As an outdoor educator, your body and mind are what earn you your income. Your workday can be long and strenuous, which may fatigue an outdoor educator throughout a trip and contribute to injuries. When combined with the mental fatigue of making decisions, potentially suboptimal sleep and variations in nutrition intake, this may stress an outdoor educator’s psychological well-being. These cognitive and physical requirements of the role, combined with periods away from family and low pay, have been attributed to outdoor educators’ burnout and subsequent departure from the profession.
Fatigue, injury, and early departure from a profession align with athletes, who also face similar concerns, and it is with this in mind that we raise the concept of outdoor educators as occupational or industrial athletes. A growing body of literature is related to the performance, health, and well-being of other professions classified as occupational athletes, including military personnel and emergency service workers. Mental and physical fitness are essential for outdoor leaders’ personal well-being, and performance, and poor mental and physical fitness are known contributing factors to incidents/accidents in outdoor education programs. In this presentation, we will outline the concept of occupational athletes, present the science supporting outdoor educators as occupational athletes, and outline essential considerations to support outdoor educators in their role as occupational athletes.