Changes in athlete burnout over a thirty-week “rugby year”

doi:10.1016/j.jsams.2006.03.017

Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport

Volume 9, Issues 1–2, May 2006, Pages 125-134

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2006.03.017 Get rights and content

Summary

Controversy over a negative experiential state among players, discussed as “burnout” in media reports, stimulated the New Zealand Rugby Union to commission research (including the present study) into players’ experiences. Athlete burnout research to date has largely been limited to studies featuring cross-sectional designs. The purpose of this study was to examine changes in the key characteristics of burnout over a “rugby year”, a 30-week competitive period involving two or more independent competitions. Players completed the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire at three different times during the 30-week competitive rugby year. Some statistically significant changes were observed in key characteristics of burnout across the competitive rugby year. Specifically players reported that their feelings of reduced accomplishment increased pre-competition to in-competition phases. Changes in exhaustion over time were associated with playing position. Burnout was also associated with injury, non-selection, rugby experience and team membership. Overall the results reflect that burnout is a dynamic experience and indicate that factors such as playing position, injury, selection and starting status are worthy of further investigation.

Section snippets

Participants

The participants in the current study were professional New Zealand rugby union players (N = 109) aged 19 to 32 years (M = 25.23). These players were ethnically diverse in origin and included people of New Zealand European (56.5%), Polynesian (20.4%), and Maori (21.3%) descent. The balance of participants either chose “other” (0.9%) or did not specify an ethnic identity (0.9%). The players reported participating in this level of professional rugby for an average of 4.86 years (S.D. = 2.76). Prior to

Demographic variables

Descriptive statistics for the demographic variables for each of the three time points (i.e., hours trained, number of games and player injury) are presented in Table 1.

Burnout scores

Observed descriptive statistics for the ABQ subscales at the three time points are also presented in Table 1. Means observed in Cresswell and Eklund's¹⁷ study of professional rugby players at the end of the rugby year (i.e., equivalent to end of competition in the current study) are also presented of Table 1 for heuristic

Discussion

The purpose of the current study was to examine changes in athlete burnout across a 30-week competitive rugby year. Specifically the aim of the current study was to monitor variations in players’ reports of exhaustion, reduced accomplishment and devaluation across pre-competitive year, in-competitive year and end of competitive year time points. Lai and Wiggins’¹² had previously reported a linear increase across time in a unidimensional burnout score. Our data also provide some evidence of time

Practical implications

•
Different player management strategies are required for more experienced rugby players.
•
Consideration should be given to playing position when monitoring and managing rugby players.

Acknowledgement

This research was funded by the New Zealand Rugby Union.

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Coping tendencies and changes in athlete burnout over time
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This is important because burnout is a chronic outcome of poor coping with stress, and burnout development is likely an ongoing attempt to exert inner resources to tackle environmental demands that are deemed to be stressful (Demerouti et al., 2001; Eklund & DeFreese, 2015; Smith, 1986). Despite these theoretical propositions, by testing them using cross-sectional designs, we may be drawing incorrect conclusions about the relationships between coping and burnout, since we are operationally ignoring the dynamic and chronic nature of burnout that was originally theorized (see also Cresswell & Eklund, 2006). So as to fully test the predictive capability of coping tendencies in burnout development, longitudinal studies are required.
Burnout can lead to numerous negative outcomes for athletes. While we know a reasonable amount about how athlete burnout develops over time, we know comparably less about the role of coping in this process. The present study aimed to help address this issue by examining the role of coping tendencies in predicting changes in athlete burnout over a six-month period. A sample of 141 junior athletes (mean age = 17.3 years) completed measures of coping tendencies (problem-focused and avoidance coping) and burnout. Participants also completed the measure of burnout on two further occasions, three months and six months after the initial assessment. Conditional latent growth curve modelling revealed that coping tendencies predicted changes in athlete burnout over time. In this regard, avoidance coping predicted increases in athlete burnout, whereas problem-focused coping was unrelated to changes in athlete burnout. These findings provide evidence that an athlete’s tendency to use avoidance coping strategies is linked to burnout development over time.
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High levels of perceived support has previously been associated with higher self-confidence and lower levels of athlete burnout (Freeman et al., 2011). Rugby injuries have previously been associated with athlete burnout (Cresswell & Eklund, 2006), however in the current study the PASS-Q was not found to be influential in the injury risk profiles. It has been reported in the literature, that injury risk and recovery are influenced by negative coping skills (Ivarsson et al., 2017) however no association between the ACSI-28 and injury was found in the current study.
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The time-loss match injury incidence rate was 48.2/1000 player hours for males and 45.2/1000 player hours for females. Two risk profiles emerged involving; ‘age + navicular drop + training pitch surface’ (53%) and ‘age + navicular drop + groin strength’ (16%). An inverse relationship between groin strength and groin injury was found for the ‘backs’ players (−0.307, p < 0.05). Using the PSQI, 61% of players had poor sleep quality, however no relationship between the wellness questionnaires and injury was found.
Two injury risk profiles emerged, associated with subsequent injury occurrence. Using these risk profiles, individualized prevention strategies may be designed regarding deficits in groin muscle strength and identifying foot alignment.
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These studies suggest that when athletes have excessive passion and obsessive attitudes toward competition, they are, ironically, at a higher risk of declined motivation and burnout. In particular, mental and physical fatigue have been shown to increase as the competition season progresses, leading to increasing burnout (Cresswell & Eklund, 2006). Thus, we can predict that levels of passion for competition change in parallel with increased fatigue as the season progresses, making it difficult to maintain motivation in the long term through passion alone.
Previous studies have pointed out both the positive and negative sides of passion in terms of influencing motivation in athletes; it is necessary to uncover factors predicting high intrinsic motivation among athletes. This study aims to characterize the relationships among harmonious and obsessive passion, mindfulness, and intrinsic motivation in competitive athletes. The participants in this study were 111 university athletes (88 males, 23 females, mean age = 19.65, SD = 1.03) who completed the Athlete Mindfulness Questionnaire, the Passion Scale, and the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory. This study's findings showed that athletes with high levels of harmonious or obsessive passion reported high rates of intrinsic motivation toward sport activities. In addition, athletes with low levels of passion and high mindfulness scores demonstrated high intrinsic motivation scores. Furthermore, the results of structural equation modeling showed that harmonious passion was positively associated with intrinsic motivation, both directly and indirectly, through mindfulness; obsessive passion, however, was negatively associated with intrinsic motivation through mindfulness. These findings suggest that mindfulness, rather than passion, may function as an alternative factor enhancing intrinsic motivation in competitive athletes. Moreover, mindfulness mediates the relationship between passion and intrinsic motivation.
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Fourthly, the model's outcome variable is the individual's state of health, which in our study relates specifically to ABO symptomatology. Recent ABO research has gathered valuable information regarding the conceptualization of ABO itself (see reviews by Cresswell and Eklund, 2006a, 2006b; Eklund & DeFreese, 2015) as well as identified antecedents, risk factors, and consequences of ABO (e.g. review by Gustafsson et al., 2011a). Nevertheless, certain research desiderates remain.
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Original paperChanges in athlete burnout over a thirty-week “rugby year”

Summary

Section snippets

Participants

Demographic variables

Burnout scores

Discussion

Practical implications

Acknowledgement

J Sci Med Sport

Toward a cognitive-affective model of athletic burnout

J Sport Psychol

Burnout in competitive junior tennis players: I. A quantitative psychological assessment

Sport Psychol

Development and preliminary validation of an athlete burnout measure

J Sport Exerc Psychol

Burnout in competitive junior tennis players: II. Qualitative analysis

Sport Psychol

Burnout: the cost of caring

The factorial validity of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) across occupational groups and nations

J Occup Organ Psychol

Is athlete burnout more than just stress? A sport commitment perspective

J Sport Exerc Psychol

Sport commitment: a model integrating enjoyment, dropout, and burnout

J Sport Exerc Psychol

Stress, appraisal and coping

Burnout perceptions over time in NCAA division I soccer players

Int Sports J

Original paper
Changes in athlete burnout over a thirty-week “rugby year”