Is Your Teen Burned Out or Just Tired? How to Tell and What to Do
Your teammate just quit the team, without warning. You get it because some mornings, you lie in bed staring at the ceiling, wondering if today is the day you quit too. The alarm goes off for practice, and instead of excitement, you feel dread. You used to love this sport, but now it feels like a weight you can't put down.
This is likely athlete burnout, and it's become all too common in today’s day and age. Research shows that up to 30% of youth athletes experience burnout symptoms, with rates climbing highest when training intensity increases and recovery gets ignored [1]. Fortunately, burnout isn't permanent, and most athletes who address the underlying causes are able to reignite their passion for sport [1]. As a sport psychologist, I’ve personally found that the sooner it’s addressed, the easier it is to get athletes back on the right track.
How to Know If You're Actually Burned Out (Not Just Tired)
Before we jump into this, I want to name the fact that fatigue from a hard training block likely isn’t burnout. I also want to acknowledge that burnout is pretty common near the end of a season, simply because we tend to be pushing pretty hard. (I, too, am susceptible to burn out, as an endurance athlete in her late 30s!). That said, it’s actually pretty simple to determine whether someone is burned out. Experts say burnout has three main parts: your body and mind feel exhausted all the time, you don't feel proud of what you're doing anymore, and sport stops mattering to you [1]. Here are the three signs and symptoms to look for:
Physical and emotional exhaustion that rest doesn't fix. You drag through practice, get sick more often, and feel mentally drained even when you're not training. Sleep doesn't restore you anymore.
Nothing feels good enough. You're working hard but feel like your efforts don't matter. You might be improving objectively, but you feel like you're not good enough no matter what you do.
Sport has lost its meaning. The activity that once gave you purpose now feels hollow. You question why you're even doing this. You dread practice and can't remember the last time sport felt fun.
If you're reading this and thinking "that sounds exactly like me," you're not alone. More importantly, there are concrete steps you can take to recover.
The 4 Main Causes of Teen Athlete Burnout (And What to Do About Each)
Youth athlete burnout happens when the demands placed on you consistently exceed your resources to cope with them, and when you feel trapped in that situation [1]. Here are the four biggest causes and what you can do about them:
1. Playing One Sport Year-Round Too Early
If you started focusing on just one sport before age 12, you're at higher risk for burnout and overuse injuries [1]. Why? Your body needs to move in different ways to develop properly, and your brain needs variety to stay interested.
You might feel bored at practice even when you're working hard. Or you might dread your sport even in the off-season because there's no real break. When sport stops being fun and starts feeling like work, playing only one sport is often the problem.
What to do: Build in cross-training or play other sports recreationally. Even adding one day per week of a different movement can help. Swimming, climbing, pickup basketball, yoga—anything that uses your body differently and feels like play rather than training. We cover this extensively in our guide on why summer rest isn't optional for teen athletes.
2. Training Too Much for Your Body to Handle
As a teen, your body is still growing. Your muscles, bones, and nervous system are going through huge changes. When you train like an adult athlete but don't recover like one, you build up tiredness that never goes away. Week after week, you get more and more exhausted.
This happens a lot when you're on your school team, club team, and doing extra workouts on your own. Or when coaches use training plans made for college or pro athletes—plans your still-growing body can't keep up with. You might sleep enough and eat well, but still feel wiped out because the amount of training is just too much.
The hard part? This tiredness builds up slowly. You might not notice it week to week. But over months, you stop improving or even get worse—even though you're working harder than ever.
What to do: Notice how you feel from week to week. If you're exhausted all the time even when you're sleeping enough, you need more rest. Talk to your coach about doing less training or making it less intense.
3. Your Whole Identity Is Wrapped Up in Being an Athlete
When being an athlete becomes your entire sense of who you are, anything that threatens your performance feels like it threatens your whole life [2]. If someone asks "tell me about yourself," and your whole answer is about your sport, this is you.
This creates a trap. When you need rest or your body tells you to take a break, you can't. Because if you're not training, not improving, not performing well—then who are you? Taking time off feels like losing yourself. A bad race or poor performance doesn't just feel disappointing. It feels like proof you're worthless as a person.
This trap makes it impossible to step back when you need to, which is exactly when burnout happens. You see the warning signs but can't do anything about them because stepping away from sport feels like losing yourself.
What to do: Develop at least one interest outside of sport. Join a club, learn an instrument, volunteer, or spend time with friends who aren't on your team. This isn't about becoming less committed to your sport. It's about building an identity that's sturdy enough to handle the ups and downs that every athletic career includes. Our post on athletic identity and motivation explains why this protects you from burnout.
4. Too Much Pressure and Not Enough Choice
When coaches, parents, or scholarship hopes control your training decisions, you lose the feeling of choice that keeps sport sustainable. Research shows that athletes who feel controlled are way more likely to burn out than athletes who feel like they have a say [3].
Maybe your parents signed you up for this sport when you were six, and now it's their dream more than yours. Maybe your coach tells you exactly when to train, what to eat, and who to hang out with. Maybe you can't take a break because you need a scholarship. When you're running someone else's race, following someone else's plan, chasing someone else's goals, you stop being motivated from the inside. And that outside motivation alone can't keep you going through the hard parts.
What to do: Find one small thing you can control in your training each week. Maybe it's your warm-up, how you recover, what you eat before practice, or which workout you do on your own time. If you're a parent or coach reading this, ask the athlete what they want instead of just telling them what to do. Give them a voice in their training.
Is It Burnout, Depression, or Just Overtraining? Here's How to Tell
Burnout can look a lot like overtraining or depression because they have similar symptoms. Knowing the difference matters because each one needs a different fix.
Overtraining is mostly physical. Your body hasn't recovered from all the training. The fix? Rest, good food, and less training. Most athletes feel better in a few weeks. If you take a full week off and feel way better, it's probably overtraining.
Depression is a mental health condition that affects your whole life, not just sport. You lose interest in everything you used to enjoy, feel worthless, and might have thoughts about death or suicide. Depression needs professional help [4]. If you've lost interest in hanging with friends, doing things outside sport, and stuff that normally makes you happy, talk to a mental health professional right away.
Burnout only affects sport. You might still enjoy hanging with friends, watching movies, or doing other stuff, but sport feels exhausting and meaningless. You feel trapped in it but can't imagine quitting. If sport is the only thing where you've lost motivation and joy, you're probably burned out.
If you're struggling to tell the difference, our post on burnout versus depression provides a detailed framework to explore further. Here's the tricky part: you can have more than one at the same time. If you're not sure what's going on, talk to a mental health professional who works with athletes.
5 Ways to Recover from Teen Athlete Burnout
Teen athlete burnout isn't forever. Research shows that most athletes who fix what's causing it can get their passion back and return to healthy training [1]. Here's what actually works:
1. Take Real Time Off (Not Just a Rest Day)
You need real time away from training so your body and mind can reset. For some athletes, this means a week. For others, it means a month or a whole season. Take at least one full week with zero structured training. Don't track workouts. Don't feel guilty. Move in ways that feel good if you want to.
2. Remember Why You Started
Think back to when you first fell in love with this sport. What made it fun? What made you feel alive? Write down three things you loved about your sport before it got serious. Then do one of those things this week with zero performance pressure. Our guide on finding your why as an athlete can help you dig deeper.
3. Build a Life Outside of Sport
This doesn't mean giving up being an athlete. It means making sure that's not your only identity. When sport is everything to you, losing it feels like losing yourself. Start one non-sport activity this month. Join a club, learn something new, or hang out with friends who aren't on your team.
4. Be Kind to Yourself (Even When It Feels Impossible)
When you're burned out, you probably have a mean voice in your head telling you you're weak, lazy, or not good enough. That voice makes everything worse. When you notice yourself being harsh, pause and ask: "What would I say to a teammate going through this?" Then say that to yourself. Our guide on self-compassion for athletes offers more practical strategies.
5. Talk to Someone Who Actually Gets It
Burnout gets worse when you deal with it alone. Talking to a sport psychologist or therapist who understands athletes can help you work through what you're going through.
Reach out for help if:
You're having persistent thoughts about quitting or harming yourself
Your performance has dropped and isn't improving with rest
You're pulling away from teammates and friends
You're using alcohol, drugs, or other unhealthy ways to cope
You've tried the strategies in this article for a few weeks without improvement
If you're ready to work through burnout and build a sustainable relationship with sport, schedule a free discovery call with Skadi's sports-informed therapists who specialize in working with teen athletes.
References
[1] Gustafsson, H., Madigan, D. J., & Lundkvist, E. (2017). Burnout in athletes: A theoretical review. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 10(1), 31-61.
[2] Brewer, B. W., et al. (2010). Developmental trajectories of athletic identity. The Sport Psychologist, 24(4), 379-397.
[3] DeFreese, J. D., & Smith, A. L. (2013). Areas of worklife and the athlete burnout-engagement relationship. Journal of Sport Behavior, 36(1), 3-19.
[4] Wolanin, A., et al. (2016). Prevalence of clinically elevated mental health symptoms in college athletes. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 50(3), 167-173.
