Sports and Mental Recovery After an Injury
Last Saturday, January 29, I participated in the III INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON REHABILITATION AND INJURY PREVENTION IN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND SPORT. I CONGRESS ON HEALTH AND PHYSICAL EXERCISE. Organized by JAM Sports in Valencia, I will take part in the "Return to training" round table, sharing my experience on sports recovery, both as an athlete and a coach.
Taking advantage of this magnificent opportunity offered to me by the organizing committee, I would like to delve deeper into the psychological treatment and mental work involved when we receive the news and our world seems to turn for the worse due to a physical problem.
I tried to develop some work guidelines, psycho-emotional strategies, and thought descriptions, to emerge strengthened emotionally when, unfortunately, the word "injury" enters our lives. It's clear that we must face an immediate temporary halt, both at a daily functional and mental level. Therefore, our main objective must be to act and think in a way that prevents words like "strength," "confidence," or "dedication" from taking a backseat.
The Talk
I shared a personal journey through the phases or moments an athlete goes through from the moment an alarm signal goes off in our body. Whether it's a fleeting discomfort (which we should always pay attention to, stopping completely for a moment, a day, or an indefinite period). And then moving on to the phase of diagnostic reality and firmness in sports recovery timelines.
And so, to the final meters of this process, where we see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we must continue to exercise prudence and caution, avoiding hastiness.
My contributions will have more to do with the mental work and development aspect, to transform this process of physical retention into mental and even personal learning and growth. A phrase that always marked the end of our weekly training plans was "great athletes fight for medals, but the invincible ones are those who grow in the face of adversity."
An affirmation that has been deeply etched and, with the passing of so much pain, injuries, and physical damage, became one of the maxims in our sports career, both for my brother and soulmate Juan Carlos, and for me.
As lovers and practitioners of our passion sport, athletics, between the two of us, we have accumulated ten stress fractures of the metatarsals, scaphoids, and fibulas, countless muscle-fiber tears in the calves and soleus, the well-known plantar fasciitis, and some other samples and "gifts" in the form of damage to the Achilles tendons.
After more than 25 years dedicated body and soul to training, trying to run and compete as fast as possible in the 800 and 1500-meter flat distances.
Even so, and after all these kinds of medical "adventures and misadventures," if there's one thing that remains completely intact or even stronger for us, it's the desire to overcome, to want to get up after every fall, to know how to turn the tables and transform a bad moment into something salvageable and significant.
A long time ago I learned that behind every difficult episode in life, there is always a more positive experience. And that if there is one thing that never gets injured, it is enthusiasm, and that should be the stem cell that nourishes our entire organism, that acts as a personal growth factor, that releases those endorphins and stimuli that we sometimes have when we train and compete, achieving goals and helping in the most critical moments, leaving aside the wailing wall to build a stronger and more consistent wall of character and personality.
Phases for Sports Recovery
We will address these three phases so that this article can serve as a guide, in order to emerge stronger from a critical sports situation such as an injury, from the perspective of the affected athlete, provided that all medical factors, physiotherapists, and rehabilitators are in motion and ready for sports recovery or "Return to training."
1st PHASE "Yes, I'm injured and I'm going to do everything possible to get back in shape"
This first phase is related to accepting reality as quickly as possible, and this is where our attitude comes into play, viewing this moment not as a problem, but as an experience from which we are going to learn. It is clear that we have an injury, but we must become aware that it has become a new challenge, assuming that it is another active part of our sport and that we must also be mentally trained.
In addition to the scheduled medical strategic plan, our disposition should always be positive, with intact confidence and security, knowing that we are doing everything within our body's power to return to the same place, and being equally or better prepared than when we had to hit the brakes during our preparation.
Those first days of becoming aware and grounding ourselves to face reality can be very helpful in tackling this tough time. We must realize that the sooner we change the chip of internal pain from not being able to practice our physical activity 100%, the sooner we will start to be in tune and good spirits with the team around us.
Therefore, let's change "I'm injured" to "I'm recovering," "I can't run" to "I'm going to run again," and we must treat all those somewhat more negative affirmations that run through our thoughts with an attitude as combative as our desire to return to the track, the asphalt, or the mountain.
2nd PHASE "One more day is one less day"
This phase is beyond setting recovery times for sports; it's about feeling the medical and physiotherapy sessions or physical prevention-strengthening work as part of daily training, using and making the concept "One more day is one less day" our own.
Beyond looking at distant times, we will build a closer present, and each session will be treated as one more daily step in our progress, making the recovery process more bearable and motivating. We must see ourselves day by day; even minimal improvements are always optimal. We should start visualizing ourselves at peak performance so that our spirits don't flag, and we know where we want to get back to, and we continue training for it.
When we pack our bag for rehabilitative training, it must be with the same enthusiasm and goals as when we go to the track or training areas. Our daily life should be as similar and real as the one we will lead when we are at 100%, and even trying to maintain the same eating and nutritional habits and rest routines, keeping our mind active, occupying it, and taking advantage of that time we sometimes don't have due to training or competing.
We will turn our day into one more day recovering and one less day to return. There will be moments of doubt, mood swings, despair, and irritability, but we must face these bumps or obstacles in our path with our best smile, because after all, that's what life is about: falling, getting up, learning, and trying again...
3rd PHASE Resilience?
And we reach the third and final phase in a sports recovery process after an injury, where the concept of "resilience" can emerge to help; that capacity to face adversity and adapt well to tragedies, traumas, threats, or severe stress.
If there's one thing that characterizes a good athlete, it's their ability to grow in the face of adversity. That's why another reason we get hooked on sports is its inherent therapeutic facet and great psycho-emotional help in applying other personal situations to everything experienced while growing as athletes.
Resilience is not something a person either has or doesn't have, but rather involves a series of behaviors and ways of thinking that anyone can learn and develop. The time comes to be intelligent and to put into practice all that has been experienced and evolved during a process of pain, both physical and mental, as an injury can be.
Undoubtedly, we must take advantage of all this base of daily experiences to become resilient and resistant, to begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel with those first steps and firm, painless supports, so that we know our stopwatch will be reconnected without any doubt that we will stop it when we decide, because the end of the recovery cycle is finishing and it's time to return even stronger, if possible.
The necessary time has passed, and finally, we are between the starting gun signal to fire and that long-awaited last day less.
Just before everything starts up again in unison, with body, heart, and mind fully aligned and in orbit to take off again, we will breathe very deeply so that this air reaches our soul, the one that has suffered the most from not being able to run and feel free flying.
At that moment, we will realize that we have truly become resilient, that the struggle has paid off, and that we are finally where we want to be. Doubts are so far behind that they no longer fit in our backpack; now everything must begin to flow and return to normality.
If we have met the deadlines and worked our minds in the same way as the damaged areas, together with our team, we will be stronger and better prepared to enjoy all the good things that the present we have fought for has in store for us.
We will now treat the word "injury" as another learning experience, another lesson well learned so that it does not happen again. And in the unfortunate event that it does happen again, we will surely already have the necessary tools with these three phases designed and established in our mental operating system, to act and intervene in the best way, because if there is one thing we must be very clear about and I have tried to express and convey, it is that...
ENTHUSIASM IS NEVER INJURED SO THAT OUR SOUL HURTS AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE.
