Essay Sample on Sport Burnout

Almost every individual has experienced or gone through the process of burnout. For some, it can be friendships, schoolwork, and exercise, especially in sports. Anthony Mette from the University of Bordeaux Segalen wrote the article, “Development and Evaluation of the Psychometric Properties of a New Measure of Athlete Burnout: The Athlete Burnout Scale”, where he explained what causes an athlete to experience the feeling of burnout. Most athletes while at a high-level feel lots of pressure on themselves from their parents, coaches, teammates, or even themselves. Mette expressed how exhaustion can be one of the major causes of burnout to occur in athletes because one can be both mentally and physically exhausted. He explained that when an athlete is potentially overreaching to maintain with their sport, an athlete can slowly start to overuse themselves. This will lead an athlete to show “lower correlations between psychological variables (e.g., some motivational regulations such as intrinsic motivation and identified regulation) (Matte)”. When an athlete starts to lose motivation in something they slowly start giving up which can lead to unhealthy effects to occur to themselves. 

An example of unhealthy habits athletes experience that leads them to burnout is Fatigue. This can become extremely dangerous for an athlete experiencing fatigue because it can cause them to potentially become seriously injured. Matte summarizes the major points of burnout to “three interrelated yet distinct dimensions: (1) reduced sense of accomplishment, … (2) physical exhaustion, … (3) negative feelings toward sport” (Matte). In the first problem, reduced sense of accomplishment, Matte explained how an athlete will feel like they are never playing to their highest standard. Athletes put themselves on higher pedestals because they feel like they can always be better than how they are doing. The second occurrence, physical exhaustion, is caused by overusing one’s body and also not getting enough sleep. By not getting enough sleep an individual’s body does not have enough time to reenergize itself. This will slowly start causing an individual’s body to start overworking. Finally, for the last problem Matte expressed his learning about, negative feelings towards sport. Many athletes start to feel this way either when they are not getting enough playing time or slowly stop seeing potential in continuing with the sport. In the article Matte’s research asked a study of young athletes and one of the boys responded with, every training session felt boring’, this is one of the major reasons athletes quit. When they lose their drive for the sport there usually isn’t a way to change their opinion of quitting. 

Another attribute Matte addressed in the article was that “athlete burnout is positively

linked to low levels of self-determined motivation” (Matte). In Matte’s first hypothesis he claimed that burnout and self-motivation were corresponding factors to one enough. Meaning that they were both main stresses, and thought they were at a very high level rather than what his research proved to be. Thus, proving the main understanding that an athlete’s burnout is not solely caused by a decrease in self-motivation. This finding can allow athletes to try and find solutions to burnout because they know that it is something they physically can solve. While there are mental solutions to burnout this cannot be proven to actually help an athlete that is experiencing burnout. Every individual is different in how they go through challenges during sports. It is how an athlete fixes this problem rather than running away from it in order for them not to go through the process of burnout. 

As a fellow athlete, after reading the writing by Anthony Mette I could relate to feeling similar to the athletes that he tested in his experiment. Mette’s understanding of burnout was clearly portrayed throughout his entire writing. Many athletes experience burnout at a young age, so Mette’s decision to survey young athletes could prove his hypothesis clearer. He was able to show that the “results also indicated acceptable discriminant validity between the concepts of burnout and depression” (Mette). This finding could be very beneficial for many young athletes to be aware of how they are very vulnerable to possibly develop burnout or depression. Being aware of a problem so serious is very helpful to look for signs if they start developing. Although Mette discussed burnout and what it is he could have found more research for how to prevent burnout from happening. Many people want to know answers for problems they cannot quickly fix. Therefore, instead of talking about all of the effects burnout can have on an athlete, Mette should have also included solutions to burnout. These solutions could be quick changes an individual could do, so they possibly would not have to quit a sport. Quitting is never what an athlete wants to do, but when experiencing burnout quitting feels like the only solution.

This writing was very formal and very well informed about burnout in young athletes. Loss of motivation in a sport will cause an athlete’s performance to decrease which will result in a lack of winning. As a human being, every individual always wants to come in first. A failure is never an option, however, accepting a loss it can make an individual stronger. This is the mentality that an athlete should always have or else they will go through the process of burnout. By being vulnerable it will decrease an athlete’s chance of experiencing burnout. One key aspect that was addressed in the writing by Anthony Mette is that “total dedication to the goals they have set, excessive trainings, and a low perceived social support can lead these athletes to not realize their full potential, which can lead them to experience high levels of burnout” (Mette). By having a strong support system and a solid group of friends an athlete will always have someone to go to when they need help. Although admitting that you want help is extremely difficult, being able to get support will always make someone feel better. Preventing burnout in young athletes will lead to a decrease in depression in young athletes. This will help tremendously with one’s mental health because they know that they are never alone.