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How Professional Athletes Burn Out

Alan Bass, Hockeybuzz.com, May 16, 2012

One of the most shocking stories in professional hockey in the past five years was a top prospect, Stefan Legein, suddenly quitting his promising hockey career at the ripe, old age of 19. There was never a true explanation for this, and he’s since returned to professional hockey, albeit in a very diminished role. Since his return, he’s bounced between the American League and the East Coast League, and being traded from the Columbus Blue Jackets to the Philadelphia Flyers, and ultimately to the Los Angeles Kings, whose system he now fights through.

Arguably the only explanation as to why a professional athlete (and not just Legein – he is simply a convenient example) drops out of his sport suddenly is due to, in psychological terms, burnout. Burnout is a hot topic in the field of sport psychology, and it is defined as “physical, emotional, and social withdrawal from a formerly enjoyable sport activity. It has numerous causes, including overtraining, staleness of activity, or simply fatigue.

Many professional athletes are at risk of overtraining, because of the grinds of a professional schedule, specifically in hockey. Practices often occur every day, including on a game day, games are extremely physical, and even when the offseason comes around, players go through hours of physical training per day, be it in the gym or on the ice, trying to improve for the next season. It is very easy for some of them to train over their maximum capacity, which in turn, can result in burning out.

When an athlete is at the point of burning out, they have a reduced sense of accomplishment, usually stemming from low self-esteem, feelings of failure, and more importantly, depression. Numerous factors can cause these emotions, including stress (actual or perceived), artificially high expectations, lack of motivation, or major changes in life events.

However, one of the biggest causes of this loss of enjoyment, motivation, and passion to continue playing, stems from a lack of success, or a string of what I’ll call, “almost-success” – meaning an extremely successful campaign that ended prematurely, whether due to an injury or an early playoff exit.

If you take a look at Legein’s teams’ statistics from the time he entered the Ontario League until the time he quit in 2009, his teams never made it past the second round of the playoffs. From 2004 to 2008, his Mississauga/Niagra IceDogs won their division once and finished second in their division twice – including two 40-win seasons. However, never once was his team able to make it past the second round of the playoffs, despite Legein averaging over a point per game in his Major Junior playoff totals. In his only AHL season before quitting, his team missed the playoffs entirely.

Look at another example, from a non-player’s perspective. When Bob Clarke resigned from the General Manager position of the Philadelphia Flyers in 2007, he cited “burnout” as the reason. From 1997 to 2007, Clarke’s Flyers teams averaged 100 points in the standings and a .609 wining percentage – one of the best in the NHL. However, after the 1997 season in which they got swept in the final by Detroit, they never advanced past the third round and lost in the first round five times in eight seasons. This string of “almost-success” may have been a leading cause of burnout for him – as it is for many people in any field.

Burnout is still in need of a great deal of psychological research, but what is known is how to avoid this. If an athlete can monitor their stress levels, develop and achieve short-term goals, take time off when needed, and manage their post-competition emotions, they are much more likely to maintain the motivation that initially got them to the level of sport that they are at today.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
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