Injuries and Burnout Educational Materials

Sofie M. Palumbo December 5, 2023, Sports Psychology In-class notes Injuries and Burnout - - - Psychological Factors o Attentional Disruption  The stress and the demands during athletic performance  Inhibits your peripheral vision, more vulnerable to getting yourself hurt because you aren’t focused on the sides. o Increased muscle tension  The more stressed or anxious we are physically our muscles become more tense and we don’t move as well, our coordination is not as good, and the chance of injury goes up.  Tell the difference between what a type of discomfort is to push through and when there is an actual injury, and you need to stop Psychological reactions o 5 stages grief response  Being borrowed from research on mourning after a death  1. Denial  2. Anger  3. Bargaining  4. Depression  5. Acceptance and Reorganization  At first and sometimes people stick to it too rigidly- it is not necessarily in steps but phases you can circle back to o Injury-relevant information processing  Focusing on the facts related to the injury- what happened, how, what kind of recovery o Emotional upheaval and reactive behavior  The negative qualities that surface- shock, denial, isolation, withdraw o Positive outlook and coping  Where people begin to accept their situation and figure out how they will deal with it o Lose a sense of identity, fear they will never recover, lack confidence, help them adjust to how their performance will look like as they come back.  The flu- you notice you start to feel better, but you still do not have any energy, at that moment you feel like I have no idea how my energy may come back, but within 3 days it comes back, feels like a mountain to climb, you come back slowly but will make it. Psychology of recovery o Athletes recover more quickly if they participate in goal setting, positiveself talk, and healing imagery. Reconstructive ACL surgery on athletes- some people in the study were taught relaxation processes- they studied them and found that they had less injury anxiety, lower amounts of pain, and actually showed greater strength during rehabilitation- physically stronger- psychological and physical results. o Trainers said that athletes who used psychological techniques healed better. o Elite skiers- after injury three phases to their recovery  Injury-illness phase  Help the athlete deal with emotional upheaval of the injury.  The rehabilitation recovery phase  Stay motivated and stick to their rehab protocol.  The return to full activity phase  Support them in achieving full recovery. Burnout and overtraining o Overtraining  A short cycle of training lasting a few days to a few weeks, during which athletes expose themselves to excessive training loads that are near or at maximum capacity. o Burnout  An exhaustive physiological response exhibited as a result of frequent sometimes extreme and generally ineffective efforts to meet excessive training and competitive demands.  Physical and psychological Models of burnout o Cognitive-affective model  Athletes appraise a situation as either good or bad, it’s not the situation but your interpretation that matters- people differ in how they interpret and respond to demands.  Four stages  Situational demand- what is expected of you because of your sport.  The cognitive appraisal- individual differences- negative or positive (challenge) interpretation  The physiological response- negative- tension, irritability, fatigue  The behavioral response- coping behavior- stop going to practice, don’t interact the same, withdraw from team-based activities. o Negative-training stress response model  Sports training places physical and psychological stress on us and some people adapt poorly and negatively.  D-league basketball example o Unidimensional Identity Development and External control model  Stress is a symptom of burnout not a cause.  Burnout comes from the way sports are presented to young athletes. o - - You are your sport and are fully defined by it- no balance in your development. o Entrapment theory  Burnout occurs because an athlete no longer wants to engage in their sport but feels they cannot stop because of their level of involvement and commitment. Symptoms o Look at PowerPoint. Slide 7 Treatment and prevention o Look at PowerPoint. Slide 8  -