Burnout symptoms and recovery processes in eight elite soccer coaches over 10 years

Abstract

Elite sport can be stressful, which increases the risk for burnout symptoms to develop, especially when not balanced with sufficient recovery. To study the burnout–recovery process, eight elite soccer coaches were followed for 10 years. All eight were active elite coaches at the inception of this study and reported elevated emotional exhaustion scores on Maslach’s Burnout Inventory Educators Survey (MBI-ES). The coaches completed MBI-ES three additional times (year 3, 7, and 10), and they were also interviewed on the same occasions. At the 3-year follow-up, seven of the eight coaches reduced their exhaustion scores. The coach presenting with unchanged scores both at the 3 - and 7-year follow-up was the only one still coaching at the elite level. All coaches revealed during the interviews that they struggled to manage their work–life balance well; some worked too many hours, some experienced difficulty in managing conflicting role-demands, and some wrestled with external pressures. Their approach to recovery was, however, similar. Apart from moving away from coaching at the elite level, they unanimously mentioned that they changed their approach to coaching to make recovery possible. They achieved the latter by, for example, increasing control and delegating responsibility. According to our longitudinal results, burnout frequently regarded as an end-state can decrease over time, provided that decisive action is taken to change situational factors and personal demands. This frequently meant withdrawing from coaching, which in turn explains why coach retention remains a serious challenge for most organizations with teams/athletes competing at the elite level.

Keywords

Association football coach retention coping stress work-life balance

Introduction

Coaching elite athletes is rewarding yet exhausting.¹ Contributing to this are numerous demands, exemplified by the following statement (p. 431): ‘Coaches are performers, educators, administrators, leaders, planners, motivators, negotiators, managers, and listeners, but they are also people.’² It is hardly surprising when coaches sometimes perceive the demands of the coaching role to exceed their biological, psychological, or social resources.^3–5

An imbalance between limited resources and increasing biopsychosocial demands is also frequently mentioned as a cause of stress-related ill-health.⁶ Stress has also been linked to burnout in coaches.^7,8 Although as noted by Pines,⁹ not everyone experiencing stress ‘burns out’. Importantly, burnout is a highly individual and qualitatively different experience, as evidenced both in athletes¹⁰ and coaches.¹¹

Maslach and Jackson¹² originally defined burnout as a (p. 134) ‘psychological syndrome of emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP), and reduced sense of personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who work with people in some capacity’. This conceptualization was later modified, and burnout today is not primarily seen as a crisis in one’s relationship with people at work, rather than with work itself.¹³ A chronically stressful situation may thus exhaust a person. Extensive and debilitating exhaustion is also the foci of burnout.¹⁴ Burnout is also conceptualized as something broader than (emotional) exhaustion, the erosion of motivation driven by disillusionment.⁵ Taken together this may generate feelings of cynicism towards athletes, making the coach disengage from both the job and people in an effort to reduce the perceived strain.¹¹ This aligns with the Job Demands-Resources model,¹⁵ which suggests that long-term exposure to demands exceeding available resources depletes energy and gradually increases the risk of disengaging from the job.¹⁶

The final factor mentioned by Maslach and Jackson,¹² reduced personal accomplishment, is more controversial. It was suggested that it develops more independently from the other two dimensions^17,18 and that it is an outcome rather than a sign of burning out.¹⁹ In clinical settings, both EE and DP have been found to discriminate between burned out and non-burned out employees, whereas the link to reduced personal accomplishment was weaker.²⁰ The EE subscale in particular has shown to be sensitive enough to distinguish between those suffering from burnout from those who do not.²¹

A number of early predictors of job burnout include work-overload, lack of control, lack of reward, lack of social support, lack of fairness, value conflict, and an incongruity between the job and the person.²² Unfavourable work environments contributing to burnout are believed to account for approx. 30% of all successful workers’ compensation claims related to mental stress in Australia.²³ This aligns with the Conservation of Resources theory, which suggests that people who invest their resources to manage a stressful situation – but fail in their pursuit – become exhausted.^24,25 Repeated stressful incidents, or numerous demands from various sources, lead to an accumulated resource loss, which may manifest itself as burnout. This is in line with an alternative conceptualization of burnout, forwarded by Shirom and Melamed,²⁶ in which burnout is viewed as a result of a continuous depletion of energy resulting in not only emotional but also cognitive and physical exhaustion (see also other literature^27,28).

If the imbalance between high demands and limited resources prevails, physical withdrawal and turnover will follow the symptoms of burnout.²⁹ This fits with the notion that individuals withdraw from situations when negatives associated with stress outweigh the positives of remaining, which would partly explain why one in every three coaches chose to leave the coaching ranks every year.³⁰ From an organizational viewpoint, helping coaches avoid stress build-up may therefore pay off in reduced turnover, thereby saving organizations from regularly recruiting and replacing their coaches.³¹

Research on burnout and recovery often distinguish between short- and long-term recovery. The former focus on day-to-day recovery, to reload for the next day to prevent exhaustion from accumulating over time.³² In contrast, long-term recovery concerns the individual who has progressed through the stages and reached a burned-out state, from which he/she needs to recover. Short-term recovery in preparation for the next working day can be passive (e.g. sleep), active (e.g. going for a walk to unwind), and proactive (e.g. regular practice of yoga, tai-chi, or physical exercise to build up resilience to periods of increased stress).³³ Long-term recovery from a burned-out state may take months or even years and is not always completely achievable.³⁴ The long-term recover-process after high levels of burnout has rarely been studied since the general research approach has been to investigate antecedents and outcomes in regard to short-term burnout.^5,33,35

Our focus is therefore to apply a longitudinal (10 years) and personal (idiographic) approach to studying burnout and recovery as an ongoing, dynamic, and individual process (e.g. Gustafsson et al.¹⁰). Eight elite soccer coaches, initially scoring high on EE according to the Maslach Burnout Inventory manual,³⁶ were interviewed about their accumulating experiences. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA³⁷) was applied to gain a richer understanding of the coaches lived experiences at three different intervals over a 10-year period.^38,39

We previously reported the findings from the first interview, which was performed 3 years after the initial assessment (see Lundkvist et al.¹¹). At that time, two themes were identified: one associated with problems in coping with the performance culture itself, and the other with the coaches’ whole life situation including workload, family, and health. The present study extends on the original findings as additional quantitative and qualitative data were gathered over a 10-year period to provide a more comprehensive and longitudinal perspective on coach burnout. More specifically highlighting the forces that lead to burnout as well as those that help coaches recover from burnout. Thus, providing a unique contribution to previous literature.

Method

Participants

Eight elite male soccer coaches between 34 and 46 years old (at the first data-collection) participated in this study; six of the eight had previously played elite soccer themselves. From the 47 coaches originally appearing in a quantitative study reported by Hjälm et al.,⁴⁰ eight coaches with high scores (>27) on EE according to guidelines offered in the MBI manual³⁶ were selected for a follow-up interview. Three of these coaches also presented with high scores (>14) on DP, whereas five had lower scores. The former three coaches were therefore regarded as classic burnout cases, with the latter five coaches showing early warning signs because only one of the two key-signs of burnout was elevated (cf. Demerouti et al.⁴¹).

Design and instrument

Both quantitative and qualitative methods were implemented to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the participants’ experiences of burnout.^42–44 The eight coaches completed a reworded version of Maslach Burnout Inventory Educators Survey (MBI-ES,³⁶) on four different occasions: year 0, 3, 7, and 10. To ensure that the survey accurately reflected this particular participant-sample, the term ‘students’ was replaced with ‘coaches.’^45,46 The questionnaires were administered to the coaches within 1 week after the end of the competitive season,⁴⁰ even if they were not actively coaching at that time to assure consistency. In addition to the quantitative assessments, the third author conducted semi-structured interviews within a month after the competitive season, at years 3, 7, and 10. This allowed ample opportunities for follow-up questions within a dialogue-format.⁴⁷

Interview guide and procedure

The same procedures and interview guide, which are detailed in Lundkvist et al.¹¹ and in online Appendix 1 were used at years 3, 7, and 10. First the interviewees answered background-questions, whereafter they were interviewed about their experiences of exhaustion. The final topic was entirely focused on their experiences after exhaustion and strategies to manage stress and recovery. The third author conducted all interviews (eight coaches × three times), each recorded interview lasting between 80 and 160 min, conducted at a location chosen by the interviewee. The fourth author then transcribed them verbatim.

Data analysis

The third author analysed the transcripts according to IPA,^37–39,48 the fourth and fifth authors also read through the transcripts and acted as critical discussants (cf. ‘critical friends’,⁴⁹, p. 17). IPA was chosen because the inductive, iterative, and idiographic framework enables a focus on individual and unique experiences yet allows more general claims once emerging themes have been identified. The transcripts were read and reread to detect codes, whereafter subthemes were distinguished, these subthemes were then named.⁴⁷ Throughout the analysis, emerging themes were checked against the meaning units and discussed among the three authors, and those not perceived as having relevance were discarded.^47,50 Those that remained are presented in the results section, with representative quotations. Findings are both presented as higher-order themes to give a more aggregated picture of the coaches’ experiences⁵¹ and individually to reach the idiographic element of IPA and show the individually different paths that the coaches travelled.

An added challenge to this study was the longitudinal design with three sets of interviews separated by 3–4 years. Keeping an inductive standpoint and a focus on the present was therefore a definite aim, as highlighted by Snelgrove.⁵² Although Snelgrove and colleagues acknowledged that even the most fastidious IPA-researcher will find it difficult to completely ignore previous experiences while conducting follow-up data collections. Our aim was nevertheless to ‘bracket’ information from previous interviews and fully focus on each interview maintaining open ended questions while refraining from allowing preconceptions influencing the interviews.⁵³ Adhering to the interview guide was therefore important to support consistency and to allow comparisons. Furthermore, a log was used where the interviewer recorded reflective ideas and thoughts of the data collection and analysis as well as observations from the interviews. The log enabled the interviewer to compare the verbatim statements with his own reflections in order to verify that his interpretations were both reasonable and valid.^37,54

Results

To increase readability, aggregated data are first presented by identifying superordinate themes and their supporting subthemes. Table 1 shows the burnout experiences for the eight coaches, highlighting their work–recovery balance and debilitating consequences, respectively. In contrast, Table 2 presents two overarching themes that facilitated the coaches’ recovery: work-related changes and recovery actions. Subsequently, individual quantitative data for each of the eight coaches is detailed in Table 3.

Table 1.

Factors contributing to, and symptoms (x) associated with, inflated burnout-scores.

Coach # Superordinate themes and subthemes	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Work–recovery balance
Working too much	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Several conflicting roles	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Difficulty managing external pressures	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Perceived lack of control	x	x	x	–	x	x	x	x
Performance culture (need to excel)	x	x	x	x	x	x	–	–
Debilitating consequences
Health problems due to stress	x	x	x	x	–	x	x	–
Work–home/home–work interference	–	–	–	x	–	x	x	–
Increased sensitivity to stress	x	x	–	–	–	–	x	–
Clinical diagnosis – exhaustion disorder with depression	–	x	–	–	–	–	–	–

Table 2.

Actions (x) by the eight coaches to reduce their burnout-scores.

Coach # Superordinate themes and subthemes	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Work-related changes
Stopped coaching	x	x	x	x	x	–	x	x
From fulltime to part-time work	x	x	x	x	–	–	x	x
Other work (studying/other jobs)	x	x	x	x	x	–	x	x
Approaching the job differently (more control, multi-faceted identity)	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Recovery actions
Active leisure time	–	–	x	–	x	–	–	–
Regular exercise	x	x	–	–	–	–	–	–
Psychotherapy	–	x	–	–	–	–	–	–
Prescription medicine (for insomnia)	–	x	–	–	–	–	–	–
Attend sleep-school	–	–	–	–	–	–	x	–

Table 3.

MBI-ES-scores at year 0, and at year 3, 7, and 10 follow-ups for the eight coaches.

Coach #	EE				DP
Coach #	Year 0	Year 3	Year 7	Year 10	Year 0	Year 3	Year 7	Year 10
1	30	18	19	27	19	6	6	16
2	37	22	21	31	14	8	7	15
3	29	9	9	17	18	6	6	13
4	30	12	10	17	4	3	9	11
5	28	8	21	21	4	1	6	17
6	30	30	29	23	4	18	10	12
7	35	9	12	32	11	5	5	15
8	28	6	28	21	11	2	10	12

EE: emotional exhaustion; DP: depersonalization. Underlined indicating: EE > 27; DP > 14

As can be seen in the individual accounts, there were many similarities among the coaches as revealed during the interviews, both in the relation to the factors that lead to exhaustion (Table 1) as well as factors that reduce exhaustion (Table 2). This was hardly surprising given that at the start of the study all were employed as head coaches in Swedish elite soccer, and all were scoring high on EE.

Qualitative findings

The first superordinate theme identified related to work (Table 1), and specifically to the balance between work-related demands and the available resources that the coaches used to manage these demands. They all stated that they worked too much and further acknowledged the difficulty to manage conflicting roles and that this was aggravated by external pressures. The majority further agreed that their coaching role was fixated on a performance culture, with a constant need to prove themselves both to others and themselves. At the same time, they were passionate, and therefore devoted more hours per week than they were paid for. When coaching became too exhausting, they remained close to their chosen sport and took up some other role, but typically with less pressure to perform. The constant pressure to perform at the highest level without sufficient recovery resulted in mounting exhaustion, even in coaches who were used to the performance culture and who often had been active as players themselves. A perceived lack of control was explicitly mentioned by seven of the eight coaches, thereby contributing to their exhaustion. The difference in perceived demands, and associated stress, when stepping down from head coach to assistant coach (with significantly less responsibility and focus from media and fans) was consequently highlighted by some of the coaches during interviews. Six of the coaches described mounting health problems that were directly related to expectations to always perform at the highest level, preferably outperforming their competitors.

This pattern of transitioning from coaching and into something else, which was sometimes equally or even more stressful, may explain why five of the eight coaches’ experienced setbacks when their exhaustion-scores, and in some cases also their DP-scores, increased and fluctuated over time. This was at first an intriguing finding because even when they stepped down from their roles as head coaches, their scores did not automatically become lower. One interpretation based on the interviews was that these coaches overtly changed their form of engagement, but they did not manage to change their basic behavioural responses to challenging situations. Some may have also resisted changing their work habits, simply because their routines were well ingrained after having developed over many years. This interpretation appeared to hold true even though the majority of coaches lowered their exhaustion-scores between the first and second assessments. When they felt better and returned to previous work-patterns, they experienced similar setbacks.

Coaches seem to become better at identifying early signs of stress, as a result of accumulating experiences. However, consistently high stress levels also took their toll on coaches: C1, C2, and C7 became increasingly sensitive to stress over time (Table 1). This reinforces previous research results suggesting that individuals who suffer through prolonged periods of high stress and burnout become more vulnerable to stressors thereafter.⁵⁵ Furthermore, it is somewhat alarming that only one (C2) of the eight coaches were actively pursuing strategies to improve recovery (Table 2). All but one of the coaches (C6) stopped coaching soon after assessment 1 (year 0), as a first step towards reducing their exhaustion-level (Table 2).

In contrast, C3, C5, and C8 did take some deliberate actions (Table 2) or were actively striving to learn how to change their behaviour and prioritize recovery. Especially C3 and C5 who both mentioned that they introduced (or reintroduced) active leisure time to assist them with their recovery. These coaches not only changed organizations or job descriptions (as all did at some point), but also took further action such as prioritizing recovery that demonstrated learning from their previous experiences. When coaches made an effort to find active solutions and solve their stress management problems, it appeared to improve their ability to handle recurring stressful situations more efficiently. Another factor, possibly explaining why C1, C2, and C3 not only were exhausted but also showed high DP-scores, was the lack of control they described. Seven of the eight coaches stopped coaching at some point during these 10 years and (re)gained more moderate levels of exhaustion. The only one that continued coaching throughout the 10-years was Coach 6. He is also the only one that rate himself over the cut off for exhaustion the first three measurement points.

C3, C4, C6, C7, and C8 all mentioned the need to assume a sense of control and mastery, and further that their life experiences made them realize that it was acceptable and necessary to sometimes lower internal pressure by not striving to always be extremely well prepared. Realizing that they could allow themselves to be a bit more relaxed when facing challenges, reduced their performance-based anxiety. C7 also decided to seek professional support to help with his insomnia, whereas C8 decided to reduce his workload by being on leave one day per week.

Four of the five coaches with only elevated EE-scores at the first assessment (Table 3) also stopped coaching for a brief period of time, but then most returned to coaching, albeit at a lower level, where the pressure to perform was also perceived to be lower, and six of the eight also changed (at least temporarily) from full- to part-time coaching. However, it is important to acknowledge that we cannot see a direct link between exhaustion levels decreasing when not coaching and vice versa. Level of coaching, the pressures that individuals may experience at their new place of employment, and the ability to manage stress may also play a role. The quantitative data are shown in Table 3, followed by comments made by the eight coaches.

Quantitative findings

Coach 1 initially presented high scores on both EE and DP, which could possibly explain why he stopped coaching for a full year shortly after year 0. He returned to coaching part-time during year 2, but only for a team in the sixth division. This also finished after 1 year, whereafter he stopped coaching completely.

‘I did not work as a coach for a year. A number of clubs did phone, but I told them that I did not have the energy.’ ‘…elite sport today is only driven by the results, and you have a lot of expectations from people around you. You can be the best coach in the world, but if the results are not there that does not matter. You can also be the worst coach in the world but that does not matter as long as the team wins’.

This (he stated) is particularly difficult to handle when you lack control over sources of external stress, which created frustration, a statement representing a cynical view of elite sports. Moreover, he mentioned feelings of being entrapped on several occasions as the reason for becoming exhausted. Between the third and eighth years, C1 divided his time between postgraduate studies and work, and at that time his exhaustion and DP scores were not as high as before. The relief of not being an elite coach and to be able to combine an interesting job with being a student was his explanation for the lower scores. However, at year 10 he again presented with high scores of both exhaustion and DP. After finishing his postgraduate studies, he experienced another type of outside pressure to perform, but this time because he combined lecturing with being a junior researcher with pressure to publish research. It was particularly stressful because during the normal 40-h work week, he did not perceive enough time to do research: ‘I had to devote evenings and weekends, maybe up to 30 hours per week. I probably worked 150% during those years’. This may explain why he displayed higher EE- and DP-scores at the 10-year follow-up. He also admitted that he is more prone to experience stress nowadays.

‘I do not like deadlines, or when things are decided from above, then I feel the stress in my stomach. I am not sure if this is because I am getting older, but I feel that I have become more sensitive to stress during the last five to six years.’ ‘I do not have a Facebook-account and I only give my cell phone number to a select few. If anybody else needs me they can call me at work [he worked as a teacher]. I do not want to be available all the time’.

Moreover, C1 described how his stress resulted in various health problems, and that there were situations at work when he became very tired, especially in situations that he was unable to control. His cognitive function was another concern, he believed it had deteriorated during the period of this study. He described having an inability to focus during conversations, and also needed more than 6 months to remember a new person's name at work. C1 clearly had serious problems handling the pressure to perform, especially when he perceived pressure from outside in conjunction with a lack of recourses and a lack of control. Both at year 0 and 10 he worked well beyond normal hours to meet those demands because he felt a pressure to work more in order to reach his personal or others’ standards. Except from taking walks when he started to ruminate too much, he used no other strategy to recover. Further, he received no professional help to learn how to handle the issues that were creating his stress and exhaustion.

Coach 2 was the only one who received a clinical diagnosis of stress-related exhaustion disorder with depression. This is a psychiatric term (in Sweden) for a burnout related syndrome containing combinations of several stress related symptoms including depression, stemming from long time exposure to work-related stress.⁵⁶ The elevated EE- and DP-scores at year 0 were maybe a reflection of his long-time exposure to stress. He spent the year after the first assessment on full-time sick leave, the second year on part-time sick leave combined with working in a sport environment but without any performance demands. He also received psychiatric treatment for his exhaustion and also started to take walks and play golf as stress relieving activities. The third year, he returned to soccer, but as an elite-instructor and not as a coach. In contrast to the other coaches, he had previously experienced an episode of exhaustion disorder with depression and as a consequence had been on sick leave for a whole year. When he returned to coaching, he was responsible for a team in the Men’s Premier League until he got stressed out, which coincided with the first assessment of this study (year 0). He was then, for the second time, diagnosed with exhaustion disorder. ‘…I have had a somewhat haphazard history with coaching jobs on and off… and I was a coach for one full year until I was fired.’ As evidenced from this comment, he was fired immediately prior to the first assessment. His EE-score was nevertheless the highest among all coaches at the first assessment. His situation during the years leading up to year 10 included a lot of writing, mainly educational material with a focus on soccer, apart from administrative work in an elite soccer environment.

‘This gave me much greater opportunities to manage my own time and perform the work anywhere I wanted. That enabled me to recover.’ Scores at the ten-year follow-up reflected that C2 once again was involved in a highly performance-focused environment. ‘A couple of years ago, I assumed responsibility for one of the national soccer teams. This is less stressful than a club team because there are only about ten matches a year, but those are very intense.’

He stated, however, that he had gradually become more aware of the root to his problems, namely rumination in relation to performance ‘not being able to stop constantly thinking about things.’ The three strategies he implemented to minimize rumination were to sleep, speak with friends, and attempt to separate his personhood from his performance. This is also something he was conveying to his players, that a multi-faceted identity is always beneficial and is likely to reduce stress. Noteworthy, in spite of again presenting elevated scores on exhaustion and DP, he was not on sick leave any other time during these 10 years. His explanation for returning to elite coaching consisted of a combination of factors, such as changing his approach to the job, the fact that he received psychotherapy, and that he started to exercise regularly. The organizational changes that were made could probably also explain why he was coping better with the demands from the job, although his exhaustion was once again elevated at year 10, after he started to coach an elite soccer team. During the year 10 interview he mentioned that although he tried to exercise regularly, he did not have the same level of energy he previously had and that he was no longer able to push himself physically the same way he used to. He also stated that he suffered from insomnia and was forced to take prescription medication to be able to fall asleep. It could therefore be argued that his previous experience of burnout resulted in an increased sensitivity to stress.

Coach 3 also presented a high DP-score at the first measurement, apart from an elevated EE-score. Just after he decided to take 3 months off from coaching. He then returned to coach a team in the fourth division for a year. After this, he took a whole year off from coaching, then returned to coach a female team in the Premier League for women and a male team in division 7. He stated, however, that his coaching style had changed and that he had become much more aware of signals of stress, and further considered recovery a very important part of his life.

‘When I plan my coaching today, I am very clear towards the club that I will not be available during holidays and that they will have to organize the training themselves at these times. It is not important for me to constantly show the best attitude or be admired by others, as it was earlier on in my career. I never make compromises with my children’s activities.’ This was not always the case in an earlier assessment (year 3) when he stated: ‘I combined my coaching job with attending a level-4 coaching education. The latter meant a lot of work, and I wanted everything to be the best possible, for example drawing everything by computer instead of by hand. That took a lot of time and effort and added to the stress I perceived.’

He explained that the lower EE- and DP-scores at the three- and seven-year follow-ups were, at least partly, due to a change in the way he approached life: ‘I have more distance to things in life and do not take everything as seriously as I once did.’ At the final interview, year 10, he was engaged part-time as an assistant coach, and he was also involved with talent development of young players. He described some stress from these engagements, but because both were secondary roles, he felt that he was able to better manage the stress if he perceived that the stress level increased. He specifically mentioned his time off work.

‘I know it may seem a bit odd, but I try to have a very active leisure-time. For example, being in the forest hunting, often and if possible, with one of my sons. If you are out there with a loaded rifle, then you really need to be attentive and with full concentration, and that relaxes me. It is much better than crashing on the sofa, because then the mind never rests.’

He mentioned this several times during the interviews, that having something else is important for him and how this explained why he felt okay despite a straining situation where his children were a major concern regarding their struggle to attend and finish high-school. This coach also experienced health problems that were related to his work situation and stress and was diagnosed with Gastroesophageal reflux resulting in chest pains. He did, however, manage to lower his levels of both exhaustion and DP after the first assessment. One major explanation for this change was that he learned how he could approach his work as a coach, while making sure he monitored his exhaustion level. He also considered himself a much more fastidious negotiator, consciously trying to increase his control over available organizational resources, which together with a more systematic and active leisure time, assured him of a better recovery.

Coach 4 explained during his first interview that his exhaustion at year 0 was due to a stressful coaching situation, where feelings of constantly being scrutinized dominated. He also experienced a number of stressful incidents in his private life at the same time while simultaneously combining coaching with another job, leading to a total life situation that was very stressful and exhausting. He also experienced a panic attack at this time and physical stress related problems followed. After the initial measurement (year 0) C4 took time-off from coaching for 6 months. He then returned as an assistant coach for 6 months. Subsequently, he was offered and accepted a full-time position as an assistant coach, which he maintained during years 2 and 3 of the study. He continued coaching full-time until the ninth year. However, his role during the ninth year contained more performance pressure than before. The year before the final assessment, he therefore accepted a management position outside of sport, but nevertheless claimed that he still managed to cope with stress and physical symptoms of ill-being.

‘My new job has enabled me to stop travelling, instead of 100–120 days of travel each year I now work Mondays to Fridays with the occasional weekend if needed. Another major change is that no one is constantly judging what I do. When I was coaching, someone was always judging me, which was stressful.’ Another issue that he mentioned several times during the final interview was his leisure time, or lack thereof: ‘the first thing that suffer is your leisure time, when you have too much to do there is no time to recuperate or do some exercise. When you get home around 10pm, you do not change and go for a jog.’

Coach 5 presented with a low DP-score and high EE-score at the first assessment, followed by low scores of both EE and DP at the second assessment, medium EE and low DP the third and then medium EE and high DP at the fourth assessment. He spent the first year after the initial assessment coaching, although at a somewhat lower level (Second division instead of Premier League). Then he was offered a non-coaching position in an elite club and worked there for the following two years up until the second assessment.

‘It felt like the right decision, I can still be engaged within the sport I love, but without the pressure to win and perform at all times.’ ‘In year four, I was offered to lead a newly developed soccer high-school. That felt good, because I like to be associated with sport, but not in a completely performance-oriented position such as being an elite coach.’ ‘Year six, I started a full-time position as Sport Director, which included 10 hours per week of teaching at the soccer high-school. I was also responsible for coaching young elite players two evenings a week. Of course, I often worked much more than 40 hours per week.’

His club advanced at the same time from the Second division to Premier League. This increased the pressure to win to maintain their new position, which also affected him as Sports Director. This may explain the rise in his DP-score at year 10. He also mentioned at the first interview that he worried about his children and their sporting performance, but that was no longer the case during the final interview because they were no longer active elite athletes. Finally, he stated that his stress level lowered as a result of a newly acquired holiday house to which he could retreat and recuperate. ‘It’s like an oasis, I can sit on the deck and hear the water slap against the boat, it is really relaxing.’ At the final interview, he even seemed to cherish some pressure, but from administration instead of coaching. ‘…but it is something I like and that I have to work with to handle all the time.’ This was in sharp contrast to year 0 when he showed high scores on exhaustion, and also self-reported antisocial behaviours.

Coach 6 EE-scores remained unchanged between year 0 and 7, in contrast to the other coaches. He was the only coach who did not take any time-off from coaching. ‘Well, I started my coaching career directly after finishing as a player and I have now been coaching continuously for 14 years.’ His four children were discussed during the first interview (year 3), who at that time were: 6 months, 3, 13, and 15 years. His third child was thereby very young at the initial assessment (year 0), and at the year 3 follow up, his fourth child was very young (as well as the third still being a toddler and the older one’s teenagers). The following question was posed: ‘When you felt the most exhausted, what did you need?’

‘I just needed some help: both in the home and as a coach. My wife and older kids saw this, so one night they put me in the bathtub and gave me a beer, peanuts and the newspaper. I really appreciated that! I was so close to reaching my very limit, to hit the wall.’

He also spoke about responsibility, and that soccer clubs in general should be better at reading signs of stress before it becomes too late. ‘It seems like the club consider their job done when they have hired the coach. I believe they should take some responsibility during what follows as well. Especially at the elite level, some people in the club should be assigned the responsibility to monitor the state of health of the staff, including the head coach, and intervene if it seems necessary.’ He attributed his consistently high EE-scores to ‘a need to always be exceptionally well prepared so nobody can question my expertise. Sometimes I tend to overdo things. But nobody seems to realize all the effort and time I put in to perform well.’

Between year 7 and 10, his situation changed when he started coaching full-time instead of sharing his time between coaching and being a soccer instructor at a sport-high school. He also attributed his lower EE-scores to becoming better at handling the stress between year 7 and 10.

‘During the past three years I have become more secure in my role as a leader.’ He also referred to his private life: ‘it is not surprising that my first marriage ended, because I was working from 8am to 10pm almost every day including the weekends. Now I try to be home more with my children. Another positive thing with experience is that I know I can perform well without being extremely well prepared, I can be more spontaneous.’

The extreme working hours he performed during the first years of the study indicated a situation where he was overwhelmed with stress. Possibly because of a mainly performance-based self-esteem driving him to continuously overextend himself to appear perfect’ to others.⁵⁷ This chronic stress over the years had severe health consequences: he early on developed diabetes and high blood pressure. Apart from these clinical health issues he was taking action within both his work and private life, changes that may have contributed to lower levels of exhaustion.

Coach 7 lowered his feelings of exhaustion and DP to healthy levels between year 0 and year 3. This was most likely a result of a drastic change 2 years after the first assessment. More specifically, he stepped down from being an elite coach to a team in the lower leagues. ‘I made it clear very early that I was stepping down because my family is more important than soccer and I cannot spend that much time travelling. So, if I am going to coach, then I need to do that close to home and without extended travels.’ The new team was located much closer to his home, so besides less travel-time, both practice sessions and games were less frequently occurring compared to when he was coaching the elite team. When the second interview was made (year 7), he was again coaching an elite team. However, at this time the organizational conditions and support were much improved, and he could also make an arrangement where he stayed at his day job half of the time and was employed half of the time by the club he was coaching. Therefore, the total hours worked per week had decreased from year 0. He then kept coaching at the elite level but did not renew his contract after the sixth year and had just returned to working full time as a teacher when the third assessment was performed. At year 10, he changed his career completely and instead worked in a managerial position with much more responsibilities than when he was a teacher. At that time, he was also back to a level of exhaustion that was similar to year 0 and he also reached a level of DP that was higher than at all other time points, indicating a more severe burnout-state. Here it seemed that the new working role once again created a situation where more stress was perceived.

‘Yes, it can be anything, such as getting the budget in before a certain deadline. There are always decisions to make. This has made my insomnia return. When I have much to do and feel stressed, then I sleep badly. I will now in fact attend a sleep school to get help managing my sleep.’

C7 had experienced some stress related health issues during the 10-year period. When he felt stressed, he ruminated a lot with different thoughts crossing his mind resulting in an inability to fall asleep. The rumination was mostly directed towards what could have been done differently in situations during the week. This negatively affected his health to a degree that made it necessary to seek professional help through his employer. When considering the whole 10-year period, C7 experienced lower levels of exhaustion and DP when he was able to organize and control his job situation. However, at the time of the final assessment, he once again had a job that was perceived to be more stressful and his exhaustion and DP scores returned to higher and perhaps unhealthy levels. This indicates that his previous bouts of high exhaustion may have led to an increased sensitivity and vulnerability to stress. One noteworthy factor was that this coach did nothing to change his way of working or how to handle stress during the 10 years. He only changed his working situation. His action, revealed during the year 10 interview to get professional help with his sleep problems, could thereby be seen as a step in the right direction. However, it is unlikely that solely focusing on his sleep would solve what causes his disturbed sleep, that is, too much stress and an inability to stop ruminating.

Coach 8 experienced varying scores in both exhaustion and DP during the 10 years. Especially between year 0 and 3, the levels dropped dramatically, but returned to the initial levels at year 7. At year 10, exhaustion was lower whereas DP was elevated to the same level as year 0 and 7, respectively. This fluctuation was reflected in his work commitments. After year 0, he kept coaching at the elite level but had a year off from coaching at year 3, which was due to his feeling of not having the abilities to handle the job.

‘I did not have the energy to continue as a coach this past year. I had a discussion with the club and told them that I did not feel sure that I could handle yet another year. They were fairly good about this and we decided that it was time for another voice to be heard. I clearly remember the feeling I had when I had said ‘no’. It was a very good feeling.’

C8 had, during these years, been coaching on and off, which coincided with his exhaustion-levels. When he noticed increased exhaustion, he would stop coaching and when it decreased, he would return again. A contributing and complicating factor was that he sometimes combined coaching or working as a player educator with a full-time job on the side.

‘Year 3 I signed a contract as head coach with a club that went from the Second to the Premier League. I was on a leave of absence from my job as a teacher. We were not able to renew our contract and were moved to the Second division, but I stayed on for another year as head coach. Then I returned to my old club, once again as head-coach. I stayed on for one year, and was then convinced to continue for another year, but after only five weeks I decided to quit.’

This fluctuating work situation did at times result in working weeks well exceeding what was considered full time (i.e. 40 h in Sweden). The combination of full-time work and coaching jobs may explain his elevated levels of exhaustion from assessment to assessment. At year 10, C8 had taken leave from his day job one day a week to get a working week around 40 h, instead of 48 h (full time job plus coaching in the evenings).

Discussion

This reported longitudinal study was based on four data-collection points spread over 10 years, including both quantitative and qualitative data. The latter being used to understand individual fluctuations in the former. At the first point of data collection, when all eight were actively coaching soccer teams at the elite level, they all displayed elevated scores on the EE subscale, included in the Maslach Burnout Inventory.³⁶

A second dimension of burnout is disengagement from work, which includes a general lack of interest in the job and ‘a negative, callous, or excessively detached response to various aspects of the job’ (MaslachC and Leiter,²² p. 498). It has been suggested that EE is an early sign in an accelerating stress-process, with DP increasing as burnout develops.^17,22,41 Both exhaustion and DP fluctuated over time for all eight coaches. High levels seemed to coincide with increased life-stress. Whereas some coaches seemed over time to acquire sufficient knowledge to alter their behaviour, others did not. Once stress accumulated, their scores again became elevated.

An initially intriguing finding was that seven of the eight coaches displayed greatly reduced scores at year 3 compared to year 0 on the EE-subscale. When interviewed, the explanation became obvious: the seven with lowered scores described how they, within a short period of time after the first assessment, had changed their circumstances either by taking time off completely from coaching (voluntary or sick leave) or by making a change to a less competitive (lower) division. This suggests that stepping away from stressful coaching demands may be necessary to recover, at least when experiencing high exhaustion levels. This in turn reinforces the need for early interventions in order to break the trend before turnover occurs. Furthermore, six out of eight coaches reported stress-related health problems. During the initial three-year period, all but one coach dropped out from coaching at the elite level. The above implies a link between burnout and physical withdrawal,^9,29,58 potentially explaining why so many leave the coaching ranks every year.^30,31 As noted by Smith,⁵⁸ when the stress-related negatives outweigh the positives, the individual will withdraw, unless other mechanisms make the individual stay despite mounting exhaustion. Entrapment has been suggested as one such factor, explaining why exhausted coaches soldier on when their burnout-scores suggest that they instead ought to make recovery their first and foremost priority.^4,30,59,60 It is also worth highlighting that all coaches that stopped coaching at the elite level may not do so voluntarily. The job market for elite coaches in soccer is constantly volatile and employment insecurity is something they may have to factor in.¹¹

A concern when interpreting these results is that no data was collected during the 3–4 years between the four separate points in time. This is clearly a weakness. The lack of data in between collections make it hard to fully interpret the processes and variations on burnout subscales. Burning out and recovery is not an intermittent process but a continuous one, as evidenced through the interviews. It is therefore difficult to fully validate that time-off is an effective recovery strategy, or that being on sick leave allows sufficient recovery to return to coaching at the elite level. Although what can be concluded is that an immediate change from a stressful situation was deemed necessary by seven out of eight coaches in order to facilitate their recovery-process. This in fact applied to all eight coaches, however, C6 waited a long time before changing his circumstances. This also conforms well with what Maslach and Leiter²² deemed risk factors for burnout, notably work-overload and lack of control. By making the decision to remove themselves from the stressful situation, the coaches reduced their workload and also gained more control over their situation.¹⁵ While the relatively long time between assessments raised some questions, the 10-year period also offered some insights about how burnout-symptoms fluctuated over time and were affected by changes made. Future research may want to consider shorter time-spans and with more frequent assessments to enable detection of more frequent changes and their causes.

The interview data offers insights into some of the stress management techniques elite coaches use to manage stress and avoid burnout. For example, comments made during the first interview supported the notion that it would have been very difficult for seven of the eight coaches to continue coaching without an immediate and extended break. It is also noteworthy that none of the coaches were still coaching in the Swedish Premier League at the end of the study. Moreover, 7 out of 8 swiftly changed their coaching environment after the initial assessment, which suggests that the 30% yearly turnover described by Raedeke³⁰ applies to other sports besides swimming. Constant demands associated with the coaching role seem to deplete even the most resourceful coach over time.^2,4,5 When demands continuously outweigh resources, turnover is the inevitable consequence.^29,31 This is a powerful reminder to sport organizations to focus and embrace the importance of day-to-day recovery³² instead of waiting until ill health develops, and the coach is forced to withdraw. If a coach is forced to withdraw, it requires the recruitment of a new coach and if nothing changes, the cycle will continue to repeat itself.

Willingly or not, turnover is a huge loss of high-performance coaching experience and expert-knowledge that takes years to replace. Elite soccer is undoubtedly a stressful business. High turnover seems to be an inevitable risk facing all elite soccer coaches, but need it be? The coaches interviewed herein have mentioned a number of facets of the coaching role that need attention. Only one coach (C2) received any professional support in the form of psychotherapy. C2 was also the only one with a clinical diagnosis, namely exhaustion disorder with depression (Table 1). C2 concluded that his exhaustion was worsened by his tendency to ruminate followed by an increased sensitivity to stress. His MD subsequently prescribed medicine for his insomnia. If more clubs would be attentive to mounting stress, preferably engaging supporting health staff early on when stress is detected, the chance of ‘circumventing stress, fatigue, and burnout’⁶¹ would most likely increase. One tool proved to be effective is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which increased psychological flexibility and in turn reduced stress while enhanced well-being after a 6-week self-help intervention.⁶²

We do not claim that these findings apply to all coaches feeling stressed-out in demanding sporting environments. Although we believe that our findings, accumulated over a 10-year period, nevertheless offer some valuable conclusions: that prevention is more effective for retention than rehabilitation, and that emotionally drained coaches may stop coaching, provided that they see viable alternatives instead of staying in toxic coaching environments. To reverse this trend poses a challenge for any club or organization in which coaches or people with similar management roles are engaged. Refraining from helping coaches to maintain well-being is really not a viable option because it is costly both from an economical perspective as well as from the perspective of stressed-out coaches and their families struggling to cope with demands that frequently outweigh the available resources.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for Burnout symptoms and recovery processes in eight elite soccer coaches over 10 years

Supplemental Material for Burnout symptoms and recovery processes in eight elite soccer coaches over 10 years by Peter Hassmén, Göran Kenttä, Sören Hjälm, Erik Lundkvist and Henrik Gustafsson in International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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