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Learning from sport burnout and overtraining
Learning from sport burnout and overtraining

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9 Summary of Session 3

The main learning points from this session are:

  • Athletic identity can be defined as ‘the degree to which an individual identifies with the athlete role’ (Brewer et al., 1993, p. 237). ‘Unidimensional athletic identity’ is used to reinforce the idea that an identity is narrowly focused and singular.
  • Self-esteem refers to the evaluation of one’s worth as a person. A self-esteem that is mainly based on sports performance outcomes is closely associated with risk of burnout (Gustafsson et al., 2018).
  • Sport entrapment refers to a feeling of being trapped in sport because one’s identity and self-esteem is closely linked to sport; contemplating being an ex-athlete creates uncertainty and anxiety. Hence athletes often continue to train hard whilst feeling trapped in sport.
  • Overtraining is due to an imbalance between stress and recovery. Some of the prolonged symptoms of overtraining are fatigue, insomnia, agitation, weight loss and infections and illness (Kreher, 2016). A focus on underrecovery is useful when discussing overtraining.
  • The training–recovery–supercompensation phases describe the adaptive rebound in performance and may have physiological, psychological and technical components (Gambetta, 2007).
  • Overreaching is a state of short-term physiological depletion from which it is still possible to recover relatively quickly (in days or weeks).

In the next session you will explore five in-depth insights into overtraining and underrecovery, which may challenge any pre-conceptions you might have on this topic.

You can now go to Session 4 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .