Burnout!

The theme of this blog is that more is not always better because sometimes rest leads to the biggest gains. To understand this concept more in depth, this blog will discuss terms and negative behaviors related to burnout. A follow-up blog will go into detail about steps you can take to avoid burnout.

What is burnout? Burnout is a syndrome composed of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished feelings of personal accomplishment (Maslach & Jackson, 1981). Burnout symptoms include physical and emotional exhaustion involves feeling overwhelmed, emotionally depleted, or lacking in energy. Emotional disturbances such as depression, helplessness, anger reduced sense of accomplishment, frustration, discouragement, and resentment are clear warning signs. Depersonalization is a withdrawal or detachment of oneself from training or having impersonal responses to others. Reduced performance accomplishments include feelings of incompetence or inadequacy. Finally, health problems and susceptibility to illness is increased. If you are interested in checking yourself or someone else’s level of burnout, the Maslach burnout inventory measures for the three primary elements. (Maslach & Jackson, 1984).

Other terms related to burnout include overreaching and overtraining. Overreaching is build up of training and non-training stress resulting in short-term decrements performance with or without physical and psychological symptoms, which can be overcome in several days to several weeks (Kreider et al., 1998) Overtraining is build up of training and non-training stress resulting in long-term decreases in performance with or without physical and psychological symptoms, which may require several weeks or months to overcome (Kreider et al., 1998). Overreaching can be functional or nonfunctional, however, overtraining syndrome is caused by extreme non functional overreaching (DiFiori et al., 2014). When together, overreaching is necessary to overload the muscle and yield gains, but overtraining is dangerous, and sustained overtraining routines may lead to burnout.

Smith (1986) agreed especially on one factor that is an undeniable antecedent to burnout, chronic stress. So he created the cognitive-affective model of stress and burnout.

The model suggests that stress and burnout follow a similar path. The stress pathway follows the general stress response. What that means is the situational demands influence a person’s cognitive appraisal, which thereby initiates the physiological and psychological responses, and then finally the coping or task specific behavior. To summarize this table, an imbalance between demands and resources over an extended period of time may lead to negative appraisals. These negative thoughts can impact physiological responses such as insomnia, fatigue, and/or tension, finally resulting in burnout characterized by rigid or inappropriate behavior, decreased performance, interpersonal problems, and withdrawal from the activity.

In conclusion, it is important that we push ourselves past our comfort zone to create gains. However, it is important to recognize when we are pushing too hard as to not fall into performance decrements. Understanding when overreaching is helpful and when it is harmful is key to avoiding physical and psychological drawbacks from burnout. This line can be very hazy at times, so it is important that the environment we train in is conducive to personal growth and gains and not a cause for physical and emotional exhaustion. There are specific strategies one can take to avoid burnout, these will be discussed in a follow-up blog.

Caleb Campbell, M.S., NASM-CPT, BCS, GFI, SFS

References

Difiori, J. P., Benjamin, H. J., Brenner, J. S., Gregory, A., Jayanthi, N., Landry, G. L., & Luke, A. (2014). Overuse injuries and burnout in youth sports: A position statement from the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 48, 287-288.

Kreider, R., Fry, A., & O’Toole, M. (1998). Overtraining in sport: Terms, definitions, and prevalence. In R. Kreider, A. Fry, & M. O’Toole (Eds.), Overtraining in sport (pp. 7-9). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Maslach, C., & Jackson, S.E. (1981). The measurement of experienced burnout. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2, 99-113. dii:10.1002/job.4030020205

Maslach, C., & Jackson, S.E. (1984). Burnout in organizational settings. Applied Social Psychology Annual, 5, 133-153

Robbins, J., & Madrigal, L. (2017). Sport, exercise, and performance psychology: Bridging theory and application. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company, LLC.

Smith, R. E. (1986). Toward a cognitive-affective model of athletic burnout. Journal of Sport Psychology, 8, 36-50.