Lowi, Sandy (2010) Mood, Overtraining and Athlete Burnout: Seasonal Changes in Non-Elite and Pre-Elite Adolescent Athletes Living in Regional Australia. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
To date, little research has examined the relationship between mood, overtraining, and athlete burnout (e.g., Gould, Udry, Tuffey, & Loehr, 1996; Morgan, Brown, Raglin, O'Conner, & Ellickson, 1987). The research that has been conducted to investigate this relationship has tended to focus on elite, adult athletes. Thus it is not well understood how overtraining, athlete burnout and mood are related or how these variables apply to different athlete populations. Therefore the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between mood disturbances, overtraining and athlete burnout in non-elite and pre-elite adolescent athletes residing in regional Australia. Athletes (N = 17) from crosscountry clubs voluntarily completed the 15-item Athletic Burnout Questionnaire (2001), the 24-item Brunel Mood Scale (Terry, Lane, Lane, & Keohane, 1999), and 5-item Short Overtraining Symptoms Questionnaire (Lemyre, Roberts, & Stray-Gundersen, 2007) at the beginning and end of an 8-week training period, marking the training phases of midseason (Time 1) and late-season (Time 2) respectively. Training load data (i.e., volume, frequency and intensity) was also collected. In addition, participants were encouraged to record qualitative comments about general well-being with and approximately half of the participants recorded additional information in relation to non-training stress. Pair-wise comparisons found no significant differences from mid-season to late-season in relation to overtraining, athlete burnout and mood. However, an important and encouraging finding was that at mid-season, anger and depression were significantly and strongly associated with overtraining. This result is consistent with previous research (Morgan, et al., 1987) that found anger and depression associated with overtraining in elite adult athletes and represents an early indicator of overtraining and athlete burnout. At late-season, and contrary to predictions, overtraining remained elevated, and was strongly associated with confusion, depression, anger and fatigue. The positive mood factor of vigour showed no association with overtraining at mid-season, while at late-season, vigour showed a moderate statistically significant positive association with overtraining. There were mixed findings in relation to mood and athlete burnout and were difficult to interpret given the limited research in this area. At mid-season, anger, confusion, depression and fatigue were significantly associated with all three ABQ dimensions, while tension was only associated with reduce sport accomplishment and sport devaluation. At late-season, fatigue was the only negative mood factor associated with all three ABQ dimensions. The small sample size and subsequent low power mean these results need to be interpreted with caution. It is suggested that future research focus on longitudinal studies with larger samples sizes. Overall, the current study is one of the first to examine the relationship between overtraining, athlete burnout and mood in nonelite and pre-elite athletes and therefore provides a number of useful benchmarks in terms of significant associations between these variables. These results may help those in the sporting community better understand burnout in order to circumvent young athletes retiring early from sport.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
|---|---|
| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Sciences - Department of Psychology (Up to 30 Jun 2013) |
| Supervisors: | Lamont-Mills, Andrea |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Science (Honours) (Psychology) |
| Date Deposited: | 08 Jan 2026 04:43 |
| Last Modified: | 08 Jan 2026 04:43 |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52517 |
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