How to return to your sport after injury

Ready to return?

How to return to your sport after injury - by Daniel Ferguson

Izzy injured her leg during a rugby game a few months back. She's had difficulties feeling confident in returning back to the sport. Since she's been injured, she's experienced feelings of helplessness and isolation. After working on being physically ready again, psychologically how can Izzy feel ready to return?


What feelings and emotions does an athlete go through during injury?

An athlete can go through what's known as the Injury grief process model, this involves the following 5 stages, let's apply these to what Izzy has been going through:
  1. Denial: Izzy didn't want to believe she had been injured, "there's no chance I'm injured, I'll be back straight away next week."
  2. Anger: She was angry, blaming other things, "why did that other player tackle me like that, this is all her fault!"
  3. Bargaining: she was being unreasonable about returning back to playing, finding ways to get out of a long process to return, "If I can make one good kick, can I return to playing?" 
  4. Depression: Izzy felt feelings of isolation and loss of identity, "I'm lonely and don't feel like a good rugby player anymore."
  5. Acceptance: Izzy began to come to terms with the fact her injury was pretty bad, "I'm going to accept the process of returning to rugby and be patient in my road to recovery."
Going through an injury isn't easy, especially as an athlete you just want to be playing your favourite sport because you love it. It can become a mental battle, how can an athlete focus on being mentally ready to return to their sport?

How can an athlete feel mentally ready to return to their sport?

Acceptance

This is the last stage of the injury grief process and what could be argued as the most important stage. Having an injury is rough, it takes you away from doing what you love and playing for your team and your coaches. However, once it's happened and you've felt the emotions from experiencing it, it's time to accept the process of injury. Accept the journey back to competition. How can you do this?
  • Journaling: write the thoughts and emotions you're feeling about your injury down, this can help ease the tension and process them more effectively
  • Breathing techniques: use breathing techniques, you can find some with calm
  • Self-talk: remind yourself the importance of the process by telling yourself, "be patient, you'll be competing again soon", "accept the process" and "focus on recovery, competing again is round the corner."
  • Mindfulness: combine your breathing techniques with your self-talk to be mindful about the situation, feel your emotions and reassure yourself that you will be back playing one day, you just have to go through the process of recovery

Progressive muscle relaxation 

This is a great way to process what is going on with your body and to connect to your muscles, do so by feeling each muscle from head to toe. For example, start with your neck, tense your neck, feel how your neck feels, then move to your shoulders and so on until you finish with your feet. For more information on how to go through this process, click here: healthline. This should give you a good idea on how to do it, this way focuses on toe to head, either way works, try both!

A key word from this blog is, PROCESS. Effectively, this is what you go through as an injured athlete, set yourself goals and reasonable targets as you go through your road to recovery. Trust this process and listen to your support system: those that are experienced around you (coaches, parents, physios).

I hope this blog gives some insight on the process of injury and how to deal with it, please do get in contact if you have gone through injury and feel free to share your experience.



Find Daniel Ferguson on:
LinkedIn: Daniel Ferguson
Instagram: @danferguson_sp
Twitter: @DanFergusonSP




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