Nearly 1.5 million high school students participate in organized cross country or track and field and millions more youth run recreationally.
Despite that popularity, there has been surprisingly little research dedicated specifically to youth runners.
Garcia
“Most of the research has been on adults,” said Micah Garcia, a doctoral student at The University of Toledo. “There used to be this conception that kids are just small adults, but that’s not the case. They go through rapid growth changes and hormonal changes during puberty, so we can’t necessarily say what’s true in adults is true in kids.”
Garcia, who is in the final year of the exercise science Ph.D. program at UToledo, is earnestly working to fill those gaps in the academic literature.
Under the mentorship of Dr. David Bazett-Jones, an associate professor of athletic training at UToledo, Garcia has conducted a range of research aimed at better understanding the training patterns, injury risks and biomechanics of youth runners.
“Micah is the most prolific Ph.D. student that I have met with his writing and the projects that he has overseen,” Bazett-Jones said. “He has published a dozen or more research articles in his three years so far at UToledo and by the time he graduates, he will likely have almost 20 publications. That’s an incredible body of work for a doctoral student in this field.”
One of Garcia’s more high-profile publications looked at how the COVID-19 pandemic affected young runners.
Working with Bazett-Jones, he conducted a nationwide survey that found young long-distance runners had cut down on both the frequency and intensity of their training in 2020, which was the opposite of what was seen in adults.
The survey also found far fewer runners sought medical treatment for their injuries than they did before the pandemic, raising concerns about the potential for future, chronic problems.
“One of the big things running research is finding is that there’s some really strong evidence that the biggest risk for getting injured while running is having a previous running injury,” Garcia said. “If we can better address or even prevent those early injuries, especially in youth runners, we can hopefully keep runners active and healthy into adulthood.”
Garcia came to UToledo in large part to work with Bazett-Jones, who primarily studies youth runners and patellofemoral pain.
After earning a master’s degree in biomechanics from the University of Kentucky, Garcia went to work in the Motion Analysis Laboratory at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
While there, he assisted with research that analyzed how young runners moved to better understand if there are differences in running mechanics between boys and girls of different stages of puberty. A runner himself, he found the work fascinating and, given the relative dearth of research in the field, saw an opportunity to carve out his own niche.
UToledo was the perfect fit.
“When I came and met with everyone, I thought the community was great. It had access to all kinds of resources and it was a super supportive environment,” Garcia said. “It was exactly what I was looking for in a Ph.D.”
Though he was taking a risk in giving up a job he enjoyed that paid a good salary and moving to a new city, Garcia said it could not have turned out better.
“It met and exceeded expectations. That wouldn’t happen without the awesome people here. Any question I’ve been interested in, Dr. Bazett-Jones has welcomed it. The faculty members here are fantastic.”
Garcia is currently working on finishing his dissertation, which is focused on an intervention that can help adolescent runners shorten their strides to reduce the force and stress put on their knees.
“Micah consistently brings fresh and exciting ideas. He is collaborative, humble and his scholarship is excellent,” Bazett-Jones said. “Micah’s work at UToledo and in the future will impact adolescent runners and the adult runners they will become.”
