THE MENTAL SIDE OF ATHLETIC INJURIES “A Coach’s and Athlete’s guide to psychologically rebounding from injury”
You've been involved in your sport longer than you can remember. As you've grown, so have your strength, endurance and technique. You've busted your butt to become as good in your sport as possible and a force to be reckoned with in competitions. Known for your work ethic, consistency and ability to come through in the clutch, you’ve been the one your team has always been able to depend on in crunch time. You live to practice and perform. You have a passion to compete. You flat out love your sport. It’s who you are! It’s how you define yourself. You have dreams to compete at school, maybe get a college scholarship…who knows… maybe even to go beyond to the next level! Then the unthinkable happens! It seems to have slowly snuck up on you. It’s not like there was any major injury or anything. You didn’t really feel anything pull, pop or break. Perhaps it might have been a lot easier and more straightforward to deal with if you had experienced that. No, this was quite a bit more insidious. After a big competition you noticed some pain and tenderness in your shoulder. “No problem,” you thought to yourself. You’ve dealt with this stuff before. You quickly dismiss it as nothing. The next day in practice you notice that your shoulder still feels tight and sore. “No big deal!” You try to ignore it and push through the pain. When practice ends your shoulder is throbbing and you start realizing that perhaps you were a bit foolish to have forced yourself to work through the pain. That night, when you can't even lift your arm to brush your teeth, you start to get worried for the first time. You keep telling yourself there's nothing really wrong, but the pain just won't quit. As much as you hate it, the next day you have to go to the coach and tell him you’re a little hurt. He tells you to take a few days off. You’re forced to rest and you absolutely hate it....