The Effects of Injuries on Athletes: Could Injury Be an Opportunity to Develop Yourself?
Welcome to the Gift of Injury
Injuries are part of sports. You may be tempted to work through the pain, but some injuries can have a damaging psychological effect – and affect more than your ability to play the sport you love.
To cope with a sports injury, athletes must maintain a positive mindset toward their situation. This isn’t easy, but with the right approach, you might even find that an injury could be an opportunity to improve.
The psychological effects of injuries on athletes
Injury is bad news whoever you are, but when you’re an athlete it could threaten your way of life. For elite athletes and sportspeople, it could threaten your living. This fear is bound to play on your mind.
We’ve helped many athletes through their personal mental stress barriers, which have included:
A pessimistic outlook, which disrupts their capacity to see through to full recovery and therefore inhibits recovery
Lower self-esteem, which can lead to disengagement from their team, their sport, and their loved ones
Feelings of anger, frustration, and disappointment causing relationship problems
Depression, causing both mental health and physical health issues, and manifesting in sleeplessness, withdrawal, and, at the extreme, suicidal thoughts
Fear of re-injury, preventing full recovery and peak performance
Responses to injuries, just like injuries and causes of injuries, differ from athlete to athlete. The psychological response may be immediate or delayed. Negative emotions can build over time, and ebb and flow. And they can remain, even after a return to physical activity.
One thing is certain. If the athlete does not cope with the psychological effects of an injury, their career in sports is at risk.
8 tips for coping with sports injuries
How can you cope with sports injuries? It’s crucial to have goals, to have a plan for your recovery, and to be supported. Here are our tips to maintain a positive mental attitude toward your injury.
1.Be smart and think long-term
It’s crucial to accept your injury, and don’t rush to recover. While most injuries can be recovered quickly, others will take time and progressive action. The key is to think long-term.
2. Evaluate with experts, share concerns, and follow rehab
It is important to evaluate with experts before any decisions are made about your future. This will help to make sure that you are getting the best care possible and will also help to determine what type of rehab will be most effective.
3. Connect with others, both inside and outside your sporting bubble
Connecting with others who have gone through similar situations is an important way to cope with injuries. It’s crucial that you have a support bubble to help you through challenging times, and with whom you can discuss your concerns. You should seek to connect with those in your sports circle, friends outside it, and experts who can help you face your fears.
4. Learn new skills and address any weaknesses
Taking time to learn new skills and ways of doing things can also help you to get through an injury with your mental health intact. This could include, for example, different ways of stretching, new methods to strengthen your core muscles, or new sports in which to apply your natural abilities. Throughout, it’s crucial to address any weaknesses you have.
5. Focus on what you can do instead of what you can’t
By shifting your focus from what you can’t do to what you can, you shift your mindset from negative to positive. This provides a start point from which to exercise and helps to build confidence as well as body strength. As you progress, you’ll find you can do more, and this helps to motivate further improvement.
6. Treat recovery like training (build a plan)
You have new fitness goals – to become injury free and return to your former physical fitness. But, like any journey, you must make a plan to attain your goals. Set milestones in the way, which are achievable and realistic. Your support network should help to motivate you toward these goals, celebrating your wins and helping you adjust your plan to keep you on track.
7. Visualize your progress
Keep your eye on the prize! Keep a picture in your mind of where you were, where you are, and where you will be. This will help to give your efforts the energy they need.
8. Trust your body and be flexible in your recovery goals
Listen to your body. There will be times when you may push a little more, and others when you must pull back. Remember that doing too much or too little physical activity can be equally harmful to your recovery. Therefore, learning to trust what your body is telling you is crucial. And don’t be too rigid with your plan: sometimes you will need to slow down to speed up.
When injury becomes an opportunity
While it may seem terrible at the time, or because of the pain you are feeling, an injury can be a gift. It gives you the opportunity to discover more about your body and the real problems that lie behind your injury.
We’ve helped athletes who have been given poor treatment and have developed a fear of injury – an internalized belief that they are ‘unfixable’. They’ve had surgeries that have failed to repair their injury but have never engaged in a regular and progressive, individualized strength training program that could have prevented all their issues in the first place.
We’ve helped to build these clients back, relieve and eliminate the pain, rediscover their identity, and develop new goals with confidence. They have learned about their body and developed their strength, motion, and endurance to more than they were pre-injury.
Then something amazing happens. With their renewed physical and mental strength, they set new goals. Goals that stretch them further than ever before. They develop new habits. They develop new performance endeavors and pursue new activities. This is the gift of injury.
When you can stay mentally strong and view injury positively, it becomes an opportunity to:
Gain self-knowledge
Improve your confidence and optimism
Develop a stronger mindset
Become more self-aware, and better able to control your thoughts and emotions
Live a better life
Our practices and methods are designed not only to take an active part in your recovery but, unlike traditional cookie-cutter treatment, to provide you with the tools and positive mental attitude to take control over your own development.
Of course, we’ll help by designing and monitoring the personalized exercise and rehab program that you need to follow, but we will also help you:
To create and develop positive habits
Seek out the knowledge you need
Explore and act on opportunities that promote your own physical and psychological development
Reflect on your goals in life and in sports with a greater purpose
3 Athlete injury recovery stories from the Reload case load
If the treatment you receive is misplaced, or the real cause of your injury is misunderstood, it can not only cost you in terms of performance but also in cold, hard dollars, too. You’ll pay for a progressive range of healthcare that does not progress you. And this will hurt you psychologically – you’ll risk believing that you can’t be fixed.
Here are three injury recovery stories from our case load, with a brief description of each outcome. Click on the links to watch the videos, in which our clients describe their fitness problems:
Patellar (knee) Tendinitis and Osgood–Schlatter | 1-on-1 Physical Therapy | Client Testimonial
After paying thousands on treatment elsewhere with no results, this former collegiate and life-long athlete began his Reload journey with a three-hour consultation. “As I progressively improved my weak areas, my knee started to magically feel better. Ryan understood the mechanics of why you may have knee discomfort… What I really love is every day is something new, and they also test the fundamental strength you have, which I never really had a good foundation on.”
Back Sciatica | 1-on-1 Physical Therapy Follow Up | Client Testimonial
The best this professional track and field athlete has felt body-wise in a long time. He ran the 4 x 100m in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and after working with Reload, got a faster personal record time than previously before. And never a point when he was worried about doing more damage to his back. As the client says, “You did a really good job at bulletproofing and making my body resistant to that pain ever coming back… Andy, Ryan, and everybody were really invested in my journey and wanted to see me do better. That’s the really big difference.”
Knee Pain | Physical Therapy and Training Follow-Up | Client Testimonial
A life-long athlete with constant knee pain says of the Reload approach: “I’ve never known a person that focused on the legs, and is more experienced and more knowledgeable of mixing the fitness knowledge into action on the medical as well. He knows more about the muscles and the joints than another personal trainer does – and he’s now just a guy I meet once a week… If you have the opportunity, go to Reload. If not, you’re going to fail in the long run.”
Whether you’re an elite athlete, professional sportsperson, or an amateur struggling to take part in the sport you love, you deserve to benefit from the gift of injury.
Take the first step today: book an appointment with us to start with a comprehensive 90-minute physical therapy body evaluation.
