Burnout and the Changing Landscape of
Youth Sport
Tom Raedeke
East Carolina University
raedeket@ecu.edu
Youth Sport Specialization
Is It Too Much Too Soon?
Colby-Sawyer
March 2010
Overview
• Setting the stage: Importance
of the Burnout Issue
– What is burnout?
– Is it prevalent?
– Impact on athletes
• What Causes of burnout
– Chronic Stress
– Erosion of Motivation
• Prevention strategies
Defining Features
Emotional &
Physical
Exhaustion
Sport
Devaluation
Low sense of
Personal
Accomplishment
Other key features
• Relatively Chronic State
• Different than sport drop out
Raedeke (1997)
Raedeke & Smith (2009)
What is Burnout?
Exhaustion
Reduced sense
of
accomplishment
Devaluation
The Changing Landscape of
Youth Sport
• Burnout—A phenomenon on the rise
(or at least increasingly discussed)
–
–
–
–
Sport specialization at young ages
Near year round training
Professionalization of youth sport
Increasing training demands
9000m per day
How Prevalent is Burnout?
• How prevalent is it?
– We aren’t really sure-
Negative Ramifications
• Negative Impact on Athletes’ Sport
Experiences
–
–
–
–
Performance decline
Decreased motivation
Dropout
Negative impact on team climate
Negative Ramifications
• Negative Impact on Well-Being and
Health
– Mental Health
• Depression
• Self-esteem
– Illness susceptibility
– Substance abuse
Cresswell & Eklund, 2006
What Causes
Burnout?
═
Burnout
Stress = Perceived imbalance
between task demands and resources
What makes sport demanding?
• Training Demands
• * Overtraining
• Too much training with too little recovery
• * Time demands
• * Lack of improvement
Gustaffson et al. 2007; Kentta et al 2001
What makes sport demanding?
• External Influences
• * Parents
• Overinvolved
• Supportive, but family life centers around sport
– Lots of time and money invested into sport
– No break from sport
• * Pressure from coaches
• Negative coaching style
• Pressure to win
• Building credentials
(Raedeke, Lunney, & Enables, 2002; Gould et al. 1996)
What makes sport demanding
• Internal Demands (personality)
* Perfectionism
* Trait Anxiety
* Contingent Self-esteem
* Pessimism/Optimism
(Appleton et al, 2009; Chen et al., 2009; Hill et al, 2009
What about the resource side
of the picture?
• Strong Resources—Less Stress and
Handle Demands Better
•
•
•
•
Social Support
Lifestyle Management
Mental Skills Training
Life balance
Raedeke & Smith, 2004; Gould et al. 1996
Stress Perspective Summarized
Personality
High
Demands
Lifestress
Perceived Stress
•Perceived Overload
(exhaustion)
•Unmet goals/expectations
(reduced accomplishment)
Smith, 1986
Goodger et al. 2007
• Lack of enjoyment/meaning
(devaluation)
Coping
Resources
Burnout-Erosion of
Motivation
• Burnout stems from a lack of fulfillment
and failure to find meaning in sport
– While everyone can experience stress,
burnout can only be experienced by
people who entered their careers with
high expectations, goals, and motivation-people who expected to derive a sense
of significance from their work (Pines,
1993)
– State of fatigue or frustration brought
about by devotion to a cause or way of
life that failed to produce expected
reward (Freudenberger and Richelson, 1980)
Burnout = Loss of Meaning
• Athletes feel they are trapped,
stifled, and that they are wasting
time in sport while missing out on
other life opportunities
Bottom Line: Being an athlete and athletic success
don’t seem as important or significant as they used to
Why Does Sport Lose
Meaning?
• Why do athletes’ participate? What
do they expect to gain from sport
participation?
Goals and Expectations
• Enjoyment---To have fun
• Competence—To be successful
• Affiliation—To be part of a team
What causes burnout? Unmet goals and
expectations
More On Loss of Meaning
Coakley (1992); Black & Smith, 2008
Raedeke (1997).
_
Sport Structure
+
Control
Unidim Identity
Control
Multifaceted
Identity
Burnout linked to erosion of
commitment
• Two faces of commitment:
– Attraction (enjoyment)-based Commitment
• Because they want to be involved
• Satisfaction, love of sport
• Passion
– Entrapment-based Commitment
• Because they have to be involved
• Obligation
• Burnout
Burnout and Commitment
Passion
Satisfaction
High
Entrapment Low
Commitment
Low
Low
Benefits
High
Low
Low
Costs
Low
High
High
Alternative Low
Options
Investments High
Low
High
High
Low
Social
Constraints
High
Low
?
Entrapment
Coakley (1992); Raedeke (1997);
Schmidt & Stein (1991)
Entrapment
Investments
Social
constraints
Decreasing Benefits
Lack of
Alternative
Options
Control
Increasing Costs
Decreasing Enjoyment
Identity
Preventing Burnout: Secondary
Individual Approaches
• Teach athletes how to deal with the
demands of training and competition
– Target: Individual Athlete
– Typical Approach: Stress Management
– Limit: Does not treat source of problem
Organizational Approach:
Primary Prevention
• Maslach: “Truth About Burnout”
– Organizational/situational factors play a
larger role in burnout than individual
characteristics
• Approach: Take preventative steps to
improve the quality of athletes’ sport
experience (work culture)
• Target: The structure of sport, coaches and
parents
Prevention is more effective
than intervention
An Ounce of Prevention is Worth A Pound of Cure
Secondary individual
approaches do not work as
effectively as primary
prevention
Psychological Stress: Teach
Athletes to Manage Stress
• Individual Centered Intervention Approaches:
Stress Management
– Identify what is causing stress—develop plan
for dealing with it
– Teach athletes how to handle stress/pressure
(mental skills training)
• Relaxation, goal setting, anxiety
management, self-talk
– Constructive outlooks on adversity/slumps/lack
of improvement
– Develop coping resources (e.g., lifestyle mgt,
social support)
Preventing Burnout
• Training demands
– Balance training demands and recovery
– Schedule recovery periods/time-outs
– Don’t increase training demands when
other stressors are on the rise
– Focus training plan on long term
development—not short term gain
Psychological Stress: Primary
Prevention Strategies
(empower athletes)
• Parent Education
• Develop a Positive Coaching style
– Empathy
– Quality teaching and instruction
• Reinforcement
• Instruction
• Encouragement
– Autonomy supportive versus coercive
environment
• Choice, ownership, involvement, rationale
– Mastery versus performance oriented
•Price & Weiss, 2000;
motivational climate
•Raedeke & Smith
• Performance Climate
• Winning is emphasized
• Shift in focus from
learning to performing
skills
– Team with fewest
mistake win
– Mistakes are
viewed as failure
– Focus on social
comparison
• Mastery Climate
• Why participate:
– The joy is the journey
– The process
• What is reinforced,
emphasized, and valued?
– Effort
– Learning and
Improvement
– Mistake = part of
learning
Commitment Ideas
• Keep passion alive (enjoyment and
benefits)
– Incorporate the things that make
sport meaningful into sport
experience
– Break monotony of practice
– Identify positive things about being
an athlete and what you’d miss if
left sport
– Help athletes connect with joy of
sport
• Keep investments in balance
– Add energizers into week
– Strive for life balance
– Leave sport on the playing field
• Social constraints and control
– Ensure that significant others (coaches, parents) are a
source of support and not stress
– Play for own reasons—not others
– Create an autonomy supportive environment
– Give athletes meaningful control
• Foster a multidimensional identity
Questions, Comments,
Problems, Contentions, or
Objections?