The next frontier: an exploration of how to facilitate working-athletes pursuit of dual career excellence

Although a substantial amount of elite athletes need to work alongside their athletic career, only a limited amount of research has been aimed at working-athletes. Instead, DC research has been mostly aimed at student-athletes. Whilst there are likely similarities between working-athletes and student-athletes, like the challenge of finding an optimal DC balance, there are likely meaningful differences. Working-athletes may therefore need support that is adapted to their preconditions and challenges but due to the lack of research on working-athletes, there is a lack of knowledge on how to facilitate their pursuit of DC excellence.

Halmstad University has a long tradition of DC research, which has contributed to policy development at a national and international level. By researching the underexplored DCs of working-athletes, Halmstad University in collaboration with Trygghetsrådet TRS and the national sports confederation, take the next step in understanding elite athletes DCs and continues its long tradition of DC research. To this end, the main aim of the project is to increase the knowledge on how to facilitate working-athletes’ pursuit of DC excellence.

The research questions that the project is trying to answer are:

1. How do working-athletes experience their DC?
2. How do working-athletes performance, health, and satisfaction relate to individual and environmental factors?
3. What features constitute successful working-athlete environments?