Athletic Burnout and Interventions

Athletic Burnout and Interventions
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Athletic Burnout and Interventions
The world of sports over the years is experiencing developments, which resultantly has called for in-depth research. One of the aspects of research in sports is the need to study the mental wellbeing of athletes. Mental stability is crucial when it comes to determining improved performance among athletes. As a driving force, improved mental health enables players to perform exemplary and explore their talents and abilities entirely in a sport. Psychology as a branch of knowledge can help in explaining specific mental issues affecting human beings. Sports psychology, for this reason, is a sub-discipline of sports psychology, which seeks to study the psychological problems within the sporting fraternity. Burnout in athletes, for instance, is an issue, which can be explained within the concept of sports psychology. Burnout among athletes being multidimensional is the exhaustion, reduce the sense of accomplishment and sport devaluation within an athlete. This essay attempts to explain athlete burnout and other features related to burnout. The purpose of this paper is to explain athletic burnout from a psychological perspective and discuss existing interventions.
From a psychological perspective, athletic burnout is on the rise attributed to the rising loads in training and competitive pressure. Athletic burnout does not occur in isolation; instead, contributing factors lead to this psychological challenge. Physical exhaustion- staleness and overtraining, emotional disturbances, and cognitive changes, are leading causes of athlete burnout. According to Gustafsson et al. (2011), psychologists in conjunction with physiologists, burnout is closely studied in overtraining, among other syndromes. Despite burnout and overtraining being closely related, they narrowly differ individually from one another. Through overtraining, a player's motivation will rise, whereas; motivation loss is a vital aspect of burnout. In addition to overtraining, altering feelings and brain changes contributes to burnout from a psychological perspective.
In connection to burnout, there are consequences of athletic burnout. Consequences of athletic burnout are results experienced by athletes in failing to manage issues related to burnout. As a result of burnout, emotional and cognitive exhaustion, loss of motivation, and decreased self-esteem result. For assessing cognitive fatigue, the Smith Model categorizes burnout in a four-stage level. This model's burnout levels include increased load in training, cognitive appraisal of the situation, a physiological response, and final response in an athlete's behavior. Athletes struggle in managing their feelings and in controlling the way they think. Markser (2011) concurs that in sport, depression is among the top type of mental disorder. Cognitive exhaustion relates to the brain and may negatively alter mental health in athletes. However, contrary to Markser opinion, Hakanen, Schaufeli, and Ahola (2008) affirm that the direct relationship between burnout and cognitive such as depression is not clear.
Since athlete burnout is a critical issue that negatively affects the world of sports, a counter-reaction to the problem is necessary. The Athlete Burnout Scale can be used as a method in detecting athletic burnout and providing measures. During sporting activities, athletes are prone to experience exhaustion and fatigue symptoms. However, they may never come to realize the existence of maladaptive conditions such as burnout. It is a challenging expedition with several factors to consider before deciding on assessing and measuring burnout. Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) is a measuring scale for evaluating the level of burnout in the world of sports. Through the MBI manual, cut-offs are provided for low, medium, and extreme burnout levels.
Below is a sample of the MBI scale that can be used in the measurement of burnout.
Questions

Never

Everyday

Few times a week

Weekly

Few times in a month

Monthly

Few times in a year

SECTION A

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

I get emotionally tired by my sport








Working as a team is a tedious activity








I feel exhausted in my sport