What Are The Negative Effects Of Back-To-Back Sports In High School

Though participating in three back-to-back sports in high school is exhilarating and entertaining, it can have many negative effects. For instance, running cross country, playing soccer, and running track back-to-back has had serious effects on a particular athlete. After participating in these three sports for about a year and a half, this athlete began to notice the effects during the second year of track. First, symptoms like fatigue and dizziness and loss of endurance appeared, but she blamed the fatigue on not sleeping enough, the dizziness on standing up too fast, and the loss of endurance on psyching herself out by thinking track was too hard, until she convinced herself it was true. These symptoms made track arduous, causing her to become worse at track. One day, after feeling like she could not handle it anymore because track stressed her out every day to the point of dreading and worrying about practice every second
At the next meet, she ran the 800 meter race like usual. She tried to stay with the people in the front, but at the last 200 meter stretch her legs just could not take it anymore and grew heavier and tired. She slowed down but knew she could not stop yet. People began to pass her. Finally, she crossed the finish line, but only after everyone had passed her leaving her in last place. After that horrible race, coaches kicked her off of the team. They said that she did poorly in the race on purpose because she wanted to run a different race. In truth, she had wanted to run a different race, but she would never lose a race on purpose. Feeling heartbroken as they told her how disappointed they were in her, she knew in her heart that they were also trying to do her a favor because they knew she was struggling. Although she never imagined they would kick her off the team, she felt extremely relieved that she would not have to endure all of the hardships of running