The Secret to Injury-Free Summer Training
Published July 16, 2025
It's the middle of July and you're right in the thick of summer training season.
If you’re like most coaches, you’re dealing with the classic July challenge: some kids are showing up every day ready to work, while others are hit-or-miss with family vacations, summer jobs, and the general distractions that come with being a teenager in July.
Here’s the thing—this inconsistent attendance actually creates a perfect opportunity to focus on what really matters for building a championship-caliber team come September. While you can’t control who shows up on any given day, you can absolutely control what happens when they do show up. And that’s where the magic happens.
The Foundation: Building Their Attention Span for Hard Work
In my book Consistency Is Key, I talk about one of the most undervalued skills in distance running: building your attention span for hard work. This isn’t about grinding through painful workouts—it’s about teaching your athletes to stay mentally engaged and physically committed throughout an entire training session.
Think about it this way: your kids need to be able to focus for 16-22 minutes during a 5K cross country race. But if they can’t stay mentally locked in during a 40-60-80 minute training session, how are they going to be able to focus on race day when the stakes are higher?
The best way to build this attention span isn’t through longer runs or harder workouts. It’s through creating training sessions where athletes must stay focused from the very first minute of the warm-up through the very last exercise of their post-run work. No breaks. No chatting with friends between segments. Just sustained, purposeful effort.
The Method: Strengthen the Chassis Immediately After Running
Here’s where most coaches miss a huge opportunity. The moment your athletes finish their run, their instinct is to rest, grab water, and socialize. But that’s exactly when you need to transition them immediately into their post-run strengthening work.
I call this “strengthening the chassis”—the bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia that support their running. This isn’t optional work that can be done “when we have time.” It’s essential work that needs to happen every single day they run.
But here’s the key: it has to happen immediately after the run.
Unless temperatures are extremely high and unsafe, we’re going to skip the water break and go straight into the post-run work. No 5-minute break. No sitting around. The second they finish their last stride, they need to be moving into their chassis-strengthening routine.
Why?
Because this is where you’re building that attention span for hard work. When they’re already tired from running, when they want to be done, when every instinct tells them to rest—that’s when you’re teaching them to dig deeper and stay focused. This mental skill will pay huge dividends when they’re hurting in the last mile of a race and need to find another gear.
The Magic: Extending the Aerobic Stimulus
Now here’s where things get really interesting. When you have your athletes go straight from their run into 15-25 minutes of challenging post-run work, you’re doing something most coaches never even consider: you’re extending the aerobic stimulus.
Instead of getting, say, 45 minutes of elevated heart rate from a 45-minute run, you’re now getting 60+ minutes of elevated heart rate from that same 45-minute run plus the post-run work. Their cardiovascular system is still working hard during those squats, lunges, and core exercises. You’re building their aerobic engine without adding more pounding to their legs.
This is one of the key reasons my XC Training System keeps kids healthy while also leading to greater fitness come September 1st than they’ve ever had. They don’t get injured because the actual running volume is manageable, yet the amount of time their heart rate is elevated is much higher than they’ve ever experienced. It’s like getting the benefits of a 10-mile run from an 8-mile run—but with less injury risk.
Your Action Plan for the Rest of July
Here are three things you can do right now to set your team up for their best season yet:
1. Learn About Extending the Aerobic Stimulus
You’ve got time in July that you won’t have once August hits. Take advantage of that time and dive deep into understanding why this approach works.
I’ve put together a comprehensive article that explains the science behind extending the aerobic stimulus, complete with specific examples of how to structure these sessions. You can also watch the accompanying video that breaks down the entire system.
The article shows you exactly how to get 12-mile benefits from 10-mile runs, and more importantly, why this approach keeps kids injury-free while building bigger aerobic engines than traditional training methods.
2. Get Your Athletes Set Up with Post-Run Routines
Your athletes need to be able to do this work whether you’re at practice, at a camp, or when they’re training on their own during vacation. That’s why I’ve made all the post-run routines available for free on athletes’ phones.
At the link below link your athletes can access all the post-run routines, from the basic “Red Easy” sessions for beginners to the challenging “Orange Hard” routines for your top kids. They can also print out PDFs with all the exercises so they have everything they need.
The routines are color-coded and progressive, so every athlete on your team can work at their appropriate level while still getting the benefits of extending that aerobic stimulus.
3. Get Your Team on the Same Page
Coaches throughout the country are using Consistency Is Key to communicate these training principles to their athletes. Sometimes there are points in the evolution of a program where it’s really helpful to have voices outside of you and your coaching staff telling these kids what they need to do to become excellent runners.
The book covers everything from building aerobic engines to race strategy to mental skills, all written specifically for high school athletes. You can get deply discounted books when you buy in bulk or send your kids to this link to get some free chapters.
Help Me Create Something Special for You
I’m putting together a comprehensive resource for coaches, parents, and athletes about three critical areas: mental skills, nutrition, and the recruiting process.
If you have questions about any of these areas, please send them to [email protected].
I’ll respond to every question in the next week or two, and there’s a very good chance I’ll include your question in the resource I’m creating this month, which will be available next month. Whether you’re dealing with an athlete who struggles with pre-race nerves, parents who don’t understand proper fueling, or questions about the college recruiting timeline, I want to help.
A Final Thought About July
This is a tricky time of year. You need kids training consistently if you want a good cross country team this fall, but you should still make sure you’re getting some downtime before things get hectic in August. Once we hit August, you’ve got to be locked in for August, September, October, and possibly November.
If you need to take some days here and there away from your team, do it now. But when you are with your athletes, make every session count. Build their attention span for hard work. Extend that aerobic stimulus. Strengthen their chassis.
The teams that figure this out in July are the ones celebrating in November.
Let's go!
Jay Johnson
P.S. The feedback I'm getting from coaches using the XC Training System has been incredible.
Glen Gardiner from Wauwatosa East said, "Using Jay's pre and post-work has markedly improved the number of girls that are injury-free.
Many parents and athletes have mentioned to me this year that compared to what we had previously done, there are many fewer lower leg injuries, i.e. the dreaded shin splints...
We had the most successful year in our school's history in XC (5th at D1 state) with an outstanding track season as well."
Seth Kirby from BC High School, who has coached for 25 years, put it this way:
"I can confidently say the XCTS is the best value and input I've received in my coaching career and was effective both as far as results and injury prevention.
My 25 runner freshman program was 100% on the 'no prior training' XCTS plan and for the first time in my coaching career no athlete was injured during the entire season!!! The 16:09 team average at our Divisional meet was the fastest in school history and every member of our team had a PR at Divisional or States."
If you want to learn more about the XCTS, which can give your program the same results, click here.
Jay Johnson
