You're Far More Than an Athlete

Does it make sense that sports-involved youth practice more than professional athletes?

That’s what’s happening in today's world of youth sports.

Consider this:

Major League Baseball begins structured team practices in late February, and the regular season ends in early October. There are no structured team practices from early October through the end of February—roughly five months. MLB players train on their own during that interim stretch. The difference is that they’re doing it on their own accord, not because teams are demanding it.

Team MLB preseason preparation (Spring training) is five to six weeks long. The regular season game schedule extends from late March through early October (about six months). The regular season is much longer than spring training.

Similarly, other professional teams have several months off from structured team training and a much longer game schedule than the preseason practice period.

That’s not the case with a large percentage of youth and high school teams.

They pressure kids to participate in training programs with little time off after the season ends and longer than the game schedule. Many youth baseball programs begin structured team training in September or October for a season that doesn’t begin until springtime. Team training time far exceeds the game-playing season, in direct contrast with professional teams

Other youth and high school sports programs mirror the same craziness

The overtraining issue was addressed in two of my previous posts, which you can find here and here. I'm returning to the topic today due to a recent report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Overuse Injuries, Overtraining, and Burnout of Young Athletes (Brenner et al, 2024), which summarizes the devastating effect of overtraining.

I have witnessed such destruction in my experience with sports-involved youth, especially as it relates to burnout and other psychological effects, which are the focus of this post. First, I'll briefly review “overuse injuries” and "overtraining” problems presented in the AAP study.

Overuse Injuries

Such injuries result from “cumulative microtrauma to bone, muscle and/or tendon as a function of repetitive stress with insufficient recovery,” according to the Brenner et al. study.

Several factors contribute to overuse injuries, according to the study. A big one is specialization in a specific sport that predisposes young athletes to increased risk of injury due to the repetitive use of the same body parts. Improper technique and certain anatomic factors can increase bodily stress associated with too much training.

Psychological factors that contribute to overuse injuries include life stressors, perfectionism, and high levels of athletic identity, the latter defined by human performance coach John Haime as:

The degree to which you identify with your sport. It’s how you come to perceive yourself, and how others perceive you, and also serves as a basis for your sense of self-worth.

Strong athletic identity and its psychologically damaging impact will be discussed later.

Overtraining Syndrome (OT)

Overtraining syndrome (OT) is defined by Brenner et al. as:

"An accumulation of stress (from training/or other sources) resulting in a persistent performance decrease with or without other physiologic or psychologic symptoms that requires weeks or months to restore."

Insufficient rest between training sessions can cause performance decay and lead to overtraining syndrome. Research, according to Brenner et al., estimates that OT afflicts nearly 35 percent of athletes by the time they reach adulthood.

Factors contributing to this exercise/rest imbalance for young athletes include:

• Perfectionism
• Strong athletic identity
• Repeated high-volume events, including weekend tournaments
• Year-round participation in sports
• Simultaneous and overlapping participation in multiple sports and teams
• Endurance events, such as marathons

Forced participation by coaches, parents, etc. (extrinsic motivators) can increase the risk for OT, as opposed to young athletes who pursue their sports from their own desire (intrinsic motivation). Both sources of influence can result in overtraining syndrome, but extrinsic is the bigger of the two.

Burnout and Associated Problems

Raedeke and Smith (2001) define burnout in sport as:

(1) emotional and/or physical exhaustion; (2) reduced sense of accomplishment; and (3) devaluation of sport

Risk factors for burnout include too much training and overscheduling. Today’s youth are often roped by parents and coaches into playing on overlapping teams and sports, and too early sports specialization. Kids are robbed of free play and their own choices.

Overcontrolling coaches can unintentionally contribute to problems with perfectionism and a negative relationship with the athlete, creating higher levels of burnout.

All this can lead to kids disliking sports and quitting. Burnout-related attrition is nearly 70 percent for athletes 13 years old and younger, according to the Brenner et al. report.

Burnout rates are much lower if the individual's motivation is about personal goals and the pursuit of long-term development instead of sports and training being forced on them.

Personal Perspective

My experience with young athletes as a psychologist and coach reveals all the above. Kids are physically and emotionally stressed and exhausted from their sports participation and the loss of enjoyment and motivation for a sport. They often quit. Frayed relationships with parents, coaches, and teammates are also common.

Another problem is associated with a strong, exclusive sports identity, meaning their entire sense of self and of life revolves around their sports. That leads to a fear of failure marked by pressured practice and play. Such stress and anxiety often result in reduced levels of performance, which exponentially raises pressure and associated emotional turmoil.

Such devastation is especially prevalent when their sporting career ends due to injury, getting cut, not receiving any college scholarship offers, etc. For most athletes, the ending happens when they graduate from high school. This is a totally understandable phenomenon considering their life perspective revolved around sports. When their athletic life ends, they are lost to the point of perceived devastation.

It’s as if they’ve been fed pizza their entire life and are unaware of any other nourishment. Pizza is removed, and perceived starvation sets in because they don't know what else to eat.

They haven’t a clue about their future direction.

Tasting the Smorgasbord of Life

Parents, guardians, coaches, and psychologists need to convey to young athletes that they're way more than an athlete.

Understanding that can prevent overuse injury, overtraining syndrome, burnout, and the potential devastation of a strong, exclusive athletic identity.

Life is a boundless buffet brimming with delicious choices. Limiting young people to exclusive nourishment will deprive them of opportunities to taste diverse delicacies of life. It might also kill their taste for the pizza that’s been forever stuffed down their throats by overzealous parents and coaches.

Give kids freedom to choose other activities to discover interests and talents hidden away inside them because of the year-round demands and expectations of coaches, parents, and other narrow-minded adults.

They’re way more than an athlete!