How to Avoid Youth Sports Burnout

I’m sure you’re a great coach, but athlete burnout is real. I’ve seen it in other people and experienced it myself. It’s not fun for anyone involved: the athletes get frustrated, coaches lose their motivation, and teams fall apart. So here are some quick steps to help you avoid youth sports burnout!

Pain Tolerance

Pain tolerance is the amount of pain you can tolerate. Pain tolerance tends to vary from person to person, and it’s important to understand this distinction when talking about how much physical activity you should do. If your child has a high pain tolerance, he or she may enjoy playing sports more than someone with a lower tolerance.

One way to improve your child’s pain tolerance is through exercise. The more physical activity they get, the better they’ll be able to handle less-pleasant feelings like soreness and exhaustion later on in life—even if it means taking time away from team practices! Some examples of activities that will help increase this ability include:

• Swimming
• Running/jogging around town or other forms of cardio work (like dancing)
• Yoga classes where there’s lots of stretching involved

The Importance of Sleep

As you know, sleep is the time when your body and mind recover from the day. It’s also an important time for remembering what happened during your day, so you can learn from it. When you’re getting enough sleep, you feel rested in the morning and throughout the rest of your day. You’ll have more energy and will be able to think clearly throughout the day. In addition to being good for your physical health, getting enough sleep can also help keep stress levels down (which means less yelling!).

Your body needs different amounts of sleep depending on age:

• Newborns up to 6 months old generally need 14-17 hours each night;
• Infants 6 months – 1 year old usually require 12-15 hours per night;
• Toddlers 1 – 2 years old need 11-14 hours per night; and
• Preschoolers 3 – 5 years old should get 10-13 hours each night

Injuries

Injuries can be a part of any sport–especially youth sports, which tend to involve activities that are more likely to cause injury. You can reduce the risk by taking precautions and knowing how to treat an injury when it happens.

If you’re lucky, your child won’t get injured at all. But if they do sustain some sort of injury during their participation in a sport, here’s what you should know:

• Injuries can happen at any time and for any reason (or no reason at all!)
• Injuries are not permanent or life-threatening as long as they’re treated properly
• The best way to treat an injury is with ice and rest until it heals

Weight Management

• It’s important to consider weight management when thinking about the mental health of your child. If you have a child who has entered puberty, you will notice that their body has started changing in ways that are both exciting and scary. Your child may be growing taller and stronger, but this can also mean that he or she is gaining weight as well. Weight management is difficult because it requires a lot of discipline and self-control, which most kids don’t know how to handle yet at this age.
• You should also keep in mind that long-term weight management goals can be achieved over time by sticking with an exercise routine or diet plan on a daily basis until they become routine habits for your child (and family). To make these goals easier to achieve, try setting short-term weekly goals with rewards after each week passes when everyone sticks with the plan! This will encourage everyone involved so much more quickly than if there were no incentives involved whatsoever!

Overtraining

Rest is an important part of your training regimen. Resting helps to ensure that you are able to recover from the trauma caused by exercise and facilitates recovery after a workout. However, resting by itself does not necessarily mean recovery; it only allows for recovery to occur. For example, if you’re doing repetitive exercises like squats and deadlifts, you’ll want to occasionally take a day off between sets so that your muscles have time to repair themselves and grow stronger. This break will allow for proper rest but does not guarantee full recovery unless it’s followed by adequate sleep and nutrition as well as other restorative activities such as meditation or massage therapy (if desired).

Stress Response

While the stress response is a normal part of life, it can become harmful if you experience it for too long or too often. It’s important to know how to manage your own stress response so that you don’t end up burning out. It’s also important to understand what burnout looks like and how to avoid it by knowing when your body is telling you that something isn’t right in your life.

The best way to do this is through training and preparation:

• Have realistic expectations about the challenges involved with each sport, especially when starting out;
• Make sure there are enough adults who can help supervise practices and games;
• If possible, watch other teams’ practices so that you can learn from them;
• Build good relationships with teammates so that working together will be easier down the road (and fun!).

Healthy Diet

Your body needs fuel to function properly, and it’s important that you eat a balanced diet. Don’t skip meals, and try not to eat too much junk food. Water is your best friend! Avoid sugary drinks and caffeine, alcohol, or tobacco—they’ll only make you feel worse when you’re feeling burned out.

Hydration

To stay hydrated and avoid the symptoms of dehydration, drink water before, during and after exercise.

Drink 2 cups of water before exercise to ensure that your body has enough fluids to perform at its best. Drink more if you are exercising in hot weather or at high altitudes. Don’t wait until you feel thirsty; by then, it may be too late for your body to absorb enough fluid to replenish its stores.

Mental Health Checkups

One of the best ways to avoid burnout and make sure you’re staying healthy is by checking in with your mental health. Mental health problems can take many forms, from generalized anxiety and depression to more specific disorders like ADHD or OCD. In addition to being a serious concern in its own right, an untreated mental illness can have adverse effects on physical health as well.

If you suspect that you might have a problem with your psychological health (or if someone close to you does), it’s important to get help from a professional. If this isn’t feasible for some reason, there are plenty of resources available online that provide advice on self-diagnosis or treatment options. For example:

• American Psychological Association offers resources on how to find qualified therapists near where they live or work; they also offer information about treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) which has been proven effective at treating many kinds of issues ranging from depression and anxiety disorders all the way up through eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa.* United States Department Of Health And Human Services includes information about different types of anxiety disorders including generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorders such as panic attacks due specifically stress management techniques in order avoid burnout while working out hard during any sports activity.”

Conclusion

As you can see, there’s a lot to think about when it comes to the mental health of your child. But with the right knowledge and support, you can help them avoid burnout in their youth sports career.