GAELIC SPORTS WORLD Issue 35 – October 6, 2015 | Page 36

PHYSICAL FITNESS & HEALTH
OCTOBER 2, 2015

BURNOUT
HANNAH VAN BUUREN
South Africa based physical fitness expert and sports
research academic, Hannah van Buuren examines the
issue of player ‘burnout’ within the GAA.

The causes of burnout can be divided into two categories: environmental and personal (Smith 1986).
ENVIRONMENTAL CAUSES INCLUDE:

With an increasing number of Gaelic players, especially
the youth, experiencing more and more games with their
schools, within their county, and representation for their
county, and in many different age group squads, consequences and burnout has come into sharper focus than
ever before.

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physical factors (e.g., over-training & injury);

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logistical factors (e.g., time constraints &
organizational problems); and

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social-interpersonal factors (problems with others)

EXHAUSTION
Burnout is a state of physical, mental and emotional
exhaustion, and negatively affects vitality, purpose, selfconcept and attitudes towards life and sport (Shaufeli,
Maslach, Marek, 1993). Athletes and coaches are prone
to burnout because they are often achievement–oriented,
highly dedicated, and much stressed. Without knowing
it many athletes find themselves at a point of diminishing returns where their hard training begins to backfire.
They begin to experience performance problems, lose
their motivation to train, start suffering from chronic injuries or begin to question their goals. Athletes become
mentally and physically exhausted because of a “more is
better” mentality. The fact of the matter is that very often, “less is more,” that the QUALITY of your training is
much more important than the QUANTITY.

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Examples of environmental factors include: an unrewarding
environment (both intrinsic, as well as extrinsic motivation); excessive stress; monotonous training that lacks variety (staleness);
and less practice, but playing more competitively than average
(Gould, Udry, Tuffey, & Loehr, 1996; Henschen, 1998).
PERSONAL FACTORS INCLUDE:
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high expectations;
a lack of enjoyment;
lack of assertiveness skills;
perfectionism;
poor relationship skills;
poor coping strategies for stress; and
a lack of personal control in training
(Gould et al.; Henschen; Shank, 1983; Smith)