“The coach says: ‘I’ll pour you 50 grams [of alcohol] before a run-through’. When I came to ice, I did 3 out of 7 elements.” Dmitri Aliev about burnout, nerves, and antidepressants
Dmitri Aliev about winning European Championships, burnout, antidepressants and diet.
original source: Youtube Channel More Liudei
In the podcast, 2020 European Champion Dmitri Aliev talks about most memorable competition in his career, burnout and antidepressants. Here’s a translation of his comments.
“Dmitri Aliev: It’s important to watch your diet, but when you’re in show mode, there are moments when you spend a lot of time on the ice and it can take up an entire day from 12 till 10 in the evening and you realize that in the evening, after all this, you want to eat somewhere, but many places are closed. Of course, sometimes you run into fast food, grab a burger there. But if you’re at a training camp… Right now I realize that I’m getting older. For example, losing weight for me is much harder than for my 18-year-old self. And of course, I’m watching my diet now, trying to keep myself within certain limits. I don’t want to do this, but I have to because if you want to be in sports, you need to sacrifice something.
Probably, I’ve got such genes, it’s very easy for me to gain weight. Take a week off, hang out well with friends and that’s it – Dima Aliyev is plus seven kilograms. And to lose weight – you have to put in five times more effort. And there are guys, I envy them, well, in a good way, they eat whatever they want, but they are thin. Did coaches keep me within bounds, during the period of competitions? My coach never keeps me within bounds, he just sees it and can hint to me, Dimka let’s lose a bit, it will be easier for you. It’s not that I’ve become really overweight, I could gain a bit. And in the training process, when you’re fired up with an idea, training, you lose weight quickly because you don’t notice it, you don’t need to take any special weight loss methods. You have a training process, you’re working, and in this flow, your weight gets back to normal.”
“Dmitri Aliev: The most memorable competition? The European Championships 2020. It was a tough period for me because I had already participated in the European Championships and became second in 2018, in the same year I participated in the Olympic Games. It was my first senior season. After 2018, in 2019 I couldn’t enter the season because apparently I had some sort of burnout. I was 18 years old and I realized I wasn’t ready to take so many emotions in one year. And I had to spend 2019, well not skipping it, I was competing all the time, but I had to mentally restore myself more than physically.
In 2020, everything somehow changed, and at the training camps, I had a great time, mentally prepared myself for the season. And injuries, of course, had accumulated, but I didn’t notice them. I was so charged that these injuries didn’t knock me off track. And the European Championships for me became… It’s something that I might probably be telling my children, it was kind of a victorious time for me. But what was there before the starts, about two weeks, that was awful. Seeing the form I was in, it seems to me, they would have said, let’s send somebody else. And very tough, contrasting relationships with the coach were at that moment. Not that we were arguing, but we couldn’t find a common language.
And then we flew to the European Championships itself. I couldn’t do anything, everything hurt, I realized I was lost. But when I was on the plane, something has changed. We land in Graz and as soon as the plane lands, I say, “This is my European Championships, and I will do everything right here.” And the next four days I lived with this thought and enjoyed everything there was in this city, that was in this European Championships. And I realized that I accepted everything necessary. People said that we’re performing in a tent, for example, it’s not a nice rink, but a tent, I wasn’t completely concerned, I liked everything. And, perhaps, that’s why I have this victory. I clean-skated two programs, although two weeks before that I couldn’t do that at all.”
“Q: You said you couldn’t pull yourself together for a long time. You experienced mental burnout. How do you recover? And what do people do, who reached burnout at such a young age and don’t know where to go?
Dmitri Aliev: It probably depends on the person, I am that kind, I absorb everything like a sponge. It’s very easy to hurt me, but lately, I’m becoming more tough. Athletes experience burnout quite often. Probably in any profession, when you carry a lot on your shoulders, everybody experiences burnout and dealing with it… I worked with a psychologist. I realized that psychologists don’t work for me, neither ordinary nor sports ones. Because I got the feeling that I’m going into a discussion with them, I start being their psychologist myself. I understand that this isn’t the right process, I pushed psychology a bit to the background for myself.
It works like this for me: I find some tranquility inside, I realize that I need to be alone, be alone with myself and find the key moments that can pull me out. Because burnout is such a thing – it can lead you very far and deep, that you’ll never be able to pull yourself out. And to stay afloat and always be interesting to other people, you need to deal with this burnout. And I hit rock bottom many times. And what did I do? Well, I even liked it sometimes. But my coaches, I owe them a lot, they are like parents to me, and they told me “The main thing is to bounce back at the right time, we give you permission to stay there…”, which is also very important, not to pull you out forcibly, not to pressure, it’s my time, I’m there now, I led myself there, I will stay there now, but to say “The key is to bounce back at the right time.” If you listen to this and keep it in mind, then there won’t be big mental dives down, because it’s not all that good.
Q: Do athletes often use antidepressants because of this? Or is it usually not talked about?
Dmitri Aliev: It’s usually not talked about and I haven’t encountered such situations. But some people probably take antidepressants. It’s very difficult for us to take any pills, medications, we go through a doping control system, I report every day where I am today, because an officer can come, check me, I will have to give tests. So with antidepressants, I don’t know, I never used them, tried to calm my nerves myself.
Somehow once my coach, – and I have moody nerves, even if I hold my hand like this now, it will shake slightly, – my coach says: let’s try this practice.
But it wasn’t a competition, it was a training run-througth. He says, “Let’s try, I’ll pour you 50 grams [alcohol] before a run.”
It didn’t work at all, it was simply awful.
Q: You got cheerful, but didn’t become better at skating.
Dmitri Aliev: Well, in a way… At first, yes, it warmed me up, then I realized that I was like “this”. And then, when I went out on the ice, in general, out of seven elements I made three.”
“Dmitri Aliev: I often write poetry when I have no one to share my experiences with. This stream of thoughts then pours onto a sheet of paper or into the notes on my phone. Not only do I write poetry, but I recently got into creativity and started transforming it all into music. But this happens specifically when I burn out.
Right now I’ve noticed that I am not writing – this means, there is no moment of burnout. This means that everything is more or less good.”
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