Last week I wrote about starting at the beginning. But what happens when you’ve done that, are now advanced at your sport, and injure yourself? Yes, I said it, the one thing all athletes fear, injury! I’ve had quite a few injuries over the years and they all have seemed insurmountable at the time.
Take a walk down memory lane with me, I am a 20 year old college student going on a cruise for spring break. I was already over a year into my yoga practice and could sit down and bring my chest to my legs without any problem. I was also an avid gym goer and trained every day.
While on this cruise I drank heavily every night but still felt it was necessary to workout ever day (yeah, yeah, I know, but I was 20, what do you expect). I even thought I would practice my splits, something I had just mastered in yoga. Well, I drop down into my split and heard it, the sound no athlete wants to hear, the sound of hamstring fibers tearing. By the time I got back from the cruise I could barely walk, my hamstring was inflamed, and I could not even bend down to touch my toes, let alone do a split, deadlift, squat, or even cardio on the elliptical.
About 3 years later, during my first year of law school, I was home visiting my parents and decided to go snowboarding. When I was in middle and high school I would snowboard on the weekends, but by the time I was in law school, it had been about 7 years since my last ride. It was my first run of the day and I was on the main green trail, the EASY trail, when I bit it. I went down hard and the result, a broken wrist.
You know what went through my head (once the pain wore off), how am I going to practice yoga with a broken wrist, how am I going to rock climb or lift with a broken wrist? I should have been concerned with how I was going to get through my first year of law school without typing, but I was more concerned with my training.
With both injuries I had to start all over again; except now, I already knew how far I’d advanced and so it was painfully clear how limited I was from the injury. When I tore my hamstring I went through months of physical therapy and deep tissue work to break up the scar tissue and heal the hamstring. One of my most humbling moments occurred back in my yoga class, the class in which I was one of the few to have a full split. I was barely be able to sit on the ground with my legs straight out in front of me. It took a long time but I kept at it and day by day I regained a little more flexibility.
Recovering from a wrist break was a whole different ball game. I never knew you could practice yoga, and we are talking about a complete practice, without the use of your hands/wrists. Having just moved to Boston, I searched for a yoga teacher who could guide me through a practice despite my broken wrist, and I found one! For the next 3 months I met with my teacher once/week and he took me through the best yoga practices I had ever had. We modified a lot of poses but the great thing was that I learned a myriad of new poses I had never seen before.
Injuries are mortifying to an athlete and the recovery time feels interminable. The feeling of defeat does not quite describe it, helpless is more accurate. Nevertheless, I honestly believe there is a silver lining. I never would have learned a hands-free yoga practice had I not broken my wrist, nor would I appreciate my flexibility had I not lost it when I tore my hamstring. When we are injured we are forced to move outside of our comfort zone, to find a way to work around and through the injury. We find comfort in and often define ourselves by what we do day in and day out, by our routines. When you are injured that normalcy is lost. I had to get over myself and the fact that I was an “advanced” yogi. I had to start again, and not even from the beginning, I was worse off than when I first started yoga. But once I got over myself, moved my ego out of the way, the experience made me better.
Even now, 9 years since the cruise, I still feel the tear every now and again. I may go months dropping in and out of splits with no pain and all of a sudden, one day when I am a little dehydrated or my muscles are not warm enough, I feel it. I also always carry wrist straps or tiger paws in my gym bag. Weeks or months may go by without any wrist pain and then the weather changes or I do too many plyo push-ups and my wrists feel it. But I no longer panic. I have learned to work with and work through my injuries. And in the end of the day, I have learned a whole lot more about the sports I enjoy, I have become better at my sports, and an all around better athlete.
So what about you? Have you had that injury that just mortifies you? How did you work though it? Did you learn anything throughout the process or were you too caught up in how the injury limited you to search for alternatives? One of the coolest things I learned was acro-yoga and how to do a hands-free backbend. I’d love to hear your stories/thoughts on injuries, and any modifications you learned along the way.
Tags: motivation
While I’m pretty fortunate to have little injury experience personally, I’ve certainly witnessed plenty of it in my years of practice. The panic among athletes is definitely the most profound. You are right on the nose with the fact that those who can emotionally chill and handle the situation with patience and grace–doing their therapy, making modifications–are going to do the best. I’m talking both short AND long term b/c those who heal best and most completely, and get right on top of any regressions, are at much less risk of re-injury. Longevity in your sport or activity depends on it. Way to pay attention to your bod, Kas, and for discovering new and exciting things as a result. What a positive spin on an otherwise negative situation!
Thanks Heather! It was not easy, but you have to find a way to work through it. I am 100% with you on how important it is to stay on top of injuries, especially after they are healed but rear their ugly heads!!!!
OUCH! I haven’t had many injuries but I live in fear of them. I’m always afraid of pulling a ham, popping a knee, or hurting my back. Which is probably why my squat weight hasn’t improved much over the last 12 months. I just don’t want to be sidelined. Pathetic, eh?
Joanna, I am with you 100% on that fear. It is hard to judge the line between pushing yourself and acting a fool. Even worse, the two often can feel similar. I’ve been training with Jodi at times where she makes me continue with whatever it is I am doing. I think I’m performing w/ bad form b/c I feel exhausted or I feel like my legs are stuck in cement, but she watches me, sees my form is fine, and that I need to be pushed to move to the next level. Other times she has stopped half way through a workout and said “go home, you’ve got nothing”, eventhough I don’t feel like I’ve got nothing. She sees my form break down and knows, for whatever reason, there is no sense in training today. But the line is so hard to judge when for yourself. I guess that is why they always say a doctor should never self diagnose, the person who writes their own training is a fool, and so on. This now sounds like a good blog post at some future date….hmmmm.
A few years ago when I was running the Chicago marathon I was having a great race though about at the half way point I felt like I had a cramp in my foot. The cramp just got worse throughout the race and although I finished strong, when it came time to walk back to our hotel, I felt like I could barely walk. It turns out I had broken a bone in my foot, earlier in the week I had turned my foot during a short run but because I hadn’t run much the few days up to the marathon, it didn’t really bother me. I had to go 6 weeks with no running at all and had to wear a walking cast. I decided to try a spinning class and got hooked. The amazing thing was that the running break and concentration on spinning make me a faster runner when I started back. It also got me interested in triathlons now that I had a decent cycling base. For me that injury was game changer, and I’m glad!
Suzanne, that is a great story. Having to wear a boot can be so impeding but you turned it into a way to improve your running and get into a new sport.
I can’t get over the fact that you ran the marathon with a broken foot. Now that is a story to go down in the books.
Holy moly, Suzanne!
Nice how that worked out but man do you have our respect over here. I wouldn’t run with a broken toe nail, never mind foot.;)
Worst thing that has ever happened to me was popping my hammie in a split. That sidelined me for 4 mos. Then there was the really bad quad pull in an off the cuff sprint race with other trainers. Oh no, actually it was breaking both wrists in a volleyball tournament. Clearly I need some time to work this out…;o)
I was running w/ my husband, flirting w/ the idea of building up to begin training in a few months for a marathon. I am not a runner, never was, still aren’t. But, what the heck, he is and I wanted to give it a try. Well, I start at the beginning in terms of distance per run, but was running 5 or 6 times each week, w/ Terry, who is a drill sgt. My hip started to hurt and each week it got worse, and then began to travel down the outside of my leg to the knee. I thought this was just the way it goes; Terry creaks around all the time, esp when he’s training for a race. So, I’m running and running, increasing miles (longest run was 10 miles in the humid KC summer!) and then one morning I just knew that I was done. I got down to the neighbors house and had to limp back home. So glad it was 6am and no one was up. The dr. said it was a bursa thing or an itb band injury. This was the beginning of listening to my gut and body with regard to training. Only do what you enjoy, get know your body and learn the diff b/w good, appropriate soreness and pain.
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[...] with all that being said, I am going to go back and read the blog post I wrote on injuries and how to make the best of them, take my own advice, and not let this deter [...]