Surviving full-time coaching
Issue: Volume 27 Number 2
Coach burnout
Like elite athletes, many professional coaches undertake large physical workloads and experience considerable psychological stresses over many years. The long-term effects of such stress on athletes have been researched extensively and appropriate recovery and management strategies have been identified for them (Calder 2003; Hooper et al. 1995; Kellermann 2002), but few reports have examined the effects of these stresses for coaches. The limited research that does exist focuses almost exclusively on the causes and identification of burnout (Kelley, Eklund and Ritter-Taylor 1999; Raedeke, Granzyk and Warren 2000) with little or no consideration given to overuse and overtraining problems that coaches also experience. The latter reports provide no recommendations of how coaches can maintain their multidimensional roles with minimum risk to their physical and psychological wellbeing. Ironically, the basic recovery strategies that coaches teach to their athletes are the same that they should use for themselves: practise what you preach.
Coaches are time poor
Tennis coaches are a typical example of this scenario. They have three major roles — coaching tennis, managing a business and a private family life. One of the major causes of excessive stress for coaches is being ‘time poor’. They lack sufficient time to undertake the massive number of tasks required to fulfil their primary roles (Lazarus 1990). Balancing commitments to all these roles requires exceptional planning and management skills. The best way to minimise the impact of excessive stress is to plan ahead and identity all commitments including appropriate recovery strategies for every day.
Time management simplified
A simple approach to weekly planning and time management used extensively by athletes is a time management checklist (Table 1, in the related links below). Such lists identify major tasks and commitments that are then plotted onto a weekly planning template using different coloured highlighter pens to represent different activities. Workloads may vary daily but each type of activity will result in a specific type of fatigue. (Even sitting down at a computer for 30 minutes or more can produce muscular, neural and visual fatigue.) Recognising this will help the coach to identify some recovery strategies to minimise that specific fatigue. This process takes about five to ten minutes a week and helps to anticipate potentially stressful times.
Profile: a full-time coach
Male, early 30s, married with three young children under eight years of age. He is self-employed and manages four other full-time coaches and office staff, plus up to 15 other part-time coaches. He coaches at one venue close to home and travels to tournaments with his athletes three to four times a year for three to four days at a time. He plans his holidays in advance to coincide with school and tennis breaks. He has disrupted sleep with small children and misses playing golf on his day off, which he spends with his family.He is extremely tired in the evenings when he gets home from work and struggles to shower and switch off.
Work commitments: His 60-hour-a-week schedule includes 42 hours a week coaching on court (23 hours of heavy workload, and 14 hours of moderate and five hours of lighter work). Another 18 hours are spent on business activities.
Recovery activities: He has one-and-a-half days away from tennis when he spends time with his family. Two to three times a year, he gets a massage and occasionally a game of golf.
Recommendations: The coach should start to monitor his responses to work and stress. Simple checklists exist and take as little as 20 seconds a day to complete (Calder 2003). Morning weigh-in and urine checks will help him to monitor his hydration, especially if the previous day was hot, windy and physically demanding. An early morning snack or drink before his 6.00am lessons will help minimise fatigue later in the day. He is also advised to take some sports drinks and nibbles to eat between sessions as he does not get home to eat his evening meal until late. Pre-habilitation exercises to strengthen and stretch key areas, such as shoulders and back, should be done two to three times a week for 10 to 15 minutes together with some stretching, yoga or Pilates before bed. A shower before bed will help his muscles relax and promote a sound sleep. He also needs a weekly massage to identify any overuse problems. A night roster with his wife to cater for wakeful children may provide for some uninterrupted nights sleep. A swim with his children at the weekends will also help reduce muscle fatigue effectively. Finally, five to ten minutes a week should be spent planning the following week’s commitments.
Finding a balance — advice for coaches
Plan ahead, monitor your fatigue and rate of recovery, and develop a simple daily recovery routine. Below is a simple checklist of the main activities of this process.
References
Calder, A 2003. ‘Recovery’, in M Reid, A Quinn and M Crespo (eds), Strength and Conditioning for Tennis, International Tennis Federation, Roehampton, London.
Hooper, SL, MacKinnon, LT, Howard, A, Gordon, RD and Bachmann, AW 1995. ‘Markers for monitoring overtraining and recovery,’ Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 27:106–12.
Kelley, BC, Eklund, RC and Ritter–Taylor, M 1999. ‘Stress and burnout among collegiate tennis coaches’, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 21:113–30.
Kellmann, M 2002. Enhancing Recovery: preventing underperformance in athletes, Human Kinetics, Champaign, Illinois.
Lazarus, RS 1990. ‘Theory-based stress management,’ Psychological Inquiry, 1:3–13.
Raedeke, TD, Granzyk, TL and Warren, AH 2000. ‘Why coaches experience burnout: a commitment perspective’, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 22:85–105.
www.ask.net.au (recovery articles and free resources)
www.ais.org.au/nutrition (information about hydration and nutrition).
- Surviving full-time coaching (
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