Checkup Newsroom

‘I quit!’ Is your child burned out on sports?

Fri, 08 Jan 2016 11:08:27 -0600

“I want to quit!”

“This is not fun!”

“I don’t want to play anymore.”

Are these lines you’ve heard your young athlete say? Have you found yourself asking questions like – “What could cause a talented, young athlete to lose their passion for playing a sport?” “Or why would they throw everything away after we’ve worked so hard?”

Your young athlete may be feeling a sense of overtraining or burnout from their sport.

What is overtraining or burnout?

Overtraining occurs when an athlete does the same skill over and over again with limited rest, causing a loss of enjoyment or withdrawal due to increasing physical demands. This could be specialization in one sport, high volumes of training, or demands of coaches, trainers, parents, or self to achieve a specific skill level, time, or score in their sport. A child may sense these demands as too much, leading to physiological and mood changes affecting self-esteem, levels of stress and ultimately leading to physical and emotional exhaustion.

Overtraining can also increase your child’s risk for injury. Often young athletes are putting in long hours to perfect their sport and participate in competitions or tournaments. This repetitive stress and physical exhaustion on a growing, undeveloped body can promote weakness and breakdown of body support structures, placing the athlete at risk for overuse or repetitive stress injuries. A study performed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) found that athletes who spend more than twice as much time in sports than in free play, who intensely specialize in a single sport, or who played more hours per week than their age, are more likely to have overuse injuries and potential emotional burnout.

Not all athletes that request to stop a sport are burned out. Some request to stop due to time constraints, interest in trying something new, lack of playing time, or boredom. That is why it’s important to be aware of signs of burnout or overtraining.

What are some causes of overtraining/burnout?

Early specialization in a sport
Lack of rest
Lack of life balance
Loss of fun
Excessive negative or unclear feedback from coaches and/or parents
Poor relationship with coach or teammates

What are signs of overtraining?

Loss of desire to play
Tiring quickly
Resisting working with coaches and teammates
Not reaching training goals
Chronic injuries

What can I do to help?

It is important to switch focus back to the fun of the game. This can happen by starting pick-up games and reducing the pressure to exceed. This transitions the focus to building teamwork, bringing awareness to proper fitness and health, developing friendships, and having fun.

As the athlete’s parent, you are their support system and second voice. Talk to your athlete and their coach about promoting a good life balance and placing fun back into the game. For example, recommend reducing the number of competitions if your child is training 6-7 days a week for multiple hours a day.

What if you’re the parent and coach? Children model those around them. Teach them based on how you conduct yourself in your passion for the sport, the importance of life balance and rest, and how to create open lines of communication with teammates and coaching staff. Reward the positives, but also use the negatives for learning experiences and education.

Change the mindset of “win-at-all-costs” and motivating through a focus on winning, humiliation/anger when they fail, or pressure to get the athletes mind back in the game. Instead, promote a positive atmosphere where there is a balance of the serious, competitive side and fun side. Try to regain the fun, or positively support and guide them as they transition interest to another sport, position, or activity. There is even a possibility that through this process of finding their passion, they might return to that same sport because they want to, not because they were forced. Also, by reducing the monotony of training and allowing your child to try different sports or positions, you can promote varying levels of strengthening, muscle memory, and physical and mental growth.

It is important to be aware that it is OK for an athlete to become serious about their sport and invest time and energy into pursuing their sporting goals as long as they maintain a passion for what they’re doing. If the passion and fun for the sport is removed, there is a risk for heartache, unhappiness and ultimately burnout.

More resources from the Cook Children's Sports Performance Orthopedic Rehab Team Specialists (SPORTS):

About the author

Jenny Arey, PT, DPT, OCS, CMPT, is a SPORTS physical therapist. She's a board certified orthopedic clinical specialist and certified manual physical therapist. The SPORTS Program at Cook Children’s offers educational material for parents, coaches, trainers and nurses for sports-specific injuries. Our team of experts have specialized training in pediatrics and collaborate together to share their knowledge in growing bodies and dynamic training principles.

Is your child ready for football?

Wed, 27 Aug 2014 10:42:07 -0500

Most young athletes know the importance of preparing for the upcoming football season and have been preparing this summer with weight-training and conditioning programs. The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) recommends a balanced fitness program that incorporates aerobic exercise, strength training and flexibility. Some athletes work with coaches/trainers and others are highly motivated players going out and challenging themselves. But are they ready?

Strength: As these athletes push themselves to achieve the lifting goals set by coaches, is their form being supervised by someone trained to observe any breakdowns? Complex lifts such as cleans, snatch, push-jerks, etc. put enormous strain on the athlete’s muscles, especially when they are younger and still developing, but if their form is poor it also makes them susceptible to back, shoulder, knee and neck injuries. Often the athlete lacks the core strength and stability to provide a solid foundation so that the body can move correctly. Core strengthening should be an integrated part of every strengthening program. Unfortunately, many of our athletes are never taught to control their core in basic sitting and standing postures, but yet we expect that they will somehow find their core while in the weight room or on the field. If you think core strengthening is all about abs, then you are missing the bigger picture.

Conditioning/ nutrition/ hydration: Cardiovascular conditioning is often an area that coaches hit pretty hard in the offseason, and most athletes have been working on some kind of conditioning program. However, the nutrition and hydration components of this area are often over-looked. Understanding how to fuel your body for peak performance is just as important as knowing how to perform the activity. Working with a nutrition/dietitian specialist can give your athlete the tools needed to unlock their full potential.

Flexibility: This is one of the most overlooked areas of a good training program for a football player getting ready for middle or high school ball. There is nothing glorious about stretching. There is also nothing glorious about missing a majority of the season while sitting on the bench due to a pulled hamstring. Flexibility training is about preparing the body to perform. Dynamic stretching (moving stretches) prepares the body for immediate performance and should be used before any type of physical activity. Static stretching (prolonged holds) help prepare the body for tomorrow’s workout and promotes having the muscle length needed to achieve the greatest power. Use of a foam roller can also help improve flexibility by preparing the muscles for stretching.

Neuromuscular control: Why is it that the pros make it look so easy? The ability to cut-back, stop-start, and change directions centers on the way an athlete’s brain can control the body. A physical therapist or trained professional can use any number of functional movement assessments to see how the body is moving and recommend corrective exercises and/or cues to improve these patterns. Learning the best patterns means the athlete can generate more power, more quickly, and in more directions. The best movement patterns also keep the body in the best alignment, and less likely to become injured.

Overtraining: The AAOS also recommends avoiding the pressure that is now exerted on many young athletes to over-train. Listen to your body and decrease training time and intensity if pain or discomfort develops.

See a physician if you begin having pain. This will reduce the risk of injury and help avoid “burn-out.”

Related links:

About the author:

John Stanley, a physical therapist and SPORTS Rehab Clinical Coordinator at Cook Children's. The Cook Children's Sports Performance Orthopedic Rehab Team Specialists (SPORTS) program offers care to children and adolescents with orthopedic or sports-related injuries.