How to deal with athlete burnout in sport, when the flame fades...

 When the flame fades

How to deal with athlete burnout in sport - by Daniel Ferguson

Driven Dan they call him. A tennis player who plays every day of the week: tennis is his life. Even when he's not at training, he bikes down to his local tennis court and practises his serves, returns...the lot! As a 14 year old lad, some would say this is too much, and it does get too much.

Lately, Dan's been struggling to concentrate on his tennis and is beginning to fall out of love with the sport, going to training sessions now feels like a chore and he's stopped going to his local court in his free time. He's also stopped speaking to his family around the house and his friends have noticed he's not been his usual self at school. 

Dan's experiencing what is known as athlete burnout. Due to over-training and not having a healthy work-life balance, his motivation and performance levels have been dropping in his tennis. What can Dan do to reignite his fading tennis flame?


What are other signs of burnout?

Outside of Dan's experience with burnout, there are other signs that an athlete is burning out:
  • constant fatigue
  • lack of self-care
  • reduced physical health
  • increased muscle soreness
  • changing sleep patterns

What are the reasons an athlete burns out?

We've spoken about Dan's experience and signs of burnout, but what are the reasons this happens? 
  • Over-training: for example Dan wasn't resting and he was playing everyday
  • Saying yes too much: always saying yes to an extra training session, every time your friends ask to play and every competition available naturally leads to over-doing it
  • Don't seek support: it can be very easy to think you can just crack on and not tell anyone you're struggling with the workload
  • Losing a 'reason why': you start to question, why am I even doing this? Playing your sport begins to lose its purpose
  • Perfectionism: as an athlete you can become very critical and can't let go of mistakes and failures, so you constantly want to correct yourself, you may even feel guilty when having time off your sport


A study on perfectionism and burnout

Results showed across 250 athletes from a variety of different sports that athletes who are hyper self-critical and have perfectionist tendencies are more likely to experience burnout (Olsson et al, 2001). Ways to deal with this can be found with forbes who recommend mindfulness, cognitive behavioural therapy and creating a mindset where you're more kind to yourself by embracing failures and mistakes.

How can an athlete deal with burnout?

Burnout is very individualistic and what works for one athlete may not work for another, however here are some tips on dealing with burnout:
  1. Seek your support system: simply talking to a coach, a friend or a parent could ease some tension as burnout can become very lonely, it's good to talk
  2. Periodised training: schedule training where it allows a healthy work-life balance, if training is already scheduled for certain times, ensure you rest and recover around these times: you can create a weekly schedule on a piece of paper and work this out
  3. Mindfulness: take some time to breathe and think about what's important to you, this will help to move away from being very critical of yourself, sit with those critical thoughts, embrace them (use calm for breathing exercises)
  4. Have a reason why: why do you play or compete in your sport, have a good think about this and keep this reason with you for when things get tough or you feel yourself falling out of love with the sport, go back to your reason for why you do your sport, for example, Dan decided his reason why is that tennis makes him feel good about himself and he loves competing in his favourite sport

I hope this blog provides some help for any athlete who's experienced or experiencing burnout, or perhaps you just want to know about the topic. Get in contact if you have any questions or want to add something to what's been said. Remember, how can you prevent the flame from fading and if it has faded, how can you reignite it?



Find Daniel Ferguson on:
LinkedIn: Daniel Ferguson
Instagram: @danferguson_sp
Twitter: @DanFergusonSP












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