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

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1 Case study: Ian Braid

As Chief Executive Officer of the British Athletes Commission (2013–17), Ian Braid’s job was to represent and provide impartial advice to elite athletes, particularly if it were felt their rights had been infringed.

Activity 1 Situational influence on coach burnout

Timing: Allow about 15 minutes

Listen to this interview with Braid from 2018 in which he describes a turning point in his career at the time when athlete welfare and accusations of bullying in a number of Olympic sports surfaced.

  1. Identify three words or phrases he uses to describe his experience.
  2. What explanation does he give for the causes of his stress-related condition? If this is indeed burnout, why might it be different to athlete burnout?
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Transcript: Audio 1

IAN BRAID
From my own experience dealing with athlete welfare, if it went from somebody saying to me, Ian, I've not been picked for a major games, then it came with trauma as well as a request for help. And I did a lot of that, particularly in the lead up to Rio across any number of sports. I had the pressure of the duty of care review being undertaken by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, which I thought was of significant importance to the future of the British Athletes Commission. And in the back end of 2016, I got more and more involved in not just individual people seeking my help, but groups of athletes. And that led to some of the investigations that have been made public in the media, et cetera.
The end result in May of last year was I realised, finally, that something was wrong with me. It took a prod from my son, Harry, who asked me whether he thought I was working too hard. And my answer was, I don't know how to relax anymore. And then, the following week, the Braid household welcomed Fred the dog. And when Fred arrived, the house was just absolutely joyous. It was giddy with excitement, and I felt absolutely none of it, and I felt no empathy with this dog that had just created more chaos in my house by arriving in Chateau Braid.
I was asked to fill in a personal health questionnaire by the medical profession. I scored 22 out of 27. And I was asked to fill in a general anxiety disorder questionnaire, and I scored 21 out of 22. I reflect back that I was very poorly. It was all situational. It was all due to the pressure of my job and the loneliness of my role, not, per se, CEO of the British Athletes Commission, but the loneliness of being a CEO in a very pressurised environment.
So I took time off work. I was off for 30 days of the 112 million days lost to anxiety, stress, and depression. I went back to work, and I knew I was done, so I signed a settlement agreement with my board and left at the end of July. When I was on the floor, I thought I'd let not only my family down, but I thought I'd let 1,500 members of the BAC down. And I had lost my identity, I'd lost my self-esteem, and I'd lost my confidence.
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Discussion

  1. You may have identified a number of ways in which he describes his experience and it is likely you found three amongst these:

    ‘pressure’, ‘something wrong with me’, ‘don’t know how to relax anymore’, ‘loss of identity’, ‘loss of self-esteem’, ‘loss of confidence’, ‘anxiety, stress and depression’.

  2. His explanation for his condition was that it was ‘all situational’ (i.e. connected to his work context). He reflects that this was ‘to do with the pressure of my job’ and the loneliness of his role. Often leaders or coaches feel very isolated in their job especially if they are not able to confide in others who perhaps understand the challenges they face. The confidential and sensitive nature of his work perhaps made sharing with others particularly problematic.

    It is debatable whether this is a case of burnout: but it is certainly stress and mental health-related. Unlike an athlete who often experiences overtraining or physical stress, Braid experienced mental or emotional stress. This limited physical element (i.e. through training) is a key difference between athlete and coach burnout.

Braid’s account is a reminder that situational factors (i.e. the surrounding work context) can play a major role in burnout. Whilst leadership roles such as his may involve considerable interaction with other people, paradoxically coaches can often suffer from a lack of social support. Always being on show and having to control their emotions is a part of coaching and burnout that you will explore in the next section.