WHAT IS BURNOUT?
Athletes push their bodies to levels that 99% of the population have never and will never experience. Asking their body to train in ways that most couldn’t comprehend on a daily basis! With this comes aches and pains, as the joints and muscles are pushed beyond their limits and asked to do more each day, regardless of their levels of fatigue. This will get to a point where athletes need to schedule rest and recovery sessions, which if ignored can lead to them exceeding their bodies' capacity, potentially resulting in injuries occurring.
What is happening to the brain during all of this?
The brain has a certain energy capacity too. And as much as these rest and recovery sessions are important for our bodies to recharge, we need to ensure that we have mental rest and recovery sessions scheduled too.
Now, this mental burnout limit will differ for everyone, and we cannot compare ourselves to our peers or competitors. The reality is, unlike our physical capacity, our mental energy is not just utilised in training. There are many factors that can have an influence on our mental burnout that are outside of our sport.
Therefore, this is the stumbling block…
…We will often experience burnout mentally before we feel it physically!
This frequently results in athletes pushing past their limits without even realising it, as they feel that they are training within their physical capacity, joints, and muscles are not hurting, whilst they have fully expended their mental energy.
Therefore, when scheduling your rest and recovery days, make sure that you are giving adequate consideration to mental recovery before physical.
COMMON SOURCES OF BURNOUT
There are many sources of burnout, however, we will often overlook certain factors due to our focus being on our sport and not the external factors that will influence it. Below you will see an example of a BURNOUT BAROMETER, I challenge you to use this template to identify your own sources of energy expenditure that contribute towards burnout.
How many are physical? And how many are mental?
3 TIPS TO PREVENT ATHLETE BURNOUT
If this Burnout Barometer is always increasing and being added to, how can we ensure that we don’t reach our capacity and burnout? Here are 3 tips to help you reset your Burnout Barometer:
Mental Deload Week – As athletes, our coaches will often schedule deload weeks, where the intensity of our training decreases to help provide adequate rest and recovery for our bodies to hit training harder the following week. Why then, do we not schedule these deloads for our brain too?! Take a week where we lower the intensity that is loaded onto our brains through the sources discussed above and give your mind a chance to rest and recover so it can hit life harder the next week!
Communicate With Your Coach – Our coaches cannot read our minds! Simple. I know. Then how do you expect them that you’re on the cusp of mentally burning out? A good coach will see their athlete physically burning out, however, the process of mentally burning out can be less obvious and sneak up on us. Regularly update your coach on the sources that are using your mental and physical energy, and how that is influencing your Burnout Barometer.
SAY NO! – Balance is important but often we can feel pressured to keep people happy, and as a result, we stretch ourselves too thinly. Put yourself and your mental rest and recovery first. Don’t let people add to your Burnout Barometer without your consent.
Are you on the verge of giving up on your sport due to burnout? Are you struggling with ups and downs in your sporting career? I would love to hear how you stop yourself from burning out, so please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments! If you would like help developing an approach that will have you performing your sport consistently happy and energised, then please get in contact with me at robin@autonomypsychology.com
Best Wishes
Robin Hughes
Mental Performance Coach and Sports Counsellor located near Chelmsford, Essex, UK supporting athletes, exercisers, and coaches worldwide with Online Sports Psychology Services. Specialising in working within the fitness industry.
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