Academic pressure and training load as predictors of burnout in dual-career adolescent athletes: recovery as an exploratory pathway
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55040/g0pt8476Keywords:
academic pressure, adolescent athlete, athlete burnout, recovery, training loadAbstract
Adolescent student-athletes in sports-specialized schools train intensively while following an unmodified national curriculum, which places them at heightened risk of burnout. How subjective recovery relates to these stressors in dual-career settings remains poorly understood, and Indonesian populations are largely absent from this literature. This study examined the direct and indirect associations of training load and academic pressure with burnout, with recovery as an intervening variable, among adolescent athletes at a sports-specialized junior high school. A cross-sectional design with Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling was used. Participants were 184 adolescent athletes recruited through total sampling. Data were collected with the session Rating of Perceived Exertion, the Educational Stress Scale for Adolescents, the Hooper Index and the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire, then analysed in SmartPLS 4 with a bootstrap procedure complemented by PLSpredict and the Cross-Validated Predictive Ability Test. Training load (β = 0.270; p < 0.001) and academic pressure (β = 0.629; p < 0.001) were both significantly associated with burnout, the academic association being more than twice as large (f² = 0.909 versus 0.158). Training load was associated with recovery (β = 0.243; p = 0.001), whereas academic pressure was not (p = 0.465). A significant indirect association through recovery was observed for training load (β = 0.052; p = 0.012) but not for academic pressure (p = 0.498). Contrary to stress-recovery balance theory, higher reported recovery was associated with higher burnout (β = 0.216; p < 0.001), an association reported without causal interpretation. Model fit was acceptable (SRMR = 0.050); R² was 0.570 for burnout but only 0.059 for recovery. Burnout in this setting was more strongly associated with academic pressure than with physical training load. Sports-specialized schools should prioritise academic load management alongside periodised training.
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