, especially those kids that are going to
8:30
probably go on to the Division One level.
8:32
They do tend to want to push the limits.
8:36
And we sometimes do try to hold them back a little bit because
8:40
we want to leave something in the tank.
8:43
But you know, sometimes coaches maybe get a little selfish and
8:46
want want to see a little more progress at the high school
8:50
level, not thinking long term. So that might be something to
8:53
research in the future. That might be something we've
8:55
seen a little bit empirically as a coach.
8:59
Yeah, I'm going to ask you a follow up, coach.
9:01
What because there really isn't great science or evidence or a
9:05
clear pathway to progress training while managing this
9:09
injury risk. How do you make these decisions
9:12
about training load, both at the team level but the individual
9:15
level, Especially at the high school level, you've got a
9:17
wide-ranging group of athletes whose training readiness and
9:22
also motivations for running this year or in future years.
9:26
It's all over the board in a much wider array.
9:30
Yes. And ironically, like as reading
9:33
this research, you don't initially I was kind of
9:35
surprised like, oh, this is what we're taught.
9:37
As you increase mileage, you increase risk of injury.
9:41
But then as I like reflected on our teams, I'm like, oh, you
9:46
know, I've never done the hard science on it.
9:48
But so much of coaching and I would say, especially at this
9:52
age, is kind of an art versus a science.
9:56
And so with all those uncontrolled factors, we really
10:02
work to get to know our athletes.
10:06
You know, we, we basically start with that science framework of
10:10
backwards planning for progression of the season and
10:12
using some of the just principles of training that have
10:16
been used for years. But then we really have to tweak
10:20
depending on what we see with our athletes.
10:23
I tried to do a pretty good job of getting to know my kids even
10:26
before they start what their running history is.
10:30
So that was one thing and we'll probably talk about later maybe
10:34
studying a little bit more of what happens before they even
10:38
start the high school or junior high season, the their running
10:41
history in the past or their pre season work and what effect that
10:45
has on increased injury rates. Cool.
10:50
Thank you for those thoughts. Doctor.
10:52
Joe Walken, we're going to spin it back to you.
10:55
What are the main results? Track coaches, or in this case,
10:58
cross country coaches, but coaches of really distance
11:01
runners, should know about the results from this study.
11:05
Sure. So I'll provide just a brief
11:06
method summary too. Summary was kind of up to date
11:09
on what we looked at. So we were doing a study during
11:12
COVID, so we needed to do something that could be at a
11:15
distance from the athletes just in terms of not being able to be
11:19
in person quite as much as we maybe would have preferred.
11:21
So each runner who consented was texted a daily survey, and we
11:25
tried to sync it with that gap between the end of school and
11:28
the start of practice where maybe they'd be able to grab
11:30
their phones and deal with it. And so it asked things like, how
11:34
much did you run yesterday? How long did you run?
11:38
How would you rate the intensity?
11:39
Zero to 10? And then we asked a variety of
11:42
other things about kind of psychosocial stress, fatigue,
11:45
things like that, that we packed into a different paper that I
11:49
would encourage people to look at if they were interested in
11:50
that. And so we texted them every day
11:55
and we let them backfill up to three days.
11:58
So if they missed a day, we could still fill in gaps as best
12:01
as possible. So the main outcomes for this
12:04
study were on a weekly basis, how far did you run, how long
12:08
did you run, and how intense were those runs?
12:11
And then we looked at what were the changes week to week and how
12:15
did that potentially relate to running related injuries.
12:19
The runners reported their injuries through the survey as
12:21
well. Just phrases any musculoskeletal
12:24
pain that made you modify or withhold training.
12:29
And then we also had athletic trainers completing surveys on
12:32
injuries as well to sort of corroborate or get a little bit
12:34
more precise diagnosis since that was probably beyond what we
12:37
could expect high school runners to provide us on a daily basis.
12:42
So when we looked at all of the week to week changes as a
12:45
percentage, we ended up not finding any associations in
12:50
changes. So increases or decreases in
12:52
training, increases or decreases in intensity or duration with
12:57
subsequent injury risk. So null findings are never that
13:02
fun to talk about, but we sort of concluded that training
13:07
characteristics as they're currently being programmed by
13:10
Wisconsin High School Cross Country Rd. coaches appear to be
13:14
fairly appropriate if the goal is reducing or at least not
13:18
worsening or exacerbating injury risk.
13:21
I know we'll talk about a lot of caveats later, so I won't go
13:24
into my thoughts on why we found this, but it seems to me like on
13:30
the whole our coaches are doing a pretty good job of load
13:34
management if injury is the outcome of interest.
13:38
Yeah, that that's a really great summary statement and that I
13:43
think taking our audience behind the scenes here is that these
13:46
athletes and these coaches just did their normal season work.
13:49
There was no part of this study that manipulated any part of
13:52
what the coaches plans to do or what they asked the athlete to
13:56
do or that coach athlete relationship.
13:58
These coaches were and athletes were training and running as
14:02
they normally would in any other season.
14:05
But surprisingly, no association on any of these different
14:11
metrics and knowing behind the scenes a little bit, you sliced
14:15
and diced this a lot of different ways looking for some
14:20
nugget of impactful significant finding.
14:25
And there really wasn't one at all in duration and distance and
14:30
changes positively or negatively with the relationship of who
14:33
then went on to get an injury. Coach Wheeler, does this
14:39
surprise you? Well, first of all, I have to
14:42
say thank you 'cause maybe what you found was we're just doing a
14:46
great job as coaching, I guess. Well, one question I would have
14:54
because you did say the athletes that tended to fill out the
14:58
surveys a little more consistently had a a slightly
15:01
higher injury rate. Was there anything and it may
15:05
have been in the research, anything with were they higher
15:07
mileage or did that not vary depending on?
15:11
That's a great question. We looked into that.
15:14
I thought our compliant runners are high mileage runners and
15:17
that's why they're getting hurt. So we just couldn't kind of
15:19
split them up very well. We had a few high mileage
15:23
runners in the sample and I sort of defined that as maybe like 50
15:25
miles a week or more in the high school population.
15:28
But by and large, there's a nice spread of mileage across the
15:33
whole sample and I would say most tended to be more on the
15:37
3020 to 30 mile a week range, so a bit lower, yeah.
15:42
OK, yeah. So I mean, I guess that was my
15:46
thought initially was #1 when you look at average and
15:52
depending on team size and all that, the the training volumes
15:55
are pretty low for the high school athletes.
15:59
So you're not going to see a huge variation, I don't think,
16:02
week to week. And hopefully that does kind of,
16:05
you know, if there is that correlation between mileage and
16:08
injury risk, keep the risk low with keeping the injury levels
16:14
less. But then also you do, as you
16:17
said, you didn't see anything different with the higher
16:19
mileage athletes. So yeah, I guess that was the
16:22
thing like initially, as I said, it surprised me just because
16:25
what we're we're taught on fundamentals of training and
16:29
principles of training. But as you start to dig into the
16:33
minutiae of high school athletes and all the variation, I guess I
16:39
would say there are other factors that tend to lead to
16:43
injury increase. I would one of the ones I've
16:46
seen. And again, this is just based on
16:48
observation, not data, you know, lack of pre season training or
16:53
lack of much background in training and then, you know,
16:57
jumping in full force. Others that we've really tried
17:02
to control more recently and actually have seen a lot of
17:06
success with. I work with a physical therapist
17:09
who I go to and works with a lot of our athletes.
17:13
We've done a really more intentional job of running form
17:18
training, specific strength training.
17:21
She's starting to see a little bit with the the new super
17:23
shoes, some some issues popping up.
17:25
So just trying to be proactive and getting the kids prepared
17:28
for that. And I just saw her yesterday and
17:31
she actually said, you know, she over the last two years she's
17:34
seen a decrease of athletes visiting her for running related
17:39
injuries. So hopefully that's something
17:42
that we're doing a better job at.
17:44
But yeah, I guess in general, like after contemplating it, I
17:47
wasn't as surprised because it just seems like these other
17:52
factors and and unique individualized factors lead to
17:57
the the injuries in the athletes.
18:00
Yeah, that's one of the address. The preseason training
18:03
commentary, since I'm not sure where we'd work this and
18:05
elsewhere, so we did look at that.
18:07
Actually, that was one of the questions when the athletes
18:10
enrolled in the study was tell us about your summer training,
18:12
tell us about your running experience.
18:14
And one of the most positive outcomes that I think we found
18:18
from this study was for every essentially 5K more you run a
18:22
week. So you know, 2 to 3 miles a
18:24
week, we were seeing lower injury rates throughout the
18:27
season by about 17%. So I think that's spot on with
18:31
what you're saying of if these runners come in with more
18:34
experience or they're just not going from zero to 20 miles,
18:38
that sort of warm up period, an increase to taper leading up to
18:43
the season, I think can really benefit them and protect them
18:46
from injuries throughout the season.
18:49
That's a huge finding of five kilometers more per week, not
18:53
per run per week, led to a 17% reduction in injury risk.
18:59
So if you're an athlete out there listening, do what your
19:03
coach says and run over the summer for your cross country
19:06
season, run over the winter some for your spring track season.
19:10
Running before the season starts puts you in a much better spot
19:14
to have an enjoyable season. That's injury free.
19:19
Coach Wheeler, One of the questions that I had for you is,
19:23
is did it runners that were part of this study look like the
19:27
runners that are on your team or similar like teams?
19:30
So basically did we recruit a sample here?
19:34
Did Doctor Joe Ockham recruit a sample here that's
19:36
representative of of typical runners that these were all
19:40
Wisconsin high school runners, But how does that translate to
19:42
the runners that you have in your program in Iowa?
19:46
Yeah, I like I looked at the age range and if I was reading the
19:50
research right, was the average mileage around 20 miles a week
19:53
for females? OK.
19:55
So yeah, I would say very similar.
19:57
I mean, age obviously is the same as high school athletes the
20:02
the average mileage. And I do have my kids turn in
20:05
running logs, but as you saw with turning in the surveys, I
20:08
was like, oh, I might be happy with 37% return rate.
20:13
So I don't have hard data on that, but I, I would say our
20:17
average is probably about 20 miles.
20:19
You know, obviously our, our varsity level or higher level
20:22
kids are going to get higher mileage and, and perceived
20:26
effort. I think that would be about what
20:28
the kids would say like moderately hard.
20:31
So yes, I think it's very similar sample size to at least
20:34
the athletes I've worked with. Awesome.
20:38
But we talked about methods a little bit, but let's dive in a
20:41
little bit deeper. And Dr. Joachim, there were an
20:44
enormous number of decisions that you had to make as you were
20:47
conducting the analysis and and trying to make sense of the
20:51
results that you got from this study.
20:53
So take us behind the scenes a little bit and tell us a little
20:57
bit of why the approach that this study has is making the
21:00
most sense and why the rationale behind some of those decisions,
21:05
if you would for. Sure.
21:08
So in terms of how we acquired the data from the athletes and
21:10
it being a text survey, you know, we did have some
21:14
discussions about do we do paper logs so that we don't have any
21:16
concerns about accessibility. Maybe not everyone has a cell
21:19
phone, maybe not everyone has Internet access.
21:22
And in discussing with the schools that we recruited for
21:27
the study, no one really had concerns about that.
21:31
But we did provide paper copies if there was someone who really
21:34
wanted to be in the study that just didn't have a way to get
21:36
texted or emailed. So our goal with acquiring the
21:40
data was to meet the runners where they were at and reduce
21:43
barriers to entry. So as little paper as possible,
21:48
as little things needing to be mailed or needing to deviate
21:53
from their typical schedule. So like I mentioned before, as
21:56
much as we could, we tried to slot when the surveys were
21:59
delivered with what made sense in their day, when they would
22:02
have access to their phones and be able to reflect on the
22:05
previous day's training. I think that would be a great
22:09
improvement for future studies is we didn't have the
22:11
opportunity to tailor it on a school by school basis.
22:14
We had to do it at a study level due to some technology
22:17
constraints. So really working with the
22:19
runners and the coaches of what makes sense for your team of
22:23
when these surveys could go out. And I will note on the weekends,
22:26
we decided to have the text come out first thing in the morning
22:29
so they would get to the survey before they got completely, you
22:34
know, busy and tied up with, with their meet day logistics or
22:40
studying for an exam or doing finals or anything like that.
22:44
So we made some decisions about when to deploy the surveys to
22:47
hopefully maximize compliance when we got the data, the
22:53
spreadsheets or not for the faint of heart, that's for sure.
22:56
They were pretty long and pretty dense and just all over the
23:00
place. So we wanted to maximize the
23:04
data that we could analyze obviously, but holding people to
23:09
a really high standard of completion is impractical really
23:14
in any population, but I think particularly in adolescent
23:16
population. And then, you know, the more
23:20
strict we are in what data gets included, we lose training load
23:23
information and we also lose injuries.
23:25
And so we decided to do what we call a sensitivity analysis and
23:30
look at what the results are with different cut offs of who
23:33
we included in the study to see if we have consistency or not.
23:37
And if we do have consistency, then that increases our
23:40
confidence that our data weren't particularly biased or that the
23:44
people who were good responders versus bad responders weren't
23:47
particularly different from each other.
23:50
And thankfully that's exactly what our sensitivity analysis
23:54
showed. So when we sort of looked at the
23:56
characteristics of who are really poor compliance survey
23:59
completers were who did less than half of the surveys, they
24:02
really weren't particularly different than those who were
24:06
high compliance who did 75% or even 90% of their surveys.
24:10
So I would chalk up the injury rate difference that was a bit
24:16
higher in our runners who were really compliant to just they
24:18
did more surveys, they reported more injuries.
24:21
And there's a very real possibility that some of the
24:24
runners said, I'm hurt and I'm not running, so I don't need to
24:26
do my surveys. So there's definitely an
24:29
education piece that I think if we could have been in person
24:32
with the runners a little bit more and not during COVID, that
24:36
would be an obvious improvement that we would expect.
24:40
So both on the data acquisition side and making some decisions
24:43
about how to best engage with that population during that
24:46
season and that phase of all of our lives.
24:49
And then on the back end of just how to best represent the data
24:52
and maximize it without skewing our results or telling an
24:56
inaccurate story because of decisions we made.
24:59
So I mean, I think if you ever are satisfied at the end of a
25:03
research study, you probably are not reflecting very well or
25:07
maybe aren't doing things the right way.
25:09
There's a million things I would change with this study, but I'm
25:12
really pleased with where we landed and the decisions that we
25:14
made in terms of telling an accurate story based on what we
25:17
had at the time. So that's that's kind of a great
25:22
inside peek at the reality of doing field based research with
25:26
with athletes. Coach Wheeler, take us the
25:28
inside of the operational side of a of a high school team.
25:34
What are the real world challenges you face when you're
25:37
trying to record training volumes at either the individual
25:41
level, at the athlete specific level, or at the team level?
25:45
Yeah. Well, and even I think, and this
25:47
was mentioned in the research like what is a running relating
25:51
injury? That's and I teach PE, high
25:55
school PE as well. So we see this a little bit in
25:57
class, but sometimes the mildest thing is an injury and sometimes
26:03
a kid will run through a broken leg and not report it.
26:06
So you know, and I know you guys use the I believe it was 7 days.
26:10
I had to adjust. But again, if that's based on
26:14
the athletes perspective, that could be skewed.
26:18
Yeah, I think kind of, as you mentioned, you know, you guys
26:21
said because of COVID you weren't able to be with the
26:23
athletes like in person. So that is where, like I said,
26:28
again, that art of coaching comes in hand in hand.
26:31
There's, you know, the, the inside of working with high
26:36
school athletes is just a million questions, a million
26:41
thoughts, hundreds of different kids with hundreds of different
26:45
needs. So it's very important.
26:50
As I mentioned, you have to plant, you know, we, we have a,
26:54
a long term plan based on science or experience, but then
27:02
you just know that that's gonna change minute to minute
27:05
day-to-day with the kids. And similar to what the doctor
27:09
said about compliance in responding, we've tried
27:14
different things over the years as far as reporting mileage,
27:18
reporting intensity of training. You know, there's a lot of
27:24
online running logs now. So Estrava is probably the most
27:26
popular I hear with the high school kids.
27:29
So a lot of our athletes will use that.
27:32
I haven't required that. I know our boys team does and
27:35
has liked that. So that might be something in
27:38
the future because it's pretty user friendly for the kids,
27:41
works in their schedule. As you mentioned.
27:43
I started during COVID like an aunt, like an online log that I
27:47
created for the kids just because it got a little more
27:50
into some of the outside factors other than just mileage and and
27:54
training. And so again, not great
27:57
consistency with the kids turning those in, but I like
28:00
those in the summer just because the kids I'm not seeing in the
28:04
summer I at least have some kind of connection with.
28:08
And then in the season, it's just a lot of communication.
28:12
I'm actually presenting in Minnesota this summer for the
28:15
coaches clinic there. And that's my theme is, you
28:18
know, how to improve communication with your athletes
28:20
to help them improve performance.
28:24
So, yeah, just trying to set up things within parameters to
28:29
begin with, incentivizing as best you can.
28:32
I was, I was like, you know, if we could offer money to high
28:34
school kids that might improve response rates.
28:38
But just building those relationships as as teachers and
28:43
coaches know is huge to just help get to know your kids and
28:46
and be able to adjust to what they need.
28:51
Yeah, One of the things that I've noticed with high school
28:54
teams and I've, I've had the good fortune of being present
28:56
for research activities like at the start of practices for a lot
29:00
of different times in the high school model.
29:03
It's very much a coach says we're doing this for a workout
29:06
today and then the athlete follows that instruction and
29:09
that directive. And while you're open to back
29:12
and forth, it's really just not an agent stage where the runners
29:15
experienced enough to really participate in the planning of
29:18
their own training yet. And so it very much as a coach
29:22
writes and plans and says, this is our workout and the athlete
29:25
executes that. So when an injury arises,
29:29
especially the type that most runners get where they're able
29:31
to do some running, they're just not maybe not to do as much
29:34
running as they otherwise would. I see these conversations occur
29:39
with lightning fast pace in the 1st 1015 minutes of practice
29:43
where the coach gets bombarded by athletes of like hey coach,
29:46
I'm feeling this or this is going on, what should I do?
29:50
And then the coach responds And in the coach athlete
29:53
relationship in high school, that doesn't even feel like a
29:56
training modification to the coach or the athlete and they're
29:58
occurring so fast. How could you ever keep track?
30:02
I think that's a great point too.
30:04
And one thing that we thought may explain some of our findings
30:07
is running is such a unique sport where you can make these
30:11
incremental changes that may not reflect on the week to week
30:15
level. That could have some really
30:17
significant implications for maintaining the health of the
30:20
athlete as opposed to even in our sprinting events and track.
30:24
If they're not 100%, they can't go, they cannot complete their
30:28
task in terms of running. Really if they have a hamstring
30:31
injury, they are out. You cannot Sprint through a
30:33
hamstring injury. If you're a soccer player who
30:36
tore your ACL, you cannot go. You cannot play with the ACL
30:40
without an ACL rather. And so I do think exactly what
30:44
you mentioned of these small day-to-day tweaks and in the
30:47
moment decisions, one, they're not perceived as a training
30:49
deviation. And two, when you zoom out to
30:52
the week to week level, that may be happening on some level every
30:56
single week. And so we're just not able to
30:59
accurately quantify how those decisions led to an injury
31:03
reduction or prevented an injury.
31:06
Yeah, it's that great work that coaches are doing.
31:08
So the athlete gets like a little bit of tightness in Rep 6
31:12
and the coach says, all right, no reason to risk it on Rep
31:15
seven and eight. You're done for the day, you've
31:17
had good work, we'll see you tomorrow.
31:19
And it's a training modification relative to the pre established
31:23
plan. But I would think most of us say
31:25
that's good training and if it prevents injury, we'll never
31:28
know because it never makes that you got injured category.
31:32
Right. And doing that study would be so
31:34
impractical. I think the coaches, I would
31:36
drive them nuts asking for their training plans and asking them
31:38
to note every deviation from the training plan.
31:40
So we're not there yet, but I do think that's a really strong
31:44
influence on these data. It's just the coaches,
31:47
day-to-day management of these runners and their flexibility in
31:50
training. Well-being involved in this?
31:53
Go ahead doc. I just, I mean, when you brought
31:58
that up again, something I hadn't thought about because I
32:00
was like, we do that constantly, but it is a training
32:04
modification. And I do think too thinking
32:08
about my coaching career, you know, at the beginning you're a
32:10
little more black and white. You're worried about we've got
32:12
to do this. And as you get experience, you
32:15
learn to tweak and you learn to be more flexible.
32:17
And you know, that's OK. And I think Kenny and I've
32:20
talked a lot about, I think coaching education, just with
32:23
access to resources has gotten so much better that coaches are
32:28
knowing all these different ways to train, ways to, I mean, we
32:32
modify within all our training groups in one practice,
32:36
depending on their mileage, their even sometimes preferred
32:41
training methods. I mean, I have kids.
32:44
I used to never want to do this. Like, oh, you know what, what
32:48
makes the kid feel ready? But I notice it more from a
32:52
performance standpoint. Like if a kid believes in a
32:55
certain type of training, they're going to perform better,
32:58
but that may even correlate a little bit to injury if it feels
33:01
better for them and they're they really believe in that training.
33:04
I mean, they're less likely to to go into an area that their
33:08
body, you know, isn't prepared for.
33:12
That makes total sense. I'm a physical therapist and
33:16
involved in the training of physical therapists at, at our
33:18
graduate program here at the University of Wisconsin.
33:20
And our field has done a lot of work on what makes a new
33:24
clinician eventually turn into an expert clinician.
33:27
And it really mirrors the story that you just said early in your
33:30
career. You had to write it out and
33:31
follow your program and you didn't have the confidence or,
33:35
or the experience or all the other little things that go into
33:38
deviating from the pre established plan that you made
33:41
the night before. Now, as an expert coach, you
33:44
have a much greater comfort level for all sorts of really
33:47
small but impactful reasons changing honestly minute to
33:51
minute. And so you've hit the expert
33:54
status in coaching as we would look at it in physical therapy
33:57
practice. So I think maybe you just hit
33:58
the light bulb there of there's a, there's a progression through
34:02
coaching education, but also coaching experience that
34:04
explains the development of of coaches over time.
34:09
Probably more old lady status versus actually I've been around
34:14
long enough. All right.
34:17
So we really want to give the listeners some, you know, like
34:22
reconcilable points here. And this study, the title gave
34:28
it away in that like there's not an association between weekly
34:32
changes in weekly running volume and injury.
34:35
So let's start with this. In the running community, the
34:37
10% rule is often cited. I hear that a lot and runners of
34:42
all ages. And so that the 10% rule for our
34:46
audience, if they don't know, is that you change your weekly
34:49
mileage by 10% from a week to week change.
34:54
So where does that come from and why should we like reconsider
35:00
that standard based on the results that we have in this
35:03
study? Well, I think 10% just sounds
35:06
nice at face value and we see that everywhere in sports
35:10
medicine research, right? 10% strength asymmetries, 10%
35:14
loss and whatever gain and whatever.
35:16
So it just sounds nice. It also makes the math quite
35:18
easy. And so I think it's a
35:21
recommendation that's just easy to digest and easy to use.
35:26
I see it a lot in research as a way to cut groups of runners
35:32
like those who went under 10 or over 10%.
35:36
But more of the empirical data actually says a higher change is
35:40
fine from an injury perspective. I yeah, I think it's just it
35:46
airs on the side of being conservative and it sounds nice.
35:49
This is the truthful answer. Coach Wheeler, what are your
35:56
thoughts on that 10% rule and especially now adding in the new
36:02
knowledge that we gained from this study that changes in
36:04
weekly volume weren't really associated with injury and the
36:08
the explanatory factor of who gets injured and who doesn't is
36:12
something else. Well, first of all, it made me
36:19
think about when you said 10% sounds nice.
36:23
The recent professional development we had in teaching,
36:27
you know it talked about because we've talked about standards
36:29
based grading versus just percentage grading and that was
36:35
one of the points of the speaker was 10.
36:37
Why do we go 90807060 for grades like just easy math.
36:43
So yeah, I would agree there may be just some the convenience of
36:46
it. Number one, I think 10% when
36:49
you're working with the lower volume training loads we have
36:53
with especially some of our beginning high school athletes,
36:56
that's so minuscule that yes, we can go higher #2 again, as we
37:02
mentioned, the kids aren't great.
37:05
I'm keeping track of that stuff. Just from a management
37:07
standpoint of a large team, I'm not great.
37:10
So I'll be honest, I don't know if we're even doing that
37:13
perfectly with each kid. And it.
37:16
Yeah, I think it goes back to more just #1 making sure they're
37:20
ready for the training you need with that pre season or, or
37:24
introductory work. And then those minutia in
37:29
training changes as you progress through the season based on what
37:33
the athlete needs. And I, you know, it did just
37:38
reading this and and showing that lack of correlation, you
37:42
know, it makes you realize like, oh, OK, it's I don't want to
37:45
push the limit too much, but we can push the limit in more
37:48
because we haven't seen athletes breaking down with those
37:51
increases. I think that's a great point
37:53
too. I'm also not like advocating for
37:55
a 50% increase week to week just because we found nothing, right,
37:59
like our changes tended to be. The changes we observed in the
38:02
study tended to be, you know, maybe 30% changes or less on
38:07
average across the whole sample. And so I would say we have not
38:12
evaluated the impact of major significant increases in mileage
38:18
because that just wasn't well represented.
38:20
So I think yeah, the take home would be our typical changes
38:25
that we're seeing 30% or less are fine and 50% or more I, I
38:30
don't know that I could advocate for based on our data.
38:34
When it even gets a little bit into the I'm curious, I do want
38:37
to read your psychosocial data. Just I mean the enjoyment of if,
38:42
if the intensity of the training is too high or the volume, kids
38:45
that are busy in high school to begin with, like they're going
38:48
to lose that motivation. Yeah, well, we're definitely, I,
38:53
I definitely have big plans to highlight that paper in a future
38:56
Science on Track episode. So TuneIn later we'll be here
39:00
talking about how those lifestyle factors in this
39:03
athlete behaviors do and don't contribute to running related
39:08
injuries. So I think that's really kind of
39:11
an important thing for the audience to highlight.
39:13
Like one of our goals here is, is so that the audience at the
39:15
end of the show, like feels like they have something actionable,
39:18
not just we told them what doesn't work or what isn't true,
39:21
but like that we actually give some good advice.
39:23
And we have this rare opportunity with a researcher
39:25
and a coach in the same Zoom room here recording this.
39:29
So I think that it needs to be said like these were normal
39:34
coach, athlete, team based cross country environments.
39:37
So what we are seeing is that these increases were up to 30%
39:41
and even that was on the high end a week to week change.
39:44
There weren't too many instances where training changes went
39:48
above that 30% week to week change.
39:50
So modest and reasonable amounts of changing training change.
39:55
And then the other thing is like on average, these athletes
39:58
weren't running any nor enormous amount.
40:01
And if we looked a little deeper, we didn't have too many
40:04
instances of really high mileage runners.
40:06
It doesn't sound like the 5060 miles per week, but their week
40:09
to week change like that. The magnitude and number of
40:11
miles change was probably smaller than those runners that
40:15
started the season at 10 miles per week and then went up to 20
40:20
or 25 at some point in the season.
40:22
So I think there's we should probably comment on sound
40:27
coaching knowledge and good practice that went into the the
40:30
details that probably weren't visible on average but were
40:35
visual in the individual cases. Absolutely.
40:40
And so Coach Wheeler, how either how will you use this
40:48
information or how do you think that coaches should use this
40:52
information as they move forward into say the next fall season
40:56
and planning for their training progressions and their athlete
41:00
development plans? Yeah, I would say, I mean #1 it
41:05
kind of reiterates that the current model seems to be
41:10
working. As far as injury prevention #2
41:15
and I know it wasn't this study or well, I think it was a part
41:18
of this study looking at the preseason or the work ahead.
41:21
The importance of that, like when you said, when you saw that
41:24
17% decrease in injury, that's that's huge.
41:27
So that helps coaches, number one, if they don't have an
41:31
offseason program to make sure they develop that that is
41:35
accessible to the kids and #2 use that as a motivation for the
41:39
athletes. You know, just kind of from a a
41:43
story standpoint, we notice cross country, it's much easier
41:47
to get our kids with their offseason training because it's
41:50
summer. They're a little more, there's a
41:51
little more time. The weather's better depending
41:54
on the heat versus track season. We've had to modify how we've
41:58
done our offseason track work just because it's during school
42:02
year, the weather, kids are busy and with other stuff.
42:05
And as we've modified it to be more accessible to the athlete,
42:09
we've seen better outcomes not only in performance, but
42:12
decreased injury. So just using those kind of
42:15
common sense things and then as you mentioned, being willing to
42:20
change those small things of training to help prevent the
42:23
injury of the athlete. Yeah, that's one of those
42:26
coaching challenges, right? Figuring out the concept and
42:29
working within the constraints that you have, but meeting the
42:32
right size, right fit solution for your circumstances.
42:36
And what works for you at at Pleasant Valley in the summer
42:39
isn't the same thing that works for you at Pleasant Valley in
42:41
the winter season when students are in school and have other
42:46
sports or activities or obligations and you're in Iowa.
42:50
The training in the winter in Iowa is, is like Wisconsin, not
42:54
a whole lot of fun. I would much rather run in June,
42:58
July and August than December, January and February.
43:04
But those, those small differences and I guess we'll
43:08
just sort of give a state of knowledge that the growing body
43:12
of knowledge about strength training and its role in injury
43:15
prevention for distance runners is, is really becoming much more
43:19
robust and much more nuanced. Not just go to the weight room
43:22
and lift some stuff, but really like what types of neuromuscular
43:26
muscular bone development training do you do in your
43:30
strength training program to minimize your risk for injury?
43:34
There's, there's lots of evolving stuff.
43:36
Now some of that comes in the adult and collegiate runners,
43:41
but I, I have good knowledge of the, the workers of research in
43:47
pediatric and youth running across the country.
43:49
And we got some people that are chipping away at understanding
43:52
that better Doctor Joachim and myself being being two of them.
43:58
So, Doctor Joachim, any other things that you think that
44:02
coaches should know and use about this study as they prepare
44:06
for their upcoming season? Yeah.
44:08
I think the big take home from our overarching study of all of
44:14
the data that we collected is that injuries are not any one
44:18
thing for any one runner. And that creates an incredible
44:22
amount of work for coaches that they already have so much on
44:25
their plates. But really carving time out to
44:28
understand where your runners are at.
44:30
Are they stressed because of school?
44:33
Are they stressed because of family things?
44:35
Are they what other activities are they doing?
44:38
And that may be protective to a point, and then they may be
44:41
completely overloaded. I know we had some athletes in
44:43
this study who were playing soccer and running cross country
44:45
at the same time. And so just being understanding
44:49
of maybe they don't get their training load from distance
44:53
running, but they're getting it in other areas.
44:55
And so holistically, how are they doing and how are they
44:59
meeting the goals that they're setting for themselves and that
45:02
you want for them for the season?
45:05
And then I mean, kind of unrelated to the take home
45:07
points, but like you mentioned, a lot of researchers are wanting
45:11
to work and engage with adolescent runners specifically.
45:15
I think we're really interested in this population because we
45:18
feel like this is a problem that we can solve if we just get
45:21
enough data and get enough collaborations.
45:23
And so, you know, as we look ahead and look for how we can
45:27
continue to serve this population, if coaches can just
45:30
be open to researchers, and there will be researchers who
45:34
come in and maybe don't do the things the right way, they're
45:37
not willing to learn about your program or integrate.
45:41
But the good researchers really do want this to be a
45:43
collaboration and a partnership. And we really genuinely are
45:46
trying to help. We're not trying to poke holes
45:49
in your training plans. We're not trying to identify bad
45:51
practices or call anyone out. Like, we want to keep these
45:55
runners healthy because we think that it'll keep them healthy
45:59
throughout their whole life as they just progress through
46:01
adolescence and into adulthood, right?
46:03
Like, we know that the biggest reason that people become
46:06
inactive is because of injury or because of loss of interest in
46:09
sport. And so if we as researchers can
46:12
engage with the adolescent running community and make some
46:16
moves in that area, I think it just makes us all healthier
46:20
longer, whether you're a collegiate runner or you're just
46:22
someone that wants to stay active or chase your kids
46:24
around. And so I just wanted to leave
46:27
everyone with that from my side. And, and I'm sure Evan, you
46:30
would echo this as well as just researchers that really want to
46:32
do things the right way and genuinely help.
46:35
Anything coaches can do to be open and demonstrate to their
46:38
runners. This is valuable.
46:40
And this is a really great opportunity and it's going to
46:42
help just the running community. We could really make some good
46:47
strides towards dealing with injury and improving performance
46:50
and kind of all the questions coaches have if we can just
46:53
create partnerships rather than just dropping a research study
46:56
in and kind of zooming back out. Yes, absolutely.
46:59
If you want to understand my thoughts and motivations, just
47:02
click rewind and listen to that all over again because it is
47:05
100% why I'm in this game and and doing this work.
47:10
Coach Wheeler, as we wrap it up for today, I want to give you
47:13
the floor and the opportunity to give your recommendations and
47:17
insights to those of us that are involved in youth running
47:20
research. What would you like to see us
47:22
do, do differently, do better to better understand factors that
47:27
contributes to injury or just generally make a better
47:32
experience? How can we do this research
47:34
better? Yeah.
47:35
Well, and I think as you mentioned, we appreciate you
47:39
doing that research because an area that you know hasn't been
47:42
touched that much and can make a huge difference to the kid at
47:46
the time. But then even as they go beyond,
47:50
I think it sounds like you've done some of the things I was
47:53
pondering, like looking at pre season or running history,
47:57
looking at the psychosocial factors.
48:01
And you hit the nail on the head again with saying injury.
48:05
We can't pinpoint usually, especially at this age to one or
48:08
two factors. It's, it's very multifactorial.
48:12
I, I mean, I'm curious like I'm always wanting to learn.
48:16
And I think, as you said, I hope coaches and researchers want to
48:20
have this continued partnership because it just helps each
48:23
other. You know what, as I mentioned a
48:27
few questions ago with the new super shoes, there's been a lot
48:30
of questions with how's that affecting kids?
48:34
Are they ready for it? Do they need to do things to be
48:36
ready for those? Is it good long term to use them
48:40
quite often in training? A really sciency thing here in
48:46
Iowa, we have a trainer who's doing a lot with VLA Max and how
48:51
that affects athletes and their performance in particular.
48:55
So just any research in that right now, a lot of it you have
48:59
to do in a lab with blood tests. So if this data is is helpful to
49:04
athletes, can we make it accessible to coaches and teams?
49:09
But yeah, I think just anything in general you're looking at to
49:13
what is affecting the adolescent athlete slash runner that can be
49:17
positive and helpful to us as we get them at the high school
49:20
level, we would appreciate. Awesome.
49:25
Any last thoughts for our audience from either of our
49:27
guests today? I could probably talk on this
49:31
for another 3 hours, but we'll hold off hopefully.
49:34
We kept it, kept it compact and digestible.
49:38
Yeah, what we want to keep this in the time frame of a of a
49:42
commute to and from work for, for many people, if you're lucky
49:46
enough to have a short commute, maybe it's a week worth of
49:48
commutes to and from work. But we're trying to keep it
49:51
consolidated, condensed and and reasonably on topic.
49:54
But that's it's hard to keep our motivation in check when we're
49:56
talking about youth running because it's something that
49:59
we're all very passionate about. Well, audience, thanks a lot for
50:02
joining us today. We really hope you appreciated
50:04
this episode of Velocity Projects Science on Track, or we
50:08
talked about the paper week to week change and training.
50:10
We're not prospectively associated with injuries among
50:13
Wisconsin high school cross country runners.
50:15
Dr. Joachim, the lead author on this paper, joined us.
50:18
We really appreciate the thoughts and comments from Coach
50:20
Jane Wheeler from Pleasant Valley High School in
50:22
Bettendorf, IA. The paper can be found in our
50:25
show notes. If you want to view, find a link
50:28
to the whole text article. But otherwise, we hope to have
50:33
you back soon to listen to another episode of Science on
50:36
Track. Thanks for joining us.
50:39
The Velocity Project mission is to minimize injury, enhance
50:41
performance, and optimize the athlete experience for high
50:44
school track and field athletes. Leave us a comment if you found
50:48
this episode helpful. Subscribe or follow Science on
50:51
Track and your favorite podcast player to know when new episodes
50:54
drop. You can follow us and the work
50:57
we do on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or our project website
51:01
whichisvelocityproject.fammed.whisk.edu. Velocity Project supported by
51:08
the University of Wisconsin Madison Dr. of Physical Therapy
51:11
program. The views and opinions expressed
51:13
are those of the individuals and do not represent the University
51:16
of Wisconsin.