High school athletic seasons last on average three months. This statistic does not include pre-season conditioning. High school athletes often find themselves in three seasons in the school year, fall, winter, spring. Bring in post-season competition and these seasons overlap. High school athletics consists of every day practice or competition, including Saturdays. On top of that, a majority of high school athletes compete in a club sport with just as much intensity, if not more, sometimes at the same time as a high school season. Morning workouts can also be popular depending on the coach.
Within this current routine, student-athletes are only allotted Sunday as a day of recovery. Pressure from coaches and performance push athletes into not resting, especially in the case of runners.
“The only pressure to push myself during easy days normally comes from teammates,” cross country and track athlete Carson Shepard said.
Routine is the best way to train the mind into taking rest days without the fear of losing fitness. A mind in routine will be ready to compete.
“Normally we have a workout on Monday, which is pretty high intensity,” Shepard said, “then Tuesday, we normally have just an easy run. Wednesday, some little bit lighter of a workout [than Monday]. Thursday, Friday, just easy, long distance. And then Saturday is normally meet day. Sunday is rest day.”
A rest day allows the muscles to rebuild. During exercise, muscles experience microscopic tears and inflammation, according to Dr. Karin VanBaak of Colorado University. Continuing periods of exercise only increases the amount of tears and inflammation that will eventually lead to full muscle tears and heavy fatigue. Allowing the muscles to relax will reduce fatigue and allow the microscopic tears to heal on a cellular level.
In this reporter’s experience as a dual sport, state-competing, athlete, the struggle to take a rest day is real and took
until my senior year of high school to understand the benefits of a rest day. Exercise effects act as a snowball effect; frequency of microscopic tears and level of fatigue increase exponentially. Muscle tears and fatigue make it even harder to perform at the level expected and the athlete believes that increased training will overcome this block. After a season and a half of taking routine rest days, performances are aligning with expectations.
One day of rest, however, is not enough for an athlete to perform at the highest level. More than one day of rest is impossible in the current situations of student-athletes, but it is a multi-layered effort. Eating, sleeping and stretching habits are imperative for a well-maintained athlete. Junk in is junk out. It would be harmful to expect a body to perform with processed foods on four hours of sleep. Caffeine is not enough to accelerate the body into performance.
Student-athletes need to go above the considered normal amount of calories and sleep of a normal athlete. According to UC Health, sedentary teenagers need 1200 to 2400 calories a day to maintain a healthy body, while active teens need 2000 to 3000 or more calories. The most active teens need 5000 calories a day. These calorie numbers are based on beneficial calories, the fewer ingredients the better and a balance between carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and fats. All of which serve to rebuild and maintain the body.
According to TeensHealth, teens need at least 8 to 10 hours of sleep without any physical activity. While the Sleep Doctor recommends more based on intensity, because sleep is the factory reset of muscles in the slow wave sleep. In slow wave sleep, the body produces growth hormones that repair muscles and bones. The need for increased sleep is to get to this cycle, which is the last cycle to be achieved. The best way to routinely reach this level is to have a routine sleep schedule.
The best way to perform at the highest level is to establish a regular sleep schedule that allows the proper number of sleep hours. Eat the proper amount of healthy calories appropriate for body type and level of activity.
“If you don’t get a rest day, you can’t recover, which means you can’t improve,” Shepard said.
