Leisure Lifestyle and Dropout: Exploring the Experience of Amateur Athletes in Competitive Sport

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between amateur athletes' leisure lifestyle and dropout. Athletes often neglect aspects of their life outside of sport, as training, practicing, and competing takes up most of their time. Having an unbalanced leisure lifestyle can have negative effects on well-being. To examine this issue, a multiple qualitative case study approach was utilized. Participants chosen for this study were ten ex-competitive amateur athletes from Canada, who competed at a high-performance level of sport (i.e., senior level), and dropped out prior to reaching their goal of reaching higher elite levels of play. Through semi-structured interviews, participants were asked about their background in sport, their experience coping with challenges and dropout, and their leisure lifestyle when playing competitively. Results indicate that athletes had a less than optimal leisure lifestyle prior to dropping out, casual leisure was used as a coping mechanism in this stage, and they perceived their sport positively when it was better balanced with other valued activities. Elite athletes participating in casual leisure activities are able to balance sport with other important aspects in their lives, potentially leading to a more positive perceptions of their involvement in sports, putting them less at risk of dropping out.

Pro-health Behaviours in Time Budget of Ex-cyclists

“…Research in which ex-sportspeople, both professional and amateur took part, carried out in Canada in 2015, presented a picture of their behaviours in the psychological context. The results indicated that the lifestyles of sportspeople in the course of their careers were at less than optimal level (MacCosham, Patry, Beswick, Gravelle, 2015). However, after finishing their career, the sportspeople changed their behaviours and perception of the world.…”

Argumentos para reconocer a los deportistas como trabajadores públicos civiles: más allá de la carrera dual

“…Los argumentos presentados fueron organizados a partir de lo económico ya que, desde este plano, incluyendo aspectos sociales y de salud, se señala que la forma actual de apoyo a los atletas podría configurarse como una barrera para el desarrollo deportivo (Guirola Gómez et al, 2018). Este emplazamiento podría complementarse con las ideas de Burlot et al (2018), en la medida que al no mediar un contrato de trabajo por el dinero que reciben los atletas mes a mes, podría presentarse un estado de tensión permanente que generaría efectos negativos en el bienestar (MacCosham et al, 2015).…”

“…En general, los resultados también son coherentes con lo señalado por Pérez-Rivases et al (2017) respecto a que la carrera dual es un proceso complejo. No obstante, los datos proponen una dimensión que va más allá de las cualidades psicológicas individuales propuestas por algunos estudios (Surujlal et al, 2013;Burlot et al, 2018;MacCosham et al, 2015;Knight et al, 2018;Hollings et al, 2014) y se podría manifestar que en Chile no se estaría desarrollando una buena práctica de carrera dual que facilite el complemento entre el estudio o el trabajo con la dedicación al deporte. Específicamente, cuando un deportista declaró que por decidir terminar su carrera profesional fue expulsado del programa, ofrece información para expresar que en el país esta modalidad reproduce la desigualdad y la inequidad en el acceso al estudio, al trabajo y/o al deporte ya que, según su relato, no se podría compatibilizar el deporte con una carrera profesional.…”

Elite athletes’ lifestyles: Consumerism to professionalism

“…However, the target group in most of these studies includes non-athletes [ 11 , 14 , 16 – 19 ]. In another set of studies, factors related to athletes’ lifestyles, such as addiction [ 20 ], exercise addiction [ 21 ], leisure and dropout [ 22 ], health management in life [ 23 ], health challenges, and gender differences [ 24 ] have been emphasized. As Kahma (2012) believes, in lifestyle studies and theories, sports subjects are often marginalized and ignored [ 15 ].…”