Athlete Burnout: A Physiological Perspective

Dr. Gould has defined athlete burnout as a syndrome characterized by emotional and physical exhaustion, reduced sense of accomplishments, and sport devaluation. It results in physical, emotional and social withdrawal from a formerly enjoyable sport activity. In his paper, he has done an excellent job in describing the sources and consequences of athlete burnout among college athletes from a psychological perspective. In my reaction, I will comment on some measurement issues and provide a physiological perspective on some aspects of athlete burnout, including its relation to the overtraining syndrome. Dr. Gould made clear in his paper that athlete burnout is a phenomenon difficult to define, measure, diagnose and study. There is no universally accepted definition; different definitions have been adopted by sport psychologists who have studied the syndrome, depending on their perspective (Cresswell & Eklund, 2006; Raedeke, 1997; Smith, 1986). Likewise, different models of determinants have been proposed (Coakley, 1992; Cresswell & Eklund, 2006; Lonsdale, Hodge, & Jackson, 2007; Raedeke, 1997; Silva, 1990; Smith, 1986). Thus, the nature of the phenomenon studied by different investigators has varied depending on how it has been defined and conceptualized. There also has not been a uniform approach to the measurement of athlete burnout. Several questionnaires, including the Maslach Burnout Questionnaire, the Maslach Burnout General Inventory General Survey (Cresswell & Eklund, 2006), and the Eades Burnout Inventory (Gustafsson, 2007), as well as other scales assessing related constructs (Raedeke, 1997), have been used to determine the extent to which individuals possess characteristics and symptoms of athlete burnout. As a result, the constructs actually measured have varied, depending on the measurement instrument. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there has been no consensus on diagnostic criteria for the syndrome. As a result, most research on athlete burnout has not been conducted on individuals who have been diagnosed with the condition. Lack of specific diagnostic criteria for a multifaceted syndrome is not an unusual situation. For example, a similar situation existed for major depressive disorder, a syndrome with many symptoms very similar to those of athlete