Burnout is a common problem that almost every BJJ competitor and casual practitioner will have to deal with at one point or another, but it can be very hard to overcome. Burnout is the feeling of severe mental or physical exhaustion relating to a specific area of your life, most commonly felt from work or caring for family. The difference between those areas and a hobby like BJJ, is that it’s theoretically something you might like doing. The ideal scenario for most people working through burnout in a hobby then would be to get through it and out the other side, rather than quitting entirely.
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How To Deal With Burnout In BJJ
There are many different methods of dealing with burnout when it comes to BJJ and any other areas of life, but one of the absolute worst ideas is to ignore the feeling altogether. Obviously nothing will change if you choose to do that, and the burnout will only get worse as time goes on. This is what leads to many people quitting BJJ in fact, and most coaches have seen several people become completely obsessed with the sport before eventually leaving it altogether. Rather than doing that, it’s far better to address the feeling and work to get past it so that you can enjoy the sport again.
Rest And Recover
Many BJJ practitioners will be feeling burnout because of intense training schedules, and this can often be confused with or compounded by overtraining. That’s why building rest periods in to your training schedule is such an important factor, and very few athletes will ever train every single day of the week. If they do, then it’s because they’re tapering their training up and down in intensity as the week progresses. Doing this moving forward will always help to combat feelings of burnout physically, but it works mentally too by giving you some time away from the constant grind of self-improvement as a grappler.
Avoiding overtraining is a great way to prevent burnout in the long-term but making a small change like that might not be enough for someone already feeling it. Instead, they might need to take some time away from the sport in order to appreciate what it is that they love about it. The best way to avoid this becoming a longer break than necessary is to give yourself a predetermined amount of time off, rather than an indefinite leave. Taking a week or two off the mats can leave you feeling refreshed and reinvigorated upon your return, and that feeling lasts a pretty long time.
Find The Fun Again
It’s easy to get lost in the pursuit of technical and athletic development, particularly for active competitors. Once you go too far down that rabbit hole then it’s easy to start feeling like this sport is a job rather than a hobby and even if it is your job, it should never be a job that you resent doing. Many talented BJJ competitors have felt the burnout from the relentless drive to be the best in the world and retired at a young age as a result. If doing BJJ starts to feel like a chore then take the time to remind yourself why the sport is so fun.
Everyone from elite competitors to older hobbyists in the gym have one thing in common, they all enjoy grappling. One of the best and most addictive parts of BJJ is the ability to switch off entirely and go at full pace without hurting anyone or getting hurt, but it’s easy to forget that when you’re dealing with burnout from constant analysis and pressure-testing. Some times the best way to combat that is to turn off the background noise and just spar without any specific goals at all, paying attention to nothing but what is happening right now and getting into the ideal flow state.
Try Something New
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The same can be said about anyone in BJJ who is feeling burnout, as repetition can be a contributing factor. Going to the same academy every day and sparring with the same group of people, using the same sequence of techniques in the same situations is an obvious source of frustration for many. It’s a big part of why many people choose to compete in the first place, because the feeling of trying something new or facing new challenges can be refreshing.
There are plenty of ways to go about it even if you’re not a competitor too, like visiting other academy’s open mats or dropping in to them for classes. You could even try wrestling or Judo as well, both will scratch the grappling itch while presenting totally new challenges. If other locations aren’t an option, even changing your training schedule at your existing gym might see you learning from different coaches and sparring with different partners. Even forcing yourself out of your comfort zone in existing classes is helpful, like deciding to play guard if you’re a wrestler or vice versa.
Ask If It’s Really For You
If you’ve tried every other option and you still can’t shake the feeling of burnout in BJJ then it might be time to ask yourself a very difficult question. BJJ is for anyone, but it’s not for everyone. Anyone should be welcome to try it and people from all walks of life have found a sport that they love and could do forever, but that doesn’t mean everyone is going to feel the same way. This should be obvious, because there are plenty of people out there who have been to a trial class and never come back or quit after a handful of classes.
Just because you might have made it months or even years before coming to the same point, doesn’t mean that you haven’t come to it all the same. You can quit at any time and you shouldn’t feel guilty about that, nor should you fall for the sunk-cost fallacy. How much time you’ve spent doing something is irrelevant when considering whether you want to continue doing it. If it’s not possible to shake the feeling of burnout then maybe you just don’t enjoy it any more, and that’s fine. Besides, if you ever do change your mind in the future then BJJ will always be there and any academy worth training at would welcome anyone back.
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