Running Isn’t Punishment. Here’s How Coaches Are Getting it Wrong.

High school cross-country kids, often not the cool athletes, love to size up the football players, lacrosse players, softball players, and say, “Your punishment is my sport.”

And it’s true. For as long as we can remember, running laps has been doled out by coaches and physical education teachers as punishment for goofing off, bad attitudes, being late, missing shots, screwing up plays.

“It’s what people would consider traditional coaching,” says Suz Sillett, vice president of education and innovation for Positive Coaching Alliance and a former collegiate soccer player who played (and lost) against Brandi Chastain. “It’s the default. It’s what people grew up experiencing as athletes themselves, and the idea is that’s how you manage behavior issues.”

A 2013 study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology reported that 90% of students who answered the survey said their coaches used exercise as punishment, and 43%  said their physical education teachers used exercise as punishment or for behavior management.

Using running, or any sort of exercise, as punishment gives young athletes a negative association with physical activity, Sillet tells Outside Run. “And exercise is something that should be joyful. Running should make you feel free and strong in your body. … But it’s turned into something that you don’t want to do.”

The Risks of Using Running as Punishment 

Generally speaking, the amount of running coaches give to athletes probably won’t fast-track them to injury or overuse. But those punishment laps or suicide sprints are unplanned stresses, explains Kyle Barnes, Ph.D., associate professor of exercise science at Grand Valley State University.

“Running as punishment is not a planned activity, which could increase injury risk,” Barnes tells Outside Run. “You need some sort of periodization. If your practice plans for 10 minutes of running but then you add five minutes as punishment, that’s a 50 percent increase. You can’t add 50 percent that quickly.”

Barnes, who wrote “Why Exercise As Punishment Doesn’t Work in Educational Athletics” for the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, does point out that increasing conditioning exercises like running and other cardiovascular exercises in a planned way will help improve young athletes’ fitness, which will boost performance in their chosen sport.

The risks of using running as punishment, then, is more heavily psychological and social.

When kids associate exercise with punishment, they’re more likely to focus on avoiding mistakes instead of trying to improve, according to this 2012 paper.

For many kids and adults, running is uncomfortable, so being forced to do it because of behavior or missed plays increases stress and anxiety, Sillett says.

“Are they going to make me run again? Or make the team run again? This heightens dysregulation,” she says.

Heightened dysregulation, or the inability to manage emotions, impacts the ability to learn and focus, Sillett explains. Learning new skills and improving focus are the goals of team sports and gym class. “If [coaches] do things that create an environment of fear and stress, it defeats the purpose of what running as punishment will improve.”

And then there are the lasting implications of associating running with punishment.

Barnes’ biggest fear, he says, is that in a time of obesity crisis and so much indoor free play, being turned off from exercise can further put kids’ health at risk. “A coach’s goal should be to create a positive association with exercise.”

Sillett says that if young athletes—kids—no longer find the sport fun, they’ll stop. Maybe they’ll find another sport, maybe not. “We need to create spaces for kids to show up and feel a sense of belonging,” she says. “If they’re enjoying what they’re doing, they’re more likely to continue.”

Does Running Laps Even Work to Change Behavior?

Punishment, of any kind, can have a short-term effect. Sillett points out that if two athletes won’t stop chit-chatting at practice and they’re sent off to run laps, they might stop talking for the next bit of practice because they don’t want to run laps again.

But really, coaches and physical education teachers need to understand the underlying reason for the undesired behavior, she and Barnes say.

For example, if those two athletes who won’t stop talking walked over from their lockers together, maybe they need a few minutes to decompress from the school day.

Sillett, who coaches soccer, starts her practices with lap warm-ups to give her athletes time to move around, talk with friends, and separate themselves from a day’s worth of sitting and focusing in the classroom.

Barnes, who coaches girls’ cross-country, frequently witnesses football players abruptly break from running plays to run laps.

“I’m assuming they weren’t running the plays correctly,” he says. “Well, why weren’t they running the plays correctly? Maybe they weren’t understanding them. Or they’re fatigued from school. If that’s the case, you’re just fatiguing them more.”

When kids associate exercise with punishment, they’re more likely to focus on avoiding mistakes instead of trying to improve, according to this 2012 paper.

Better Approaches 

Like with nearly everything in redirecting undesirable behavior, it’s imperative to understand   why the behavior is occurring.

“We need to actually address the issue,” Barnes says. “If a kid is late to practice all the time, why?” Maybe he’s hanging out with a boyfriend or girlfriend, which could jeopardize playing time if the behavior continues.

But if it’s a situation in which the athlete relies on parent transportation, is something going on at home? “You can’t punish the kid because of issues at home,” Barnes says.

Instead, Barnes says simple solutions can be found after discussing concerns with the family. These include adjusting expectations, coordinating transportation with teammates, modifying arrival procedures, or connecting families with available resources.

“The broader principle is that coaches should distinguish between issues of accountability and issues of access,” Barnes followed up with Outside Run by e-mail. “When an athlete is making reasonable efforts but faces barriers beyond their control, support is generally more effective than punishment.”

Sillett and her team at Positive Coaching Alliance have developed workshops for coaches to learn how to encourage and support positive behavior instead of reacting to bad behavior.

These approaches, she says, are easier to implement when there is a trusting relationship between athletes and coaches.

For example, coaches might use “attention getters” (“If you hear my voice clap once, if you hear my voice clap twice”), coach placement in a team circle (adjusting your placement to break up any side conversations or distractions), reset practices (rhythmic, repetitive exercises that regulate the nervous system, like slow breathing), and acknowledgement and redirection (“I can see you’re frustrated. Let’s find a better way to respond.”).

“We can’t expect kids to live up to higher accountability without a high level of support,” she says. “When kids feel like they belong, that they’re safe, they’re more likely to listen, versus a fear-based environment—do what I say or I’ll make you run.”