Balance Beyond Training: Why Life Outside Sport Shapes Young Athletes’ Mental Health

The path to elite sport is often portrayed as a straight line of talent, discipline and relentless training, but new research from Flinders University suggests that the real determinant of lasting athletic success may lie far from the field, pool or track. A study published in the Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy has found that young athletes, regardless of how deeply they love their sport, remain vulnerable to mental health and wellbeing problems when the demands of training crowd out education, work, leisure and rest. The findings arrive at a moment when global sporting events are once again drawing attention to peak performance, and they carry a message that challenges long-held assumptions about what it takes to build a champion.

The research, led by PhD candidate Jamie Wilson at Flinders University, focuses on what the authors describe as a vulnerable transition window in an athlete’s development: the years between 17 and 24, when teenagers and young adults move from junior competition toward elite senior levels. During this period, athletes face a convergence of pressures that few other young people experience. The study found that 84.6 percent of the young athletes surveyed held outside employment while pursuing their sporting careers, and 61.5 percent were simultaneously studying. These figures illustrate the reality of the dual-career lifestyle, in which intense training schedules must be fitted around exams, shifts at work and the ordinary developmental tasks of early adulthood.

At the heart of the study is a concept drawn from occupational therapy known as occupational balance, which refers to how individuals distribute their time and energy across the full range of activities that make up a life, including sport, education, paid work, leisure and rest. The researchers argue that this balance is not a peripheral concern but a powerful force shaping mental health outcomes. When a young athlete’s daily routine becomes dominated almost entirely by training and competition, the structure that once made sport enjoyable can become a source of strain. As Wilson explains, when a passion once pursued for fun begins to consume every waking hour, young athletes face heightened risks for poor mental health and wellbeing, both in the present and later in life.

The study identifies several key factors that contribute to poor mental health among young athletes on the elite pathway. The first is the sheer volume of time that sport and training demand, which can leave little room for recovery, social connection or the exploration of other interests. The second is the frequent need to relocate, often at a young age, which uproots athletes from stable relationships with family, friends and community support networks at precisely the stage of life when those connections matter most. The third is a more insidious dynamic: many athletes report feeling objectified, treated as a commodity whose value depends entirely on performance, with support systems that are contingent on results rather than on the person behind them.

A fourth factor compounds the others. The culture of elite sport often imposes what the researchers describe as superhuman expectations, an implicit demand that athletes be endlessly resilient, tireless and immune to doubt. This framing creates profound obstacles to seeking help. A young athlete who believes they must appear invulnerable is far less likely to disclose anxiety, burnout or depression to coaches, medical staff or even family members. The result is a silent accumulation of distress during a developmental window in which mental health trajectories for adulthood are being established.

The research also highlights that risk is not distributed evenly across the sporting population. Female athletes and those who compete in individual sports tend to face greater threats to their mental health, the researchers report. Individual athletes, who train and compete without the shared burden and camaraderie of a team, may carry the full weight of results and expectations alone, while the specific pressures experienced by women in high-performance environments add further layers of vulnerability. These findings suggest that support programs built around a generic image of the athlete may miss the groups who need help most.

Co-author Professor Ivanka Prichard of Flinders University frames the practical implication of the work in striking terms. Supporting young athletes beyond sport, she argues, is not a distraction from victory but the vital foundation for developing healthier, stronger and more resilient competitors. The study adds an intriguing nuance to this argument: young athletes who pursue their sport for personal enjoyment and love of the game, rather than in response to external pressure from coaches, parents or institutions, appear more likely to persist through setbacks and to be psychologically healthier. Their commitment and enthusiasm, in other words, function as protective factors, but only when the surrounding life structure allows those motivations to survive the grind of elite training.

The urgency of the findings is sharpened by the status that the International Olympic Committee has assigned to this age group. The IOC has designated young adults and teenagers in elite sport as a neglected population, a label that reflects a gap between the scale of investment in junior performance pathways and the attention paid to the wellbeing of the young people moving through them. The Flinders study argues that this gap needs to be closed with deliberate support to maintain and build long-term wellbeing and resilience, rather than leaving athletes to navigate the transition window on their own or relying on support that evaporates the moment performance dips.

From a methodological standpoint, the study contributes an occupational lens to a literature that has often approached athlete mental health through clinical or performance frameworks. Survey research of this kind allows researchers to map how young athletes actually spend their days and how those patterns relate to measures of mental health and wellbeing, rather than treating the athlete purely as a performer whose non-sporting life is incidental. The occupational therapy perspective reframes everyday activities such as studying, working a part-time job, resting or socialising as meaningful occupations that sustain identity and psychological resources. Seen this way, the dual-career demands documented in the study are not obstacles to athletic achievement but potential scaffolding for it, providing alternative sources of self-worth, social contact and future security that buffer the inevitable highs and lows of competitive sport.

The broader message of the research is one that resonates well beyond the locker room. As major sporting events turn the world’s attention toward extraordinary feats of performance, the study reminds audiences that the athletes delivering those feats are young people in the midst of forming adult identities, and that true athletic excellence and long-term wellbeing require a balanced life. The elite pathway, as Wilson describes it, is packed with soaring highs and brutal lows, and the real secret to sustainable success may lie in the life an athlete builds outside of sport. For sporting bodies, coaches and families, the implication is clear: protecting time for education, work, friendship and rest is not a concession to softness but an investment in both the person and the performance. The study, titled Balancing act: An occupational lens on the process of becoming an elite athlete, was conducted by Jamie Wilson, Ivanka Prichard, Jasmine Petersen of Flinders and Adelaide University, and Brad Stenner of Adelaide University, and was published in the Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy.

Subject of Research: Occupational balance and mental health in young elite athletes during the dual-career transition window

Article Title: Sporting glory starts with life outside sport, new study finds

Article References: Sporting glory starts with life outside sport, new study finds. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

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Keywords: young athletes, mental health, occupational balance, dual career, elite sport, occupational therapy, wellbeing, Flinders University, International Olympic Committee, transition window, athlete burnout, sport psychology