13 Meditations On Injury

Ask any athlete who is over 35, and they might tell you of all the things they’ve hurt. (However, many of the athletes I know who are older simply will not talk about injuries and that is another topic for another post.)

I’m not a physician or a physical therapist, but I work out six days a week, and I’m injured sometimes. (Many times) Right now, I’m a teeny bit injured. I’ve had quite a while to formulate my thoughts on injury. Here are my non-physician meditations about injury.

*not medical advice

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-The Cause. One exercise probably didn’t cause it. If you are driving down a street and your car breaks down, it could have been caused by that street, but maybe not. I’m fascinated when I tell people I’m injured; they ask, “What did you do to cause it?” Wouldn’t it be interesting if your alternator went out and people asked, “Where were you driving to cause this failure?” Just because your car broke down on that road doesn’t necessarily mean that road caused it.

-Be patient. Think of an injury like a cut. It takes time to heal. Probably no stretch can magically solve it.

-Learn. You have to tap into resources and experts. But the only person capable of finding and fixing the pain is you.

-Go! You have to do something about it and be proactive.

-Acceptance. Accept your injury. You have to take it easy. You can’t keep doing what you did to do the things that got it injured.

-Unacceptable. Don’t accept your injury. You have to make a plan to get better. Don’t be the person who acquires a limp and tells yourself that you limp and you are a limping person.

-Identity. You have an injured knee. You are not an injured person.

-Keep going. Don’t stop training. Avoid the patellar tendon but don’t avoid everything. Can you run? Maybe you can incline walk. Can you stand up? Maybe you can do a plate snatch or KB swings. Lower body injured? Strengthen your chest and back.

-Adjacent. My experience has been that injuries and strains are almost always caused by an adjacent tendon or muscle. Think of many cables supporting a tower. Stop stretching the thing that hurts and go after adjacent areas with more strength and flexibility. If the inside of the knee hurts, start strengthening and stretching the outside of the knee.

-Feedback. What does being injured mean? Instead of this big bad permanent condition, think of it as feedback. Your knee is giving you feedback that something is not moving correctly. And now it’s your job to get to work and find it.

-Listen. Learn to listen to the different types of pain. Muscle pain is great! It means you’re pushing into discomfort. But learn to recognize joint pain. Learn to differentiate the two.

-Technique. Form is everything. Dr. Stuart McGill talks about how he observes his athletes as they do seemingly non-athletic things. When an injured athlete shows up to get a consultation for an injury, how does he get out of the car? How does she get up out of a chair? Maybe don’t treat every move like an Olympic lift, but maybe think through how you’re bending down to tie your shoes. When you’re injured, it’s a great time to rethink your form, even when you’re doing menial things.

-Pills. Be careful about using ibuprofen. Sometimes you need to feel the pain so you can know what is good technique and what is not. But if you take an anti-inflammatory for every injury you have, you won’t know what is creating that injury.

Is any of this controversial? Good! Add to it. How do you think about injury?

*not medical advice