High School vs. Club Team: The Dangers of the Dual-Coaching Model
The Hidden Risks of Dual Coaching for High School Runners
The landscape of high school distance running has changed. What used to be a seasonal activity has morphed into a high-stakes, year-round industry. With high school times dropping to historic lows, it’s natural for parents and athletes to look for an edge. For many, that edge looks like the private sector: hiring private coaches or joining competitive club teams.
We know the intention is good—you want to improve, get faster, and maybe chase a scholarship. However, a specific problem arises when an athlete tries to serve two masters: the High School Coach and the Private Club Coach.
This is the Dual-Coaching Dilemma. While it promises optimization, it often creates a “friction point” that can hurt performance and health. Based on a comprehensive analysis of physiology and sports psychology, and my own experience working with distance athletes that have tried to run for a club team and their high school team concurrently, here is why adding a second coach requires extreme caution.
1. The Body: The Myth of “More is Better”
The most immediate risk is physical. Your body acts as a singular unit; it doesn’t have separate buckets for “School Stress” and “Club Stress.” It simply registers the total load. As a coach, my job is to administer a precise dose of stress—enough to stimulate physiological adaptation, but not so much that it overwhelms the body’s ability to repair itself. How can I account for what I don’t know about?
The Math of Injury
Sports scientists use the Acute Chronic Workload Ratio (ACWR) to predict injury. This compares how much you are doing this week versus your average over the last four weeks.
- The Safe Zone: A ratio between 0.8 and 1.3.
- The Danger Zone: A ratio above 1.5.
When a private coach adds a session—or intensifies one—without knowing exactly what you did at school practice, your acute load spikes. Research shows that increasing your load by more than 15% week-over-week increases injury risk by nearly 50%.
The “Bridge” Analogy
Think of your body’s durability as a bridge.
- Chronic Workload (The Pillars): The training you have done over the last 4 weeks builds the pillars of the bridge. It determines how much weight the structure can hold.
- Acute Workload (The Truck): The training you do this week is the truck driving over that bridge.
The Scenario: If you have built pillars strong enough to support a pickup truck (30 miles a week), and suddenly a private coach drives an 18-wheeler (50 miles a week) over that bridge, the structure will collapse. It doesn’t matter how good the driver is; the bridge simply wasn’t built yet to hold that weight.
The Recovery Gap
Running makes you faster after the workout, during recovery as your body rebuilds itself to meet the new demands of training. If you are training hard for your high school coach on Tuesday, and then doing a “Threshold” workout for a club coach on Wednesday, you have eliminated the recovery gap and unknowingly sabotaged your own progression. Even more detrimental, both coaches will then adjust your training thinking that it was their workout that pushed you too far.
| Day | High School Plan | Club Coach Plan | Consequence |
| Wednesday | Hard Intervals | Off | High Stress (Good) |
| Thursday | Recovery Run | Club Tempo Run | Accumulated Fatigue |
| Friday | Moderate Run | Off | Moderate effort feels Max |
| Saturday | RACE | “Dead Legs” | Underperformance |
The result isn’t just being tired; it’s Overtraining Syndrome. This can mimic illness, causing lethargy and depression because your immune system is chronically suppressed.
2. The Mind: Paralysis by Analysis
Distance running is a motor skill that requires flow. When you have two coaches giving conflicting advice, you lose that flow.
- Conflicting Cues: If Coach A says “land on your midfoot” and Coach B says “stay on your toes,” your brain has to consciously process every step. You stop running naturally and start “overthinking” your stride.
- Too Many Voices: Imagine a race where your High School coach told you to “sit and kick,” but your Club coach told you to “go out hard for a fast time.” In the heat of the race, you hesitate. That split-second hesitation drains your mental energy.
The “Middleman” Stress: Perhaps most unfairly, the athlete is caught in the middle. You are forced to negotiate schedules, explain absences (“I have to leave early for club”), and justify fatigue. This forces a teenager to mediate conflict between two adults, which is a significant predictor of burnout.
3. The Team: “Fractured Focus”
High school cross country and track & field are unique: they are individual efforts that result in a collective outcome. While you run on your own two feet, the “Pack” is your greatest competitive advantage.
The Science of “Social Facilitation” Psychologists call it social facilitation—the proven phenomenon where performance improves simply by doing an activity alongside others.
- Shared Suffering: The bond formed through shared grueling workouts is the strongest glue in sports. When you are hurting with 800 meters to go, you don’t dig deep for a split on a stopwatch; you dig deep because the teammate on your shoulder is hurting just as much, and you refuse to let them down.
- The Safety Net: The team is your emotional buffer. If you have a bad race, the team lifts you up. If you are injured, the team keeps you engaged.
The Dual-Coaching Disconnect When an athlete adopts a private coaching plan, they sever this invisible tether. By skipping the team cool-down to rush to a private session, or running a different workout than the rest of the squad, the athlete is saying “My individual goals are more important than our shared struggle.”
When the pressure mounts in a championship race, the runner who fights for their team almost always outlasts the runner who is only fighting for themselves. As a coach, it is very important to me that all team members establish their identity as “team first” athletes and a member of the same tribe. Social and group dynamics will make or break a team.
4. The Future: Microwave vs. Slow Cooker
Private coaching is a business. To keep clients, coaches often feel pressure to produce fast results. This leads to the “Microwave” approach: high-intensity speed work that makes you fast now but fragile later. This short sighted approach will undoubtedly result in burnout or injury and a plateau in results.
Elite endurance is a “Slow Cooker” process. It relies on volume built over years and tremendous patience and understanding of endurance training philosophy. Research on elite junior athletes reveals a sobering statistic: Less than 20% of top-ranked U18 athletes maintain that elite status into their collegiate careers.
Success at 15 is a poor predictor of success at 25. Pushing a teenager to train like a pro often burns out the engine before it is fully built and takes the fun out of the sport.
5. How to Decide: Club or No Club?
We know you want to get better, and not all private instruction is bad. But it must be structured correctly. Athletes should never be running workouts or racing with their club during the competitive high school season. If this situation arises the solution is simple: pick one or the other.
The Red Flags (Stop Immediately):
- Secrecy: If you feel you have to hide the extra coaching from your high school coach.
- Direct Conflict: The private coach writes a plan that ignores your school workouts.
- The “Savior” Complex: The private coach bad-mouths your school program to gain your trust.
The Green Flags (The Consultant Model):
If you are going to hire outside help, use them for things that do not add physiological fatigue:
- Sports Psychology
- Sports Nutrition
- Physical Therapy, Chiropractic & Massage Work
The Solution: There can only be one driver of the car. If a second driver tries to grab the wheel or press the gas, a crash is inevitable. If you decide to engage a private coach, verify that they are willing to collaborate rather than compete. Success requires that they respect the high school program’s expectations and maintain a direct, transparent line of communication with your high school coach.
