You are a hard working, dedicated, serious athlete. You want to be the best you can be and you are willing to consistently put in the time and energy, day after day to make this happen.
You have a passion, a drive to train and compete in your sport that not many understand.
Your friends think you are crazy. Instead of late nights socializing, you need to get to bed for early training. Instead of 2 weeks off at the end of the year, you take 3 days.
When someone asks you what you do, you say, “I am a competitive athlete.” This is your identity. This is who you are.
The Unexpected
Then one day during practice, you came down a little wonky on your foot, and felt it in your ankle. You didn’t hear a pop or a snap, and this has happened before. No problem. Walk it off.
The next day you start warming up again and you feel a little tenderness, a little pain, so you modify and lighten the load a little to give it more time.
When you get home that night, you stretch it out a little more, and ice it. You try to work through it and bring more blood flow to help the healing process.
When you get up in the morning, you decide to give yourself a day off, which turns into 2.
Finally, you get back to training, then one day, your ankle feels stiff and you look down and it’s swollen. By the next day, you can’t even put your foot down without pain. You start to get worried.
You go to the Sports Medicine Doctor who says that you will be out of action for about 2-3 months depending on how things go. Is he serious? What about…?
No, you can’t safely continue training without risking permanent damage. You must stay off of it to fully heal or this could be a career ending injury.
You are a serious athlete and train intensely. Injuries are a normal part of the territory and you’ve been through minor and major ones before. You know that the physical pain you feel is just a small part of the whole rehabilitation process compared to the mental and emotional pain of being sidelined.
When an athlete is injured, they will always treat the physical pain.
But the mental pain an athlete experiences from the temporary or permanent loss of their sport can be more difficult to overcome, and create lasting problems long after the physical injury has healed.
When the mental pain is not treated, an athlete’s overall recovery can be delayed or incomplete. In addition, these untreated mental and emotional issues can continue to surface when an athlete returns to play, in the form of performance problems.
Athletes, Parents and Coaches who pay attention to the mental aspect of the recovery process can greatly facilitate a smooth and complete recovery. Mental and emotional difficulties can be dealt with quickly and effectively.
The Big Black Hole
Serious athletes devote most of their time to their sport, and have very little outside activities.
Even those who make an effort to “balance” their sport with other outside interests find this “balance” difficult because their sport requires so much time and energy.
To help you understand why athletes feel incomplete when they are away from training and competing, the following section lists three major functions of sport in an athlete’s life.
The Role of Sports in the Life of an Athlete
1. A Sense of Identity
If you have been training and competing seriously, you have invested huge amounts of your time, energy and effort in your sport. You have sacrificed much over the years, and endured physical pain and frustration to get to where you are today.
I am a skater, a swimmer, a gymnast, a musician. This is how you identify yourself, and how others see you. You feel comfortable in your sports community. You speak the same language, you share the same experiences. You understand each other. You belong.
2. A Daily Dose of Self Esteem
Training and competing gives you continuous opportunities to successfully face obstacles and overcome challenges. You can work hard and see improvement.
You feel great when you finally master a new skill, and each time you “level up” you get a new chance to stretch yourself, to improve and get stronger.
Your sport is a source of positive feedback and reinforcement from coaches, teammates, and when you do well in a competition. You feel special and are often treated differently because you are an athlete.
Your strong mental skill foundation: ability to deal with obstacles, your discipline, attitude and work ethic are skills that set you up for future success. You will be ready to take full advantage of any opportunity that comes your way.
3. Natural Stress Relief
Physical exercise helps reduce the negative effects of stress by increasing the body’s production of endorphins (neurotransmitters that help us feel good). It is a natural and positive way to release stress from your body.
When stress is internalized or suppressed, it can cause physical problems in the body like loss of appetite or poor digestion, headaches, stomach pain and fatigue.
Athletes find that sport allows them to channel their frustrations, anger and other intense emotions into constructive action. Others feel that their sport helps them feel relief from school, family or other problems.
Athletes also benefit from increased mental clarity, focus and a sense of well being that comes from exercise.
The Mental Consequences of Injury
When an athlete is injured and can’t participate in their sport, they are faced with a big black hole where training and competitions used to be. School and other interests aren’t enough to fill the void left by this loss.
To an athlete, their sport is more than just a game, so this loss can have major mental consequences when:
- The injury takes you out temporarily for a long enough period of time.
- You experience a career ending injury.
- You retire.
1. Wanted: Sense of Identity
Being injured severely disrupts your ability to go about your business as usual, and can cause you to question the_ Sense of Identity_ you build up over the years in your sport.
“I’ve been training for 10 years. It is who I am and what I do. If I am not an athlete/performer, then who am I?”
The following things contribute to the loss of identity for an injured athlete:
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Loss of your daily structure:
All of a sudden you have hours of free time in your day.
You don’t know what to do with yourself.
Your structured routines fall apart.
How much you eat and when you wake up and sleep change.
Instead of clockwork, your schedule becomes less routine as you go through the rehabilitation process.
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Social isolation.
You used to spend the most time at the rink, gym or pool, but since you don’t go to practice, it’s harder to stay socially connected.
You might want to avoid talking with training/teammates because of your feelings of loss around training and competition.
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Loss of Physical well being.
As an athlete, you are used to a well trained, strong and responsive body. Your physical skills, motor control, speed, and strength give you a feeling of well being and invulnerability.
Now that you are injured, your body is not the same. It does not respond the way it should. You feel weak. Even the simplest things can take enormous effort.
You might feel like your body has let you down. You used to know how hard you could safely push yourself in training, and now Doctors, Physical Therapists and other experts know your body better than you do.
2. Missing: Daily Dose of Self Esteem
As an athlete, you feel satisfaction from training hard and mastering new skills. Your confidence comes from your belief in their sports abilities, like how you mastered the triple flip, then later a triple flip + triple toe combo.
But now that you can’t train or perform, you closet your source of good feelings. Instead, you have a lot of time to think and this opens the floodgates to negative thoughts and self doubts.
Your self esteem tanks as you start to see that life in the rink, gym or pool goes on without you. Slower, younger or weaker athletes who used to have less skills than you, are making improvements and even passing you by.
You worry that you might lose your spot with your coach, your team, and your community. You worry if you even matter.
3. Missing: Outlet for Stress Release
Physical exercise is the best stress relief.
Injury not only takes away your physical ability to train and release your stress, but is a source of more worry, frustration and anxiety.
What to Expect: Going through the E-motions
When an athlete is injured, they experience a loss, and go through a grieving process. This is a natural process, and a highly individual process. It is useful to be aware of this in order to support the athlete as well as seek help if needed.
When an athlete is faced with an injury, their first response might be,” it’s okay”, and to try to play through it (denial). They might try to keep it a secret as they continue to ignore the pain, and hope that it will sort itself out quickly.
Very often, they feel angry and frustrated, “Why does this always happen to me?” They can often take their anger out on the people around them.
They might try to make deals with themselves-”If I can do this, then it means that I am okay.”
When they finally can’t ignore the seriousness of the injury and the loss of their sport (during recovery), a temporary depression might set in, including:
- Temporary change in sleep patterns: insomnia or sleeping too much
- Temporary change in appetite: overeating or loss of appetite
- Temporary loss of motivation, low energy
- Temporary lack of interest in activities they used to enjoy.
- Temporary feelings of worthlessness
If any of these changes persist over a period of time, or in the event the athlete reports suicidal thoughts and feelings, please seek professional support.
In most situations, eventually, the athlete begins to accept the situation and move forward. They start to “get back up on their feet” and make the best of the situation.
When an athlete is injured, the physical injury is just one part of what needs to be healed. The mental pain caused by the loss of sport should not be ignored.
The next section shares some practical things injured athletes and their coaches can do to minimize the mental pain during rehabilitation journey back to play.
Part 2: A Practical Guide
Healthy Strategies for Injured Athletes
What you do or don’t do during the injury and rehabilitation process can determine how smoothly you can transition back to play.
Trying to get back into action before you are physically and mentally ready will increase the risks of reinjury and future mental performance blocks.
Here are some strategies to help smooth your recovery process.
1. Feel what you feel
When you are not able to train or compete, the emotions of loss you feel are real. These feelings exist in every athlete at every level. Ignoring these feelings (anger, sadness, etc) can be a temporary fix, but these stuffed-down feelings are likely to come back in the future and can have a negative impact on your future performance.
Feeling is a part of healing. Denying or hiding these feelings because you want to be seen as “mentally tough,” can slow down your mental side of the recovery process.
2. Be patient
You want to get back up to speed as soon as possible, probably sooner than possible. But going back too soon can open you up to a more serious injury, a chronic injury, or even a career ending injury.
Allow your body and mind the time it needs to heal properly the first time around.
Go slower. Arrive sooner.
3. Adjust your attitude up a step
Research studies prove that laughter is the best medicine. Endorphins created by a positive attitude can boost the healing process, and help decrease the mental pain you feel. A negative attitude can slow or even stop your body’s natural ability to heal.
No, this doesn’t mean that you have to force positivity. Do what you can to be as positive as you can be. It’s normal for your mood to go up and down.
First allow yourself to feel your emotions, then allow yourself to move on to more interesting and enjoyable things that naturally boost your mood.
4. Work with what you have
Instead of worrying about what you coulda, shoulda, woulda had if you weren’t injured, spend your energy on what is.
Face it, you are sidelined. You want to get back to business as quickly as possible. Channel your time and energy into a successful recovery.
Your only job is to rehabilitate your physical injury, and process through the associated mental pain so that you are ready for action as soon as you are medically cleared.
5. Make rehab your training
Your Physical Therapist/Physio is your temporary coach. Your rehab is your training program.
Put as much effort and attention into this as you would if you were still training.
Follow all instructions the experts give you for activity, when to stop, and injury care such as icing, bracing, rest, stretching.
6. Modify and adapt so you can practice and train safely
Continue the parts of your conditioning/training you can safely do.
Use the extra time to work on your weaknesses and areas that usually get neglected.
If you can attend practices, modify or keep your neuromotor connections active by using imagery and visual/kinesthetic rehearsal so that you will not have lost as much when you return to “play.”
7. Adjust your perspective
Adjust your definition of success to take into account the healing process.
Focus on where you are right now, and the steps you need to take to heal physically and mentally.
Success will be measured in smaller increments. Allow yourself to celebrate the little successes to build momentum. Accumulate these like you would a Starbucks Rewards Card for reward (your objective).
For now, put your old goals in a box on the shelf. This will help you concentrate on your current rehab process. Your old goals will be there when you are ready for them.
8. Stay connected
The worst thing you can do is to isolate yourself. Your coaches and team/training mates are an essential source of support.
Make an effort to stay connected with phone calls or visits. When we are down, our instincts can be to pull in to ourselves. Use this time to reach out and get to know each other better.
9. Explore the world
As an athlete, you have built skills that will bring you success in other areas of your life besides sports. If you are facing permanent retirement, you might feel like you have no skills that could translate to other areas of your life. This is false!
A wise figure skating coach once told me that he routinely tells parents of his students, that after performing in front of a panel of judges in a crowded auditorium, skaters find things like job interviews and business presentations a breeze.
The skills you need to be a successful athlete are the same skills you need for success in life beyond your sport.
Dedication, discipline, patience, endurance, mental fortitude, mental resilience, confidence, ability to overcome obstacles, commitment, motivation, attention to details, strategic thinking, and many other skills you build during your sports experience.
10. Seek professional help when needed
If you are struggling, ask for help. You don’t have to do this alone. The mental pain of loss when you are injured is real.
If you are in distress, feeling depressed for an extended period of time, experience a change in sleeping or eating patterns, or have thoughts of hurting yourself or suicidal thoughts, this means that you have lost your perspective and need professional help to support you.
It is a sign of strength to recognize you need help and to ask for it. Not a weakness.
A true sign of mental toughness is to know when to ask for help when you need it.
How Coaches Can Support the Injured Athlete
Athletes who feel mentally and emotionally supported during the injury and recovery process will physically and mentally bounce back quicker and stronger when they return to play.
A coach is an important and respected person in the life of an athlete. Athletes have a strong desire for their approval and acknowledgement. Therefore a coach can greatly influence an athlete’s sense of well being when facing injury and rehabilitation. A coach’s actions can boost an athlete’s mental and emotional state, and a coach’s lack of response during this process can cause lasting negative mental and emotional effects that can result in sports performance problems or blocks, long after a physical injury has healed.
Here are some simple strategies coaches can use to help an athlete feel valued and supported not only for what they do in sport, but also as a person when they are off the ice, field, court, or out of the pool or gym.
1. Let Them Know You Care
Let your athlete know that you care through your words and actions.
Reach out to them regularly to keep the lines of communication open.
Loss of sport to an athlete can mean a temporary loss of identity and self esteem, (“If I am not an athlete, then who am?”)
Coaches who pay attention to an athlete when they are doing well, but ignore them when they perform poorly, or are injured strike a huge blow to an athlete’s self esteem (conditional support).
When you make the effort to stay in contact, this shows your athlete that you value them as a person, not just because of what they do in sport. Your unconditional care can serve as a powerful validation for them, and will strengthen the coach-athlete relationship.
Listen to how they feel. Don’t assume. Try to understand what they are feeling and where their frustrations and anger are coming from.
Empathize with them. You can share your own stories or stories of other athletes to let them know that what they are feeling is normal.
Allow them to have their feelings so that they can process through them in a healthy way.
What to Avoid
Don’t deny what they are feeling or encourage them to suppress these feelings. Suppressed feelings can surface even years later as performance problems.
It is not helpful nor healthy for someone who is struggling to hear things like, “suck it up” or “be strong.”
Don’t let them wallow in self pity. Use your knowledge and experience to help them move forward when the time is right.
2. Establish and Maintain a Communication Network
Athletes who are struggling with issues around loss of their sport, might pull into themselves or isolate themselves from their team/training mates and their usual sport community.
This isolation can lead to the loss of valuable social interaction and sources of support that can help mentally and emotionally smooth out or speed up the recovery process.
Encourage the athlete’s parents to keep you updated regularly and to contact you with any important updates.
Encourage teammates or training mates to keep in contact with and include the injured athlete whenever possible.
3. Be Creative to Keep the Athlete Involved
As recovery proceeds, be creative. Athletes can come to practice and shadow you. This is a great opportunity for them to see training from a different perspective.
Ask for their insights on team dynamics. Pick their brains for any observations and ideas they have.
Have them be an “assistant coach” and give feedback to team/training mates during practice.
Let them teach younger or lower level athletes.
4. Return to Play
After the initial period of physical healing, an athlete can ease into practice.
Use mental practice to replace or supplement physical workouts as needed.
Let them know that they are responsible for practicing as appropriate to their recovery level.
Set the ground rules, safety first and to comply with Physician and Physio/Physical Therapy guidelines.
Rehabilitation is their practice. Have them practice as diligently as they do in regular training.
At the same time, they must adapt and train smart. Pay attention to their body. Be patient.
This could be a great time for them to work on their weaknesses. Give them exercises to address them.
Check in regularly to see how they are doing and help with adjustment or modifications when needed.
5. Broaden Their Perspective
Athletes see their abilities through the lens of athletics. But all of the skills they learned in order to get to this point in their athletic career, directly translate to life. It is reassuring for a struggling athlete to hear how their ability to face scary situations like performing in front of an audience will give them a head start when going for a job interview in a competitive company.
Be specific, use examples from your life experience and from athletes you coached as well.
6. Watch for Red Flags
Occasionally, an athlete might need professional support to deal with the recovery process.
If you set up and maintain your communication network with your athlete at the center, you are in a good position to notice signs of more severe distress early.
If you are aware of:
A depression that is not lifting.
Loss of interest in previously enjoyable things.
Changes in eating habits.
Changes in sleeping habits.
Thoughts of hurting self.
Suicidal thoughts or feelings.
Get the parents or responsible parties involved and strongly recommend they seek professional help.
The way an athlete (with the help of coaches and parents) handles their injury and recovery process can help decrease mental and emotional pain when they are out of action. It can also greatly decrease or even eliminate potential sports performance problems after recovery.
The Road to Recovery: Slow is Smooth. Smooth is Fast
For a serious athlete like yourself, injuries are physically and mentally painful and disruptive to your plan. Injury never happens at a good time. It is an uncontrollable, but normal part of being an athlete.
Whether you are sidelined temporarily or permanently, the guidelines in this article can help you decrease the emotional pain and allow for a quicker, smoother healing process.
As you heal, focus on the rehabilitation process as diligently as you would focus on your training. Address the mental piece to keep your emotions more on the positive side. This will help you build back up stronger than before the injury.
When you return to “play,” you might be worried about injuring yourself. Some athletes replay the injury scenes over and over again in their head. This fear is a natural response to what you have been through.
However, constant focus on your worries and fears will cause your body to tense up. This tenseness and tightness in your muscles will throw off your reaction time and your reflexes which will create a situation where you are more vulnerable to injury.
Do this instead:
When you become aware of those worries running around in your brain, mentally and physically take a time out. Say, “stop” or “cancel.”
Then, shift your focus to what you want to do. Whatever it is you are working on, bring your attention fully into the process of doing it. Your attention is in the now. Refocus as many times as you need to to get the job at hand done.
This is a simple solution. Be in the now. But doing it is not easy.
Stick with it and practice it over and over again. Just like your technical skills, you will improve with time.
Are you looking for more personalized guidance during a recovery process?
Work one-on-one over Zoom or WhatsApp to more quickly get unstuck and back on track with techniques consistently proven to be effective with athletes around the world.