Survey Study of a Division-I Women’s Cross-Country Team Reveals Limited Participation in Pre-Collegiate Strength Training: Is There an Opportunity to Improve Training Modalities and Health Outcomes?

Background: While aerobic exercise modalities are the cornerstone cross-country (XC) training, Strength and resistance Training (ST) has become increasingly popular and is widely considered to be beneficial to XC athletes when used appropriately. The purpose of this research was to investigate pre-collegiate participation in various training modalities among a single D-I women’s XC team. Methods and Findings: A questionnaire was distributed to members of Northwestern University’s varsity women’s XC team. Topics of inquiry included pre-collegiate participation in S&C and ST. Descriptive statistics were produced from the data. 11 female collegiate athletes were surveyed. 36% endorsed having participated in S&C outside of their sports practice. Within the cohort that participated in S&C, 2 endorsed that their S&C involved ST, 3 endorsed anaerobic cardiovascular training and 3 endorsed plyometric training. All 4 in this cohort endorsed that a sports performance professional was involved in their exercise programming. Conclusion: Despite being amongst the elite in XC, the minority of respondents endorsed having participated in ST prior to college matriculation. Given the prevalence of bone stress injuries in women’s XC and the increase in bone mineral density seen with ST, it is necessary to emphasize appropriate resistance training early in an athlete’s career and increase its utilization at the high school level.