Coach and Athlete Burnout - West Virginia University

fun. Suggestions for coaches in keeping their athletes from burning out included
watching signs for staleness, having an awareness of personalities that are more
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susceptible to burnout, vary practices, and encouraging athletes to keep balance in their
lives and pursue non-sport interests.
Coakley (1992) recommended moving away from stress as the basis for
prevention and argued that changes in several social arenas would provide the best means
for battling burnout. The following areas were targeted for adjustment: the social
relations associated with the elite sport participation, the amount of control athletes have
over their lives outside of and in sport, the social organization of sport programs and its
circumstances of competition and training, and the ability of athletes to assess the reasons
for their participation and its significance to the rest of their lives. Coakley stressed
attempting to aid athletes in adjusting to the social isolation and dependency often
associated with sport only serves to foreclose those athletes’ identity and entrapment in
sport. Focusing on the social circumstances in which the athlete’s identity is foreclosed
can help foster autonomy and control over their lives reducing the opportunities for
burnout, an idea also supported by others (Feigley, 1984).
Utilizing a stress-based foundation for burnout, Weiss (1987b) provided strategies
for combating burnout in coaches and proposed psychological skills training to do so.
Skills recommended to induce relaxation and reduce anxiety and/or stress included self-
talk modification, controlling physiological arousal, and mental imagery. Also proffered
were enhancing communication skills, reducing role conflict and ambiguity, seeking
social support, and reserving time for themselves.