Coping with Injury

Whether it's your fault or not, injuries will happen. Here are some methods to cope with and ultimately emerge from these periods healthily and productively.

By Ryan Adams — January 17, 2023

Tags: athlete life, free time, growth, sports injury, varsity sports

There will be times during your tenure as a student-athlete when you're flying high and feel untouchable. You're winning competitions, setting personal bests, and enjoying the fruits of your labor. Enjoy these times when all is right with the world because the potential for disaster is always looming when you least expect it. As a student-athlete, you put your body through the wringer. You beat it into submission through workouts, or, depending on your sport, it's beaten into submission through physical contact. Then, you fulfill the same academic and personal responsibilities as everyone else.

Having a great recovery routine will mitigate the potential for injury, but being sidelined at some point in your career is inevitable. You may eat right, sleep right, and religiously perform your strength and stretch routines, but you never know when you might take a bad step while running and sprain an ankle, get tackled and dislocate your shoulder, or sit a little too deep in a squat and tear a hamstring. Whether it's your fault or not, injuries will happen. What I hope to share in this article as someone who had dealt with that disappointment in my collegiate and professional career are methods to cope with and ultimately emerge from these periods healthily and productively.

Let Yourself Feel Upset

You will feel a range of emotions. Disappointment, sadness, anger, and maybe even guilt are normal reactions. You care deeply about your sport—something you've dedicated hours of work and passion. If you didn't feel any emotion at the news that you won't be able to compete for an extended period, you might be in the wrong field. Let yourself feel upset. Not only is it okay to cry, but it can be the most cathartic thing when you feel the whirlwind of emotions raging inside. Vent to a friend. Scream into your pillow. Put on some boxing gloves and release your frustrations against a punching bag. Schedule an appointment with a therapist or a sports psychologist. The worst thing you can do is bottle up your emotions or pretend they don't exist.

Take It Slow

You're likely a go-getter and someone who pushes themselves to the limit, which may have contributed to the cause of the injury you're rehabbing. You may feel the temptation to do the same during cross-training or physical therapy. Unfortunately, it's impossible to brute force recovery, and attempting to do so may even result in taking more time off. My worst injury took me off my feet for three months. In the first six weeks, I pushed myself hard in the pool, on the bike, and added PT exercises to an already robust recovery routine. I wanted to return every bit as fit as I was before. Eventually, I started to burn out physically and mentally. My muscle tears weren't healing well, and my stress reactions were still throbbing. When I returned to running, I could only train for around eight weeks before another compensatory injury took me out for five more weeks. I grew frustrated that despite all my efforts, my body continued to rebel, but I realized later it only rebelled against my unreasonable demands.

Take It Slow

Take it slow. You never know how long recovery will take; pushing it won't increase the recovery rate. Instead of demanding more from your already battered body, take the time to focus on good lifestyle changes. Good sleep is the best form of recovery and will also help you to regulate your emotions. If you feel your diet is lacking, this is an excellent time to consult a dietician or nutritionist and reassess your daily in take. When it comes down to it, recovery is an involuntary process often hampered by our best efforts.

Live as a NARP

As a student-athlete, you don't have as much time, and freedom as your NARP (Non-Athlete Regular Person) friends do. How many times have you had to decline an invitation to go to a party or a wedding because you have practice or an upcoming competition? This is a time when you can not only rest your body but relax your mind. Hang out with your friends, stay up late and sleep in (don't make a habit of it), take a flight to see your family, take a weekend trip, or do anything you always wished you could do if not for your athletic commitments. This is the ultimate silver lining to injuries. You have a brief time where you can take a sabbatical from what may be a passion but is ultimately work. If you take the time to do these things, you will return to your competition with a renewed vigor that only comes after breaks.

Learn

Only after you've taken the time to feel your emotions, let go of frustrations, and take a break from your athletic responsibilities is it appropriate and helpful to look at where things went wrong and learn from it. In endurance sports, many injuries are overuse injuries. In contact sports they may be impact related. Looking back at what was in your control will allow you to avoid falling into the same patterns that may have led to your injury and will allow you to accept that certain events were out of your hands. If you're honest with yourself, maybe you were letting your habits slip: you weren't eating properly or keeping up with your strength work. Maybe you turned your ankle because you put off your workout until it was dark. Maybe you hurt your back lifting because you rushed to finish quicker and sacrificed good form. Or perhaps someone collided with your car because they were looking at their phone. It's unfair, but it happens.

Ultimately, injury and misfortune in life are inevitable. Life is a series of peaks and valleys. Enjoy the peaks, and don't despair in the valleys. Use your down times as an opportunity for rest and growth, and be comforted that rest can heal all physical and emotional wounds. I doubt anyone copes with misfortune perfectly, and it's certainly easier to say platitudes than to accept them. The sooner you can come to grips with reality, the sooner you can emerge like a phoenix from the ashes—stronger and wiser than you were before.

Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams is a professional runner currently based in Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from Furman University in 2021 earning a bachelor's degree in Spanish Literature and Politics & International Studies, with an interdisciplinary minor in Latin American Studies.

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