SKYRUNNING TRAINING STRATEGIES FOR YOUNG ATHLETES

Developing the Complete Athlete: Body, Mind, and Spirit

Training for U23 trail and mountain runners is about far more than simply getting faster or stronger. At this pivotal stage of growth, athletes are not just preparing for races, they are developing the entire human system.

Physical growth, neurological development, emotional resilience, and a lifelong passion for the mountains must all be introduced thoughtfully and systematically.

This article provides a science-backed, experience-based roadmap to help U23 athletes thrive through integrated training strategies focusing on breathing, vision, neurofunctional development, recovery, and the experience of satori.

Physical and Neurological Development

U23 athletes are still maturing, the bones, joints, connective tissues, and neurological pathways are not yet fully developed.

This unique window of plasticity allows training to not only build speed and strength, but to permanently enhance movement quality, resilience, and coordination.

Foundational Priorities:

• Movement Literacy
• Stability
• Mobility
• Strength
• Power
• Adaptability
• Mental and Physical Resilience
• Speed
• Endurance

Rather than simply chasing speed or distance, the priority must be to build a strong, adaptable, and resilient foundation. The following are key developmental pillars to include in your training strategies

• Stability: Ankle, knee, hip, spine, and shoulder resilience
• Balance: Proprioception, footwork, reactive agility
• Mobility and Strength: Fluid, powerful movement patterns
• Breath Control: Diaphragmatic and recovery breathing
• Vision and Coordination: Trail vision and reaction time
• Mental Resilience: Adaptability under challenge and change
• Satori (Joy): Creating moments of effortless, intrinsic motivation on the trail

Breathing, Vision, and Neurofunctional Training

U23 athletes must develop the internal systems that support high performance, not just their running muscles. The following are areas that will level up the entire system and create a strategy of success: 

Breathing Strategies:

• Diaphragmatic (belly) breathing
• Integrate controlled breathing techniques such as box breathing and 4-7-8 breathing
• Connect breath awareness to performance output and post-run recovery

Vision training:

• Practice trail vision: see the terrain and react and respond to foot placement
• Integrate reactive vision drills to sharpen response times

Neurofunctional Strength:

• Stability drills
• Balance training
• Full-body, integrated strength circuits for enhanced proprioception, agility, and injury resistance 

A strong brain-body connection built at this age creates lifelong advantages in agility, reaction time, and injury resistance.

Training Volume, Intensity, and Perceived Exertion

Many U23 athletes struggle to distinguish between productive fatigue and dangerous overtraining.

Learning to listen to their body, rather than blindly or stubbornly pushing through, is essential for true, sustainable adaptation. 

• Use effort-based training (RPE – rate of perceived exertion) rather than specific pace targets
• Encourage mindfulness around fatigue signals, not guilt for resting when needed
• Learning to distinguish between “feeling lazy” and respecting how your body/brain feels

While many smartwatches offer analytics on strain, stress, and fatigue, true performance gains often come from something more personal: learning to understand your own body.

Mastering this self-awareness can be the difference between meaningful adaptation and unintentional overtraining.

The Daily 5-Point Health Scan is a simple yet powerful tool that helps you assess your readiness and adjust training intensity in real time.

Each day, rate the following from 1 to 5:

• Sleep
• Stress
• Hydration
• Nutrition
• Physical Fatigue

Add the scores together and use the total to guide your training load:

Total	Training Intensity
16–20	Full Intensity
12–15	Moderate Intensity
5–11	Active Recovery Only

This micro-adjustment method puts you in control, helping you train smarter, not just harder.

Volume and Intensity Progression:

• Prioritize time on feet rather than total mileage.
• Increase volume as all systems (mental, physical), are able to respond and recover
• Use perceived exertion, not a watch, as the ultimate training guide.
• Use the 5-point system to dictate session intensity adjustments.

Recovery Strategies

Recovery is training. Without it, adaptation cannot occur.

Essential Recovery Practices:

• Schedule 1–2 full rest days weekly.
• Use active recovery (easy hiking, cycling, yoga, pool workouts).
• Prioritize sleep (9+ hours when possible).
• Focus on immediate post-run hydration and protein intake.
• Regularly visit skilled bodywork practitioners to address small issues before they become injuries.
• Implement breath-led recovery (slow, deep breathing) after hard sessions.
• Utilize cold immersion and/or contrast therapy (cold/hot) to enhance physiological adaptation:
  • Cold plunges
    • Adding cold plunge 2-3 times/week will enhance overall adaptation
    • 2-3 pre or post effort is key as research would suggest immediate cold immersion can inhibit muscle growth and adaptation. 
  • Sauna followed by ice bath protocols

Understanding that growth and adaptation happens during rest is one of the most important lessons at this age.

Injury Prevention: Move Well, Move Often

Injury prevention is about movement quality over quantity.

Every stride, jump, and balance drill are opportunities to hardwire better mechanics.

Prevention Priorities:

• Daily single-leg balance and proprioception drills.
• Core strength and stabilization routines.
• Specific resilience work for hips, knees, and ankles.
• Integration of neurofunctional, full-body strength circuits.
• Scheduled off-seasons and regular recovery blocks to reset the system.

The goal is not just injury avoidance, it’s building resilient systems that thrive under the intensity and unpredictability of trails and mountains.

The Power of Satori: Joy as a Performance Strategy

At this critical stage, intrinsic motivation is critical. Without it, burnout is inevitable.

Including runs without pace goals, watches, or data collection allows athletes to explore trails freely, experiencing satori, those rare, effortless moments of joy and flow in the mountains.

Training must intentionally include “adventure runs”, outings focused on exploration and experience rather than competition or metrics.

Satori Training Guidelines:

• No pace or performance goals.
• No data collection, watches covered or left off
• Free movement, curiosity, and trail play 

These sessions cultivate mental health, emotional resilience, and a deeper bond with self and nature, all of which will fuel racing success later on without sacrificing passion.

Elite training is a delicate balance between structure and freedom, between challenging the body and nurturing the spirit. It is an innate ability to understand your body and what it needs and when to give it. 

When done well, it produces more than strong competitors, it produces resilient, joyful, self-aware athletes who can thrive in the mountains for decades.

Elite training is a precise interplay between structured progression and adaptive flexibility it requires a dynamic calibration of physical load and physiological recovery. 

Elite training demands a high-level internal awareness: the ability to assess readiness, regulate intensity, and respond to the body’s signals with wisdom and discipline.

When executed effectively, this approach yields more than peak performance. It cultivates durable, self-regulating athletes with the physical resilience, cognitive clarity, and emotional balance to sustain high-level mountain performance over the long term.