7 Summary of Session 2

The main learning points of this session are:

• The case of the cyclist Elinor Barker demonstrates that stress can come from multiple sources and that recovery can take a while.
• Four of the main perspectives of burnout are:
  • a perceived stress perspective
  • an overtraining perspective
  • a motivational perspective
  • a social perspective.
• Burnout can be gauged using physiological (e.g. cortisol or heart rate variability) or questionnaire measures.
• The Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (Raedeke and Smith, 2001) is a validated measurement tool which some authors (e.g. Gustafsson et al., 2017) suggest is best used to make comparisons between athletes in a setting.
• Three categories can be used to organise fifteen factors that influence burnout (there are linkages between many of the factors identified):
  • individual characteristics
  • prolonged overload
  • situational characteristics.

In the next session you will look at an interesting area: identity and its impact on training and recovery. Exploring athletic identity and overtraining is a popular topic since many of the examples provide real insights into athletes’ lives. In exploring this topic, you will learn a bit more about your own situation.

You can now go to Session 3.