This is one I’ve been holding back for a while, around this time of year G.A.A. teams across the country are going back to training with the same old problems around the playing calendar. Between club, county and college training and matches players are playing too much and are at risk of burn out… or are they? The problem isn’t just within G.A.A. but can be rampant within track and field, rugby, football and pretty much any other event you can think of. But have you ever considered burnout happening within your career? A common issue within strength and conditioning, or maybe it’s just common to me because this is my industry and I only hear about those in our field. Anyway, this week I’m going to break down what burn out actually is, how it’s caused and why over training isn’t always the issue.
Yesterday was my birthday, I’m now 24 years old and feel like things couldn’t be going in a better direction. The last year has been a bit crazy but change is good. I had the best day surrounded by some of the people I care about most so I couldn’t really ask for much more. With all the messages and well wishes that came in it reminded me how much of an impact my job allows me to have on people. I’m thankful for all the people who took the time out of their day to reach out.
We often associate burn out with sports performance and rightly so, but how often have you considered it with regards to your professional career? Most of the research around burn out began in the early 70s looking into people who were working in human services, helping others with their problems. Workers who were often over worked and under-appreciated… much like how many strength coaches would describe their work conditions. The literature around burn out describes it as “A prolonged response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors on a job.” It’s often described specifically by 3 dimensions,
1) Exhaustion,
2) Cynicism and
3) Inefficacy.
That is the current definition of the issue. It has also been found that contrary to popular belief, it’s often the individual who cares most about their job/profession who is the most susceptible to burn out. Historically we probably associated it with individuals who cared less. But if we think about how it’s described through research, the individual who wants to help the most, make the biggest difference and is emotionally invested in their work is at the biggest risk. Furthermore, if they’re constantly fighting a losing battle in an organization that doesn’t match their ambition that burn-out can manifest itself a lot faster. Like always, I’m a strength coach, I know strength and conditioning as a profession. As a whole we get very emotionally invested in the people we train, maybe sometimes too much. There is a special bond between us and athletes and also if you’re training a member of general pop. It can be frustrating when things aren’t working as you planned, overtime this can build up and contribute. I’m sure other professions, especially those that deal directly with helping people, deal with similar issues.
The point I’m making here is that burn out is not a fancy term that only deals with over-training syndrome of athletes and thrown out there when they no longer love the sport they chose to partake, but it’s a real life issue that can change the course of your life if you let it.
It’s on you to identify when a job is no longer suitable for you and you need to move on from that for your long term professional health. Sometimes it might be that upper management has changed and has remolded the vision of the company, or maybe the fit was wrong from the get go. You need to take ownership of this and be more selective, don’t be afraid to reject an offer if you feel it’s a wrong fit.
“I’ve never ever seen an over-trained athlete, just an under-recovered one”
For the life of me I cannot remember who said this and it’s killing me that I’ve forgotten but ohh well, the idea is still relevant. The premise that recovery is the key to long term athletic performance is one I truly believe in. However, this quote can be misunderstood, obviously you can dog an athlete with two-a-days for a month straight and they’re going to breakdown and be over-trained but the true meaning of this is, if we put as much effort into planning and executing our recovery as we do our training, over-training and burn out would be much less of an issue.
G.A.A. (Ireland’s national sport for those of you reading abroad) has been big on the issue of burn out in recent years. Over the past 4 seasons I’ve been lucky to be involved in some inter county set ups and have been able to get an understanding of not only those but other’s schedules as well. To me, one of the biggest issues is recovery. Some more rural counties may have their players scattered around the country for work and college and require them to travel home for training and games 3-4 times a week, amassing huge travel times. For these lads and ladies who might be working in Dublin or Cork or wherever, traveling home pretty much takes all their spare time away. Sleep time is drastically cut and the amount of training they do is increased… no wonder players ‘break down’ and ‘burn out’ when they might be involved in county U21, senior, college teams and clubs… they’re training more than they’re recovering.
There has been much talk about the G.A.A calendar but the real issue in my eyes is the amount of competition and how they’re timed. The club scene needs to be fully finished in the calendar year, Jan-Nov. The pre-season county cups should be scrapped and a limit on the amount of teams 1 player can play for should be enforced. Again, the issue is not the amount they’re doing, it’s that the amount they’re doing doesn’t allow for much other stuff, primarily recovery.
True over-training and burn out in performance is a real and scary thing and can take years to recover from. It can lead to huge hormone imbalance, lower immune function, depression and anxiety and injuries upon injuries. However, the body gives enough warning signs that are quite hard to ignore before it gets to that stage.
The importance of quality sleep can never be underestimated. Good quality sleep resets the body and regular, quality sleep can work wonders for athletic performance. If you’re interested in learning some more techniques about recovery and managing your training you should check out my recovery blog here and my blog about injuries here.
If you have any questions regarding professional or performance based burn out please get in touch, I’d love to chat and point in the direction of some great material.
Have a great week everybody, don’t forget to subscribe below to get the blogs straight to your email.
Rory.