By Amelia Thomsett, Head Coach at CrossFit Victoria

Most of us have been there. You are having the best training run you have ever had. You’re feeling strong. You’re hitting lifts that you never thought you would hit. You have competitions lined up that you’re excited for and you’re loving your training more and more everyday.

Then… BAM! Just when everything is going so well – you get hit with an injury that stops you dead in your tracks. This is exactly what happened to me recently when an old knee injury flared up.

As much as injuries hurt and take a long time to recover from physically, I think most athletes out there will agree that it’s the mental effect of injuries that take the longest to recover from.

The psychological and emotional stress of injuries are not commonly talked about. We’re tough CrossFitters and we don’t talk about our feelings. But, it should be the main thing we talk about. Our injury might take 6 weeks to heal but if we don’t rehab our mind it might take months to get back in the game.

So, why is this? Why do injuries affect our mental state so much? 

When I injured myself the first thing that hit me was anger. If you know me, you would know that I hardly ever get angry, if at all. So, as you can imagine, this was a very weird feeling for me. I was angry because this was an injury that could have been prevented with better care of my body.

This anger quickly turned into depression and sadness. Most athletes will experience at least one, if not all three, of these negative emotions. I mean lets face it, thanks to your injury you are now unable to do something that you love and spend countless hours a day doing. It is so bloody frustrating, that you can’t help but be angry, sad or depressed.

Then there is the isolation. Most athletes train in a training group and undoubtedly the people in your training group also are some of your closest friends. I train regularly with my 3 closest girl friends and we would talk about how we were going, how awesome (yet tough) the session was, and constantly encourage each other to push ourselves just that little more.

When I got injured, I couldn’t train with them any more. I would see them laughing and having fun in their session and I couldn’t help but feel isolated from that. As their coach I was so excited to see them train but just missed being apart of that. This obviously made me even sadder and also brought on another negative emotion… ENVY….

Watching my amazing friends continue training, smash PBs, work on their gymnastics and just getting stronger at everything, started to make me feel envious. I was jealous that they could train and I couldn’t.

This was another emotion that I was not used to feeling and I hated it! Instead of celebrating with them I was now keeping my distance. Instead of feeling happy for them when they smashed their goals, I was feeling jealous and resentful – which yet again is so not me!

I got fed up of being this negative person. It just wasn’t me. I was the only person that could change this. No one else could change my mood for me. I had to take control of the situation. Obviously, I couldn’t make my knee miraculously better over night, but I could take control of my emotions. I didn’t have to let this injury get the better of me. I had to make a decision – should I let it get to me or should I learn from this experience and come out stronger in the end?

Well, like any strong-minded athlete, I am going to dust myself off and aim to lift another day!  

I’ve decided to use this time positively. Injuries can and should be used to your advantage, as a time to sit back, re-asses your situation, not only in training but in life as well.

Here are FOUR important tools that I used to help my mental rehab:

1. Learn about your injury

The first thing you need to do is learn about your injury. What is it? How did it happen? Was there anything you could have done to prevent it? If it was an overuse injury, what steps do you need to take make sure it doesn’t happen again? If it was an accident, was there a reason why it happened? Were you having a stressful day and not paying attention to what you were doing?

Whatever it was, learning about your injury gives you a great chance to learn about your body and how it all works. More importantly, it gives you the opportunity to learn about yourself.   Self-reflection should be a crucial tool for any athlete, injured or not This self-reflection will allow you to identify and target behaviours that may be limiting you and preventing you from taking your training to the next level.

2. Re-adjust your goals

Secondly, you need to sit down and re-adjust your goals. You are now on a different road, the road to recovery, which will actually turn out to be the best thing you have ever done for your training, I know it sounds crazy but its true!

Injuries tend to make you slow down a little bit, so it will also give you a chance to focus on your weakness. Identify your weakness and make that a priority. Focus on mobility and stability, not only for the injured area but also the other areas of your body too.

3. Utilise your support network

Turn to your family, friends and training partners for support. Another thing us strong minded athletes tend to all have in common is our ‘I can do this on my own’ attitude. However, it is important to remember that you have a massive amount of people around you that are willing and able to help get you through this.

Whether you discuss your new and exciting goals with them, head out to do something active other than CrossFit, or even just get a comforting hug. Knowing that you have a strong support network is one of the best healing remedies any athlete could ever ask for!

4.    Positive self-talk

Finally, start working on your POSITIVE SELF-TALK. Turn your thoughts of “I can’t do that anymore” into “I can and I will!” Positive self-talk is a very powerful tool, not only for your mind but for your body too. If you work on keeping your mind feeling good, your body will surely follow.

Start celebrating the little improvements that will happen with your injury. You might notice new strength gainzzz you are getting from working on your rehab. You might notice your weaknesses turn into strengths as you focus more attention on them during this recovery period.   Practice this positive mind-set and once you are at full training, your body and your mind will feel stronger and better than ever.

Injuries can be a dark place. They can lead you into feeling things that you never felt before and it’s very easy to get caught up. However, with the right mind-set, an injury can end up being the best thing that has ever happened to you.

 

Being injured can give you an opportunity to learn about yourself, your body and your training. By the time you get the ‘go ahead’ from your physio to go back to full training you will feel like a stronger athlete both mentally and physically and be ready to tackle any challenge that comes your way!