ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Sport Psychology
This article is part of the Research TopicEmotional Intelligence in Youth Sports: Enhancing Performance, Coaching, and Well-BeingView all 11 articles
Emotional Intelligence and Burnout in Youth Athletes: The Mediating Roles of Sleep Quality, Fatigue, and Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness
Provisionally accepted
- 1Guangzhou College of Technology and Business, Foshan, China
- 2Guizhou University, Guiyang, China
- 3Beijing Sport University, Beijing, China
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Youth competitive sports expose athletes to substantial physical and psychological demands, yet the mechanisms through which physiological stress translates into psychological burnout remain insufficiently understood. Existing research has seldom examined emotional intelligence (EI) together with key recovery-related variables such as sleep quality, fatigue, and delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), nor has it clarified whether these relationships differ across sport types. Drawing on data from 450 collegiate athletes, this study investigated the combined and moderating effects of EI, sleep quality, fatigue, and DOMS on burnout, and compared these pathways between team and individual sports. Results showed that sleep quality served as a protective factor against burnout (β = –0.21, p < .001), whereas fatigue (β = 0.31, p < .001) and DOMS (β = 0.31, p < .001) were strong predictors of psychological exhaustion. EI consistently buffered the effects of these physiological stressors ( β = –0.09 to – 0.14, p < .01), indicating that athletes with higher EI preserve psychological resources more effectively under physical strain. Multi-group analysis revealed that fatigue and DOMS were more influential in team sports, while the protective role of EI was more pronounced in individual sports. These findings extend current psychophysiological models by demonstrating that burnout arises from both excessive physical load and insufficient psychological resources. The study concludes that recovery routines alone are unlikely to prevent burnout and highlights the need to integrate EI development with systematic load management and sport-specific support strategies to promote both performance sustainability and long-term mental well-being.
Keywords: Emotional Intelligence, sleep quality, Fatigue, Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), burnout, Youth athletes, team sports, Individual sports
Received: 07 Oct 2025; Accepted: 19 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Huang, Liu and Zhu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Guanhua Zhu, 18710031788@139.com
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