Training volume recommendations and psychosocial outcomes in adolescent athletes

ABSTRACT

Objectives

Researchers have recommended that youth athletes limit their practice volume to the number of hours/week that they are old in years. We examined sport perceptions, burnout, anxiety, and depressive symptoms among youth athletes who did and did not report playing more hours/week of organized sports than their age.

Methods

Uninjured athletes aged 13–18 years old completed questionnaires documenting demographics, sport participation volume, health and injury history, depressive symptoms, anxiety, burnout, and sport perceptions during a pre-participation physical examination. We grouped participants as those who reported more hours/week in organized sports than their age (exceeds age/volume recommendation) vs. those who reported equal/less hours/week in organized sports than their age (meets age/volume recommendation).

Results

Of 161 participants, 21% (n = 33) were in the ‘exceeds age/volume recommendation’ group (age = 15.2 ± 1.3 years; 55% female; 18.7 ± 4.0 hours/week) and 79% (n = 128) were in the ‘meets age/volume recommendation’ group (age = 15.6 ± 1.2 years; 50% female; 10.2 ± 3.4 hours/week). A higher proportion of the ‘exceeds age/volume recommendation’ group agreed with the statement ‘youth in my sport play too many games before college’ than the ‘meets age/volume recommendation’ group (33% vs. 16%; p = 0.03). After adjusting for the effect of age, sport specialization level, and weight, exceeding age/volume recommendations was associated with the perception that youth in sports play too many games before college (aOR = 3.24; 95% CI = 1.26, 8.29; p = 0.01), while burnout (aOR = 0.99; 95% CI = 0.94, 1.06; p = 0.93), anxiety (aOR = 0.97; 95% CI = 0.84, 1.11; p = 0.65), and depressive symptoms (aOR = 0.90; 95% CI = 0.74, 1.10; p = 0.30) were not significantly related.

Conclusion

Athletes who spend more hours in sport than their age appear to perceive their competition load during youth sports to be excessive. Coaches and providers should monitor athlete’s training hours and perceptions of competition load to offer support and potentially prevent burnout development.

KEYWORDS:

• Sport specialization
• adolescent athletes
• athlete burnout
• anxiety
• depression

Disclosure statement

Dr. Howell has received research support from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (R03HD094560, R01HD108133), the National Institute of Neurological Disorders And Stroke (R01NS100952, R43NS108823), the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (1R13AR080451), MINDSOURCE Brain Injury Network, the Tai Foundation, and the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (UL1 TR002535‐05) and he serves on the Scientific/Medical Advisory Board of Synaptek, LLC. Unrelated to this study, Dr. Howell has received research support from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (R03HD094560), the National Institute of Neurological Disorders And Stroke (R01NS100952, R03HD094560, and R43NS108823), the and the Tai Foundation. The remaining authors declare no conflicts of interest

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.