I’ve had the first Green Racing Project athletes I’ve coached leave the team to retire from full-time competitive sport, so this has been on my mind lately and it’s timely with graduations and the end of academic year seasons coming up too. We’ll be back to normal strength training for rowing content next week.
You can read my whole article about retirement from sport here on my website for summaries of academic research, resources, and an action plan for coaches and athletes. I think every coach needs to have the conversation with athletes in some format about what comes next. My discussion with athletes starts with three main things.
#1: Transitioning/Retirement Happens to Everyone (Someday)
Yes, masters sport is an excellent way to continue participating and competing in organized sports from a local level to international level. This will be appealing and possible for many athletes, and also not for others depending on their personal preferences, location, and other circumstances like injuries. Many athletes will not go from 10+ years in competitive sport straight to high-performance or competitive masters sport, and will experience a transition as they retire from full-time competitive sport to something else.
Nearly everyone has to make a decision to hang it up someday, or at least shift priorities from competitive sport to other life, personal or family, and employment priorities. It is helpful for athletes to just know that retirement is a shared experience and that feelings of loss are natural and can be challenging. Some will want to understand further and go deeper, in which case we’ll go to research and resources. For others, just knowing to expect these feelings and feel open to talking about it is enough to set them at ease.
One athlete described these feelings perfectly as, “simultaneously excited to pursue other opportunities and also extremely daunted by the idea of suddenly stopping something I’ve been doing since childhood.”
#2: Available Resources and Sport Psych Counselors
If the athlete wants resources, I send them some from my article. I want them to at least know how or where they can find more if or when they want to engage. Big readers might like academic research and blogs at the “Crossing the Line” website by rower Gearoid Towey. Others will enjoy the personal stories from the “Humbled” podcast that ran from 2019-2020, by rowers Kristin Haraldsdottir, Erin Cafaro, and Claire Collins. Webinars by coach Betsy Butterick from early in the extreme transition experience of the pandemic (this one from March and this one from April) are still good information. Something may land differently for each person, so I keep all of those handy and compiled in my article.
I think it’s especially important that athletes know who they can contact on potentially short notice in a moment of significant personal struggle. Some athletes may feel fine about retirement early on, and then suddenly not. I make sure they know that feelings can change, and that my virtual doors are always open.
Also, the Association of Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) has a blog about transitioning as well as a consultant finder feature to be able to make an appointment with a sport psych counselor. It can be extremely helpful for athletes to be able to talk to a totally neutral person, and of course a professionally trained counselor. I want them to know before they need it that this is available.
#3: Fitness Beyond Competitive Sport
While mental health is my primary concern around transitioning/retirement, physical health is important too! Plus, this is more fun to talk about and ends things on a higher note. I try to teach athletes strength training skills throughout our time together that they can use in the rest of their lives beyond their time with our program. Anywhere you have a gym or place to move your body, you can get a workout for all the myriad benefits of physical activity.
Some athletes want to continue strength training the way they have been for their sport. This is familiar and easy to replicate for many of them, especially for those staying engaged in the same sport despite transitioning from a full-time or competitive focus. Adjust a few things and you’re good to keep going.
Some athletes want or need to change their style of training for a new schedule, new lifestyle, or working around injuries that may have played a role in their retirement. Some will pick entirely new activities, competitive sports, or recreational sports. Crossfit is a friendly landing place for many former athletes for good reasons, hitting similar notes of competitive personal performance while also not necessarily requiring the time investment or structure of team or competitive sports. Other strength sports like powerlifting, strongman, and Olympic weightlifting may work for others, as well as solo endurance sports like swimming, running, and cycling. Trying new things out is all part of the fun for the retired athlete.
Some athletes want to just be healthy and physically active at a recreational level. Lift weights 2-4 times a week, do cardio in some form 3-5 times a week, eat healthy, and have fun. Having “a program” can be helpful to learn new ways to exercise or train. I try to provide some guidance with my (recently updated) “Lifting for Retired Athletes” article. There are plenty of other recreational fitness resources out there, too. I remind athletes that the fundamentals of strength training that we’ve worked on through our time together will continue to work for other goals.
This is also an easy way for me to keep in touch with athletes. Starting out talking about specifics of strength training often leads to talking about other life and post-sport topics. It also always makes my day to hear from former athletes setting PRs, achieving new things, or just having good workouts with physical fitness a steady part of their life.