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5 Ways to Prevent Athlete Burnout in 2023

January 2, 2023/in App Content, Mental Fitness, Mental Health, Training Tips /by Matthew Mace

Understand how to prevent athlete burnout to stay motivated and reduce your risk of injury.

One minute, you’re enjoying training more than ever, and the next, you can’t focus, you don’t want to head out for that training session, and you feel as if that short-lived motivation has been zapped out of your system. So, what happened?

You could be experiencing early signs of athlete burnout — often described as a prolonged experience of physical and emotional exhaustion [4]. Knowing how to recognise and prevent athlete burnout is key — the more you know, the easier it is to stop burnout in its tracks, stopping you from experiencing more severe symptoms and perhaps even an increased risk of picking up an injury.

In this blog post, we’ll provide you with 5 ways to prevent athlete burnout — helping you stay motivated and focused on your training.

What causes athlete burnout?

Before we dive into how to prevent athlete burnout, we first need to understand what causes athlete burnout.

We’ll give you the CliffNotes version — but if you want to find out more about the causes and how to overcome burnout, you can listen to our podcast with Joe Fuggle, a former Elite GB athlete.

The research surrounding athlete burnout is somewhat conflicting. Some researchers say burnout is caused by the inability to effectively cope with psychosocial stress involved with training and competition [3].

On the other hand, others suggest athlete burnout is caused by a mix of factors, including entrapment (high investment, low alternative attractiveness), antecedents (school/work demands, a lack of recovery), and personality and coping factors (low social support, lack of coping skills [5].

Athlete burnout is more complex than it initially appears… but knowing how to prevent it can keep those feelings of decreased motivation and drive at bay.

How to prevent athlete burnout

Okay, now that you know what it is, let’s discuss how to prevent athlete burnout — after all, that’s why you’re here…

Maintain variety and keep it fun
Monitor your training load and know the burnout signs
Prioritise getting quality sleep
Introduce scheduled periods of rest
Use Rewire to reduce stress and lessen your risk of burnout

1) Maintain Variety and Keep it Fun

Dr Ralph Richards, a former swim coach and sports scientist at the Australian Institute of Sport, mentioned the importance of providing variety in workouts to reduce mental fatigue [6]. This is also a great way to keep your workouts and training fun and interesting.

If you’re a runner, that could mean switching up a session to include some fartlek work (unstructured speed training). A cyclist could add short sweet spot efforts in their weekly long ride. And a swimmer could combine short and long repetitions for a little variety.

Ultimately, if you can keep things interesting, fun, and even slightly unpredictable, you’re more likely to enjoy training.

So, don’t be afraid to switch things up from time to time — this is also a great reminder for coaches and an excellent tool for keeping youth athletes motivated.

2) Monitor your training load and know the burnout signs

You wouldn’t run a marathon without former training — so avoid taking the same approach with your training.

Progressive overload is key. Don’t jump in the deep end before learning to swim in the shallow waters.

Gradually increase your training demands over time, allowing your body to adapt and recover without increasing your risk of injury and burnout.

You should also monitor your training load — note down each session, including what the workout comprised of, how you felt, and any other relevant notes. It also helps to track your recovery to improve your awareness of how your body adapts and responds to increased training loads.

You should also familiarise yourself with the symptoms of overtraining and burnout — the sooner you recognise these, the easier it is to dial back your training, prioritising recovery and preventing a more serious risk of burnout and physical injury.

Symptoms of overtraining and burnout may include [8,5]:

A loss of appetite
Muscle soreness & muscle twitches
A decrease in motivation and focus during training
Frustration over a lack of results
Increased stress
Mood disturbances
A lack of control
You find yourself getting sick easier (e.g., colds, sniffles, and coughs)

3) Prioritise getting quality sleep

You likely already know the importance of a good night’s rest, especially if you exercise regularly or compete at a high level — sleep is essential to recovery.

Increased training loads, whether that means increasing your weekly mileage, adding more intensity, or adding an extra weights session, increase your risk of fatigue, injury, and overtraining.

But more importantly, an increased training load combined with inadequate rest (including sleep) could serve as a risk factor and an indicator of over-reaching and overtraining syndrome [7].

And for those unaware, overtraining syndrome is often associated with athlete burnout.

Ensure you get plenty of quality sleep to lessen the risk of over-reaching (the point before overtraining and burnout).

4) Introduce scheduled periods of rest

Professional athletes take breaks during their season and once their competitive season is over.

For example, Formula One drivers have a summer break midseason and a longer break before the next season begins. Road cyclists take a few weeks off in the winter before the next year of competition begins. And football players have anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks off training each year.

For elite athletes, these scheduled periods of rest are not only a time to physically recover from any niggles, pains, or injuries, but it’s also a time to mentally recover and prepare for the next season.

Competing and training at the highest level is physically, emotionally, and mentally demanding.

Even if you’re not a professional athlete, introducing your own off-season into your training can help you recover. It’s a time to switch off, mentally recharge, and assess your goals going forward. Moreover, if you train for countless hours, then it’s time to spend doing other things you enjoy — whether visiting family and friends or just sitting on the sofa catching up on the latest Netflix thriller.

You can also use periodisation in your training — add 1 week of less intense training every 1 to 3 months to reduce your risk of burnout.

5) Use Rewire to reduce stress and lessen your risk of burnout

The relationship between stress and burnout has been studied extensively — some research [1] suggests stress causes burnout, and other work [2] proposes the opposite: stress is a burnout symptom.

Nevertheless, we all experience stress — whether you’re a professional athlete, you run marathons, you participate in ultra-endurance cycling events, or perhaps you enjoy a parkrun on the weekends.

But I’m sure we can all agree that reducing stress is not a bad thing…

You can start using the Rewire Fitness app today for free to help reduce stress, improve your mental fitness, and reduce your risk of burnout.

FAQs

What causes athlete burnout?

There are many possible causes, but minimising stress, prioritising rest, and keeping training fun are great ways to reduce the risk.

How do athletes recover from burnout?

Rest is key to recovering from athlete burnout. Athletes often need time away from their sport to rejuvenate and recover.

How to prevent burnout?

Keep training fun, monitor your training load, prioritise quality sleep, use periodisation in your training, and use the Rewire app to prevent athlete burnout.

References:

ACSM_CMS. 2022. News Detail. [online] Available at: <https://www.acsm.org/news-detail/2021/08/09/the-american-college-of-sports-medicine-statement-on-mental-health-challenges-for-athletes#:~:text=Professional%20and%20elite%20athletes%20also,%2C%20depression%20and%2For%20anxiety> [Accessed 20 December 2022].

Coakley, J., 1992. Burnout among adolescent athletes: A personal failure or social problem?. Sociology of sport journal, 9(3), pp.271-285.

Eklund, R.C. and DeFreese, J.D., 2015. Athlete burnout: What we know, what we could know, and how we can find out more. International Journal of Applied Sports Sciences, 27(2), pp.63-75.

Gustafsson, H., 2007. Burnout in competitive and elite athletes (Doctoral dissertation, Örebro universitetsbibliotek).

Gustafsson, H., Kenttä, G. and Hassmén, P., 2011. Athlete burnout: An integrated model and future research directions. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 4(1), pp.3-24.

https://memberdesq.sportstg.com/assets/console/customitem/attachments/burnout-rrichards.pdf

Lastella, M., Vincent, G.E., Duffield, R., Roach, G.D., Halson, S.L., Heales, L.J. and Sargent, C., 2018. Can sleep be used as an indicator of overreaching and overtraining in athletes?. Frontiers in physiology, p.436.

Winsley, R. and Matos, N., 2011. Overtraining and elite young athletes. The elite young athlete, 56, pp.97-105.

What is Neuro-Training?

February 21, 2022/in Science /by David Lipman

Neuro-Training is the name we have given to training that involves mentally fatiguing activities to induce mental fatigue to help augment this training stimulus.

Mental fatigue, as a training stimulus?

Yes, you read that correctly. Any activity that has a component of prolonged time, think sports matches, endurance activities, prolonged focused work – they all have a component of mental endurance. As a result, performance in these can be improved via neuro-training. That’s right, doing neuro-training will help your marathon running, or triathlon performance.

But if it is so good why am I just hearing about it now?

As a former elite cyclist and lifelong endurance athlete and self-described performance geek, our founder, Sun Sachs, had been aware of the science around building more cognitive resilience as a way of improving athletic performance. He had been waiting for a commercial version of the science to come to market for 4+ years until one day on the bike trainer he had an epiphany for how it could be done. With 25 years in software and hardware development he was able to build a prototype in a few weeks with his first co-founder, Cody Rotwein, start beta testing, file a patent, add one more amazing co-founder, Ed Gibbins and the rest is history.

So in short, we aren’t sure, but we sure are happy to be bringing this game changer to you.

So what is Rewire?

Rewire is a complete system developed for both neuro-training, readiness tracking and mind/body recovery.

It caters to all your neuro-training wants and needs, in or out of physical training hours, allowing you to gain the edge on your competition by being better able to focus and handle mental fatigue.

Additionally, as mentioned, it is an integrated readiness tracker. This is because, like all training, neuro-training isn’t optimally done when you are dealing with a high amount of cognitive fatigue, so tracking this becomes essential.

The beauty of Rewire is that it allows you to understand where (emotionally, physically or mentally) you are ready to perform and where you are carrying fatigue. Armed with this knowledge, the inbuilt personal recovery sessions (based on these results) and the will to modify your training program, you can work with your body to optimize training. Heavy mental fatigue? Well maybe do a recovery session and change training, or use this mental fatigue as a form of neuro-training. Heavy physical fatigue? Maybe modify training and take advantage of the time to do more neuro-training with the app.

You get the picture, we are changing the game through working with your situation rather than assuming you are a robot who can just perform as planned from the training program written six months ago.

What does neuro-training look like?

It comes in many forms, in fact some of them are things you are probably doing. For example, prolonged concentration on a task is a form of neuro-training, this is why after a long, mentally tough day at work training can feel harder. That said, just like physical training, there is a huge difference between targeted and specific training and training that has some effect. This is where Rewire comes in.

Rewire uses the same types of training developed in research studies for inducing mental fatigue to help your neurotraining. These require prolonged attention and help increase cognitive load during training, or induce a mentally fatiguing stimulus before your training, to help augment the physical stimulus induced by the subsequent training session.

How does neuro-training work?

Fatigue itself is complex, but it has many components, one of which is mental fatigue. By doing neuro-training you are becoming more resistant to mental fatigue and thus will improve this factor in performance or at least reduce or remove it as a limiting factor in performance. Neuro-training can be standalone, or done around physical training depending on goals of the neuro-training and physical training. It is no use pre-fatiguing yourself mentally before a key workout, but perhaps this is a good way to get a little bit more out of the easy workout you have today. It can also be done concurrently with physical training with our Neuro-Training Buttons.

What does neuro-training do?

Neuro-training will ultimately help you improve focus and mental performance.

This has implications to everyday life and performance of course, especially with more mentally burdensome activities. In an athletic sense, as mentioned, fatigue has a large component of mental fatigue and neuro-training looks to address this specifically. So whilst there are other factors to fatigue, this part will be improved, helping reduce mental fatigue and removing it as a barrier to performance.

Why is neuro-training necessary?

You spend so much time training and preparing for the race, it seems a waste to completely ignore one aspect of training doesn’t it? You wouldn’t skip swim training for a triathlon, so why skip neuro-training for your upcoming athletic endeavors?

Given the interrelated nature of mental fatigue and performance it is crucial for you to focus on the mental aspects of performance. These include neuro-training and finally there is a way in which you can do this easily, in a structured manner thanks to Rewire. The added benefits being that it will have flow on effects to all aspects of your life in terms of focus and mental performance and can be done without adding significant time to your day or any more physical load. That’s right, you get better without having to physically tax yourself!

Don’t hesitate to start your neuro-training and unlock the benefits of improved mental performance, Rewire your performance circuitry today.

Tap here to try one of our Neuro-Training sessions. If you aren’t a Rewire member yet, tap here to sign up today! Or, you can try out our Free Online Mental Toughness Challenge!

Looking to take your Neuro-Training to the next level by layering it onto your physical workouts? Check out Rewire’s Neuro-Buttons.

Further Readings:
Brain Endurance Training for Athletes: What You Need To Know
Overview of Rewire’s Neuro-Training System
Neuro-Training Studies

**Kyle Korver**
NBA All-Star and Prolific 3-Point Shooter

“As a professional athlete, I’ve known firsthand the importance of training the mind and body to push the limits of performance. Rewire’s latest platform makes mental strength training more accessible to athletes everywhere with easy-to-use tools to help them reach their goals.”

LEARN MORE ABOUT REWIRE’S NEURO-PERFORMANCE SYSTEM

Dr David Lipman is an Australian trained Medical Doctor, Podiatrist and Exercise Physiologist. He has worked with athletes of varying levels in all 3 roles. He is an ultramarathon runner, avid physical activity advocate and is passionate about performance in all people.

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A 101 Guide to Binaural Beats

May 7, 2020/in Guides, Link in Bio, Science /by Ed Gibbins

Binaural beats are a form of brainwave entrainment that have been shown to have positive effects on stress, anxiety (1,2), focus (3), motivation, confidence and meditation (4). Binaural beats work when two different frequencies are heard, one in each ear. This creates a third tone, the binaural beat, whose frequency is the difference between the two other tones, e.g. if the tone in one ear is 400Hz and the other is 410Hz, the binaural beat is 10Hz. This binaural beat is shown to have a positive impact on the user’s mindset. It is important to note that stereo headphones are required to achieve a binaural beat since when using a speaker or non-stereo headphones the frequencies are already mixed outside the brain and hence no binaural beat is created.

The various tones of binaural beats affect the user differently. The following tones are used in the Rewire Mindset Recovery System:

0.5 – 3.5 Hz – Delta wave for deep sleep
- In a 2018 study, participants who received this frequency during sleep entered deep sleep quicker and for longer (5). This allows participants to gain more of the benefits of deep sleep including physical recovery.

4.0 – 6.5 Hz – Theta for meditation/sleep
- A 2017 study showed that even listening to a 6Hz binaural beat for just 10 minutes induced the user’s brain into a state similar to that achieved during meditation (4).

7.0 – 12.5 Hz – Alpha for relaxation/dreams
- In a 1990 study, alpha wave binaural beats were shown to have a positive influence on the user’s relaxation (6).
- Try a session here

13.0 – 38.5 – Beta for Activity
- It has been shown that beta wave binaural beats can positively affect vigilance performance and mood (3), and a recent 2019 study showed that beta wave binaural beats have a positive impact on long term memory (7).

Binaural beats also have a positive effect in counteracting the negative effects of mental fatigue. A recent 2020 study showed that binaural beats reduce the negative effect of mental fatigue (8). This makes binaural beats an important part of mindset recovery and pre-competition preparation in sports to minimise the negative effects that mental fatigue is shown to have on endurance performance (9,10).

We have put together a demo of our mindset recovery system featuring theta wave binaural beats which you can watch and download below.

DOWNLOAD VIDEO TO PHONE

You can also try our Binaural Beats sessions for Rest, Recovery or Focus on the Rewire Fitness App for Free.

Our Pure Beats (Passive) collection has been designed to be used in passive mode without looking at the screen. It contains Binaural Beats at different frequencies for rest, recovery and focus. (Note that these sessions must be used with headphones to work properly).

Rest sessions: These passive recovery sessions include 2.0 Hz Delta Wave Binaural Beats designed for deep relaxation and recovery. These recovery sessions can be repeated as often as needed whenever you are feeling drained or short on sleep. The session lengths range from 2 Minutes to 120 minutes.
Balance sessions: These passive recovery sessions include 4.0 Hz Theta Wave Binaural Beats designed for achieving a calm meditative state. These recovery sessions can be repeated as often as needed whenever you need help getting into a calm mindset. The session lengths range from 2 Minutes to 120 minutes.
Focus sessions: These passive focus sessions includes 13.0 Hz Beta Wave Binaural Beats designed for achieving a focused mental state. These sessions can be repeated as often as needed whenever you need help getting into a focused mindset for competition, training or work. The session lengths range from 2 Minutes to 120 minutes.