Balancing Athletics and Academics

By Annabel Gordon

As student-athletes, we often find it difficult to manage our summer seasons while preparing for the most crucial academic years of our lives. The summer arrives not only with more training but also with more competitions, taking up weekends that are valuable study time for end-of-year exams and admission tests. 

In this blog, I will share my experiences planning for my summer and give advice on how to manage your time effectively.

Getting a head start

I think one of the main things I have learned as a student-athlete is to plan my summer seasons well so I can stay academically productive while training and competing as best as I can. By reading this blog, you are already proving to yourself that you are actively thinking about how you can secure the best results for your summer season.

The people who achieve the highest are those who plan ahead. This process looks different to everyone, as every athlete has different aims and separate summer commitments. Not only do you need to factor in your academic and athletic goals, but you also need to plan for summer jobs, application schemes and a good amount of rest, which may sound a bit counterintuitive, but it works for me.

For me, this has meant I have been more selective of the competitions I attend. Sometimes, training or academics are more valuable than attending an open, which is why it is important to keep track of your progress towards your season aims and keep in contact with your coaches, as they can best advise you on what competitions you need to aim for. I know many athletes who have had to miss competitions for work commitments or holidays, which is why it is important to plan ahead to avoid clashes in your calendar and compete at all the events you want to.

It can be difficult to know how to start organising your summer, but simple steps can make a big difference. As athletes facing crucial academic years, we need to get our main priorities sorted in the time we have. An easy way to begin is to write down the competitions, schemes and jobs you need to complete in the summer on either a physical or digital calendar. Once this has been done, any social activities, revision, training and rest can fit flexibly in between.

Some good ways to begin structuring your summer weeks include talking to your coaches about their expectations for you and talking to your teachers about how best to revise for admissions tests and exams if you are making applications this autumn. Then, you can create a small but flexible schedule for yourself to minimise the stress of the summer, which will allow you to keep on top of training, schoolwork and other commitments. I like to colour-code my calendars so I can see how much time I am allotting to each section of my life that I choose to prioritise (athletics, super-curriculars, my job, academics). This also means I can clearly see what competitions are coming up, so I can prepare for them accordingly.

Applications vs training

The hardest part of the summer for me is the guilt of thinking that I should be revising when I am training and competing. However, they aren’t mutually exclusive.

Athletes are such hard workers and active people that sometimes we don’t know how to rest. I often find myself going for runs or to the gym on days I should be relaxing. But if we don’t have rest days, we won't recover and improve as athletes. The same mentality can be applied to revision.

Revision only works if you take breaks between your revision sessions. If you don’t do this, you won’t gain the benefit of improved memory retention. Personally, I find revising for applications and admission tests the most difficult to manage alongside athletics because there isn’t specific content to know. You can’t know for certain what they are going to ask you in an interview or admissions test, or whether your application for university and apprenticeships is ever going to be good enough. This makes it hard to know when you've done enough.

It is important not to overexert yourself because otherwise you won't perform well athletically or academically. It is also important to see athletics as part of the revision process. Athletics does a lot more for your revision than you think.

Your training not only helps reduce stress levels but also gives your brain a break to build up that memory retention. It also gives you a chance to socialise, which can be hard during exam and summer seasons when everybody has different goals. Sometimes, not thinking about applications and schoolwork is just as beneficial as thinking about them, especially for your personal well-being. Maintaining good well-being means we can do all these things to the best of our ability and maximise the productivity of our summers, whilst also using this time off to relax before the start of the next academic year.

How can I apply athletics to my applications?

Some lucky people will be able to pursue a sport-related course or venture in the future and use their athleticism to their advantage during applications. Of course, we all want to be professionals, but most athletes have normal jobs too.

For example, I was quite inspired when Laura Muir didn’t attend Edinburgh University because she was doing her veterinary exams, which just shows that even the best athletes have to prioritise things in their lives from time to time. However, this doesn’t stop them from achieving their goals.

If you're like me and your career path isn’t related to sports, this doesn’t mean you cannot use it for applications. You just have to be smart about how you incorporate it.

This is easier for degree apprenticeships because they encourage extracurricular activities more and focus largely on your personal qualities. You can talk about the skills competing has given you, such as organisation, a strong work ethic, time management and working under pressure, as well as many more.

You can also talk about scenarios in an interview, such as how you overcame challenges during your seasons. You can make anything relevant as long as you can talk about what you learned from it, and you can adapt it to the position you are applying for.

University applications become a bit more complicated as they look more for super-curriculars, which, unless you want to do something sport-related, don’t count athletics. However, they love it when you link things in your life together.

For example, talking about a skill you learnt during athletics, such as time management, and adapting this to your studies. Reading sports articles and competing are great examples because you can use what you've learnt and link it to more subject-relevant areas. Also, make sure to check whether the course you are applying for has scholarships or grants for student-athletes and whether you would be eligible to apply for them.

I think one of the main takeaways of balancing applications is that you can utilise the skills your summer season teaches you to your advantage. As well as this, it is important to prioritise and plan your time, especially where deadlines for applications and competitions are concerned.

It is definitely manageable to continue a summer athletics season and make successful applications, but it is also important not to overexert yourself and to reach out to your teachers and coaches for help.

Managing your stress

When approaching your summer season, you have much less guidance from coaches and teachers than you would during winter training about how to manage your workload. As the competition season approaches, it is therefore exceptionally important to utilise the help around you, especially as a student athlete.

Some schools and clubs offer great support for student-athletes, but if you don’t have access to these, there are many online schemes that can help you with applications so you can better manage the process alongside your training and competitions.

Having less support also means that self-motivation is key to achieving good results over the summer. This means taking regular breaks, socialising, and attending all the necessary training sessions and competitions. However, it also means knowing your limits as an athlete and not burning yourself out to the point of exhaustion, as this limits what you can achieve during your summer.

Ultimately, I would say finding methods that alleviate your stress and getting the support you can access to stay self-motivated is key to true success, so I would personally focus on these things more than anything else.

I hope this has helped you devise an initial plan of action for your summer and how you are going to use your time most appropriately.

Good luck with any applications you make and with your competition season now that summer is only around the corner.

About Annabel Gordon

Annabel is an U17 athlete who specialises in javelin throw, but also competes in multi-events and discus throw from time to time!

As part of her role with us as a blogger, Annabel's content will largely be for other athletes around her age who are in school or are just starting to think about other opportunities alongside their athletics, such as college or sixth form!

Instagram: @annabel.athletics