Injury Dissected: Several Perspectives & Thoughts when we're NOT at 100%

I figured this is a good time to discuss all things injuries, since I'm dealing with one right now.

Soccer is my game. My first love. But damn I can't stand this!!

No mine isn't as bad as this poor guy, who CLEARLY has been SHOT in the hip. 🙄

I'm dealing with a calf injury right now. I had most symptoms of a grade 2 muscle tear, minus the bruising. Long story short, I'll be managing the injury for 4-weeks before returning to sports in mid-July. In the meantime, it's the perfect time to chat about a "hodge-podge" of injury related content. Oh YEAH!!!

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The Mental Side of Injury

This part is often overlooked and even unknown to folks who are hurt. Managing an injury is equally as much mental health as it is physical. The mental stages of an injury run parallel with the stages of grief...

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

I actually mentioned this to someone else who is dealing with an injury more severe than mine right now; "It's okay to feel down and overwhelmed!". These are normal emotions when our body is not able to function as we want/need. Unfortunately for so many of us, it takes a physical injury to realize how much our body does for us every day, that we take for granted!

Just like stress, grief (and everything related to human emotion and psychology) there's no one template for how we will experience these mental aspects of injury. We're all different. Some people will be "bobbing and weaving" through these different stages over time. It's not a linear progression by any means. You could be into "Acceptance" stage and move back to anger or even denial if there's a set back in the healing process for example.

This was something I had to learn by experience back in 2018. (Knock on wood) I've been so fortunate in my life with injuries, though my later years in soccer were riddled with muscle strains/pulls. These were more annoying than severe. It was also connected to stress and lifestyle I now understand in my wiser years. But no surgeries in my lifetime. So a MINOR avulsion fracture of my right ankle that August and being "boot ridden" for a month was a big deal for me. Also, not understanding the mental side of things as I do now - Let's just say I didn't handle it well at all. Aside from not understanding the mental stages of injury, I fell into the trap of "everything I can't do". Although this is common as well, it's COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE big time!

Not to get too technical, but a quick little anatomy lesson for you:

Humans have TWO feet.

Humans have TWO ankles.

Humans have TWO knees.

Humans have TWO legs and hips.

Humans have an entire upper body (also loaded in pairs such as shoulders, arms, hands etc)

Now let's do some basic math:

ALL of those pairs of appendages minus ONE = a heck of alot of working parts still!!

Okay, back to anatomy and physiology:

Did you know that even if ONE side is injured, we can impact it greatly by working the opposite healthy side?? That's our nervous system at work! We can impact our injured side through our network of nerves by working the OPPOSITE healthy side! Our bodies are incredible!!! On top of that, it allows us to do SOMETHING, which therefore helps our minds! We feel like we've accomplished something, that we are STILL capable of something etc... It ALL helps! I sure would've come out of that injury in 2018 better had I known all this.

What CAN I do??

This was my long winded way of getting to another aspect of the mental side of injury;

We focus on the NEGATIVE. All the things we CAN'T do.

That doesn't help anyone. It keeps us in a state of feeling down and sorry for ourselves (i.e. depression/sadness stage). This is exactly what I did 8-years ago with that ankle injury. My mind is VERY different today with my most recent muscle injury that's for sure. Actually just before I sat down to type this I came back from a bike ride on just day-3 of my rehab exercises (I'll get to the bike ride shortly in more detail regarding this aspect of things). I can also still lift weights, especially with my upper body. This was something I overlooked 100% in 2018.

This was my first day back to work and my first day with my "kneeley scooter" a neighbour lent me. This "happiness" and "fun" lasted just 24hrs, then I no longer enjoyed that thing. At which point the anger and depression came back quickly.

It's EASY to let ourselves slide into a bummed state when we're hurt. NO ONE WANTS to feel this way. NO ONE WANTS to get hurt. However, WE ARE HUMAN and therefore it's not a matter of IF, but WHEN you get hurt. NO ONE is immune (despite the stupid over-done BAD "jokes" by friends or family when you're a health professional - seriously, it's SUCH A PET PEEVE of mine!). When you USE your body, you naturally increase risk of injury. By taking care of your body, we can balance out the risk a bit more without question but never making us invincible.

The Physical Side of Injury

First thing's first - It's 100% SCARY that the old mindset of "just do nothing" is still out there. STOP IT!!! Do you know how many times a client will bring up a nagging injury they've been feeling for a few weeks and when I ask why they are only sharing this info now they say; "Well, I thought it would just go away". When I then ask, "What have you been doing to try to help it heal?" they inevitably answer; "Well, nothing." (Which by the way is a lie! They've been WISHING it away 🫣).

Here's the way I like to look at it: Not only are we allowing the body to heal through movement and exercise (appropriate to our injury) but we are also reminding the body that this movement, exercise etc are okay and not something we need to be protective of! We need to be able to ease TENSION and that "defensive stance" the body kicks into gear when it's protecting an injured area. Through proper rehab, progression and care we can allow the body to re-adapt to the activity/movement with ease and openness again. None of this can happen by sitting and doing nothing. We HAVE to be proactive in our healing. No different than regular recovery work. It requires ACTION.

Take ACTION and GET professional GUIDANCE

Here's another view of mine that I've learned over the years; If the injury isn't bad enough to seek immediate professional help, DO SOMETHING to promote healing for yourself. If after a week or so, there's little or no progress THEN connect with the appropriate professional to get on the proper track with the healing methods you need. If you HAVE done SOMETHING you can then take that information to the professional and be able to say "this helped somewhat" and "this didn't help", so that he/she can make a more informed recommendation for you. It's a win-win.

I first strained my calf at tennis. I was supposed to be coming out of my 8-year retirement to play "oldtimers soccer" the very next night. I was SO EXCITED and I had been feeling SO GOOD! I didn't push it and chose to take the week to heal. My injury got progressively better. I used heat, did some stretching, some foam roller work, walking and by day 5 I begin to slowly jog a bit, building to a little bit of jump rope on day 6, some lateral movements and bit more pace by day 7 and hopeful to play on day 8. On game day, I asked one of our awesome RMT's, Chelsea if she could work on the calf for 10min or so. I taped it up with some KT Tape prior to heading to the field and got there with plenty of time for a good warm up. I was barely 5min into warmup, I pulled the calf worse than the first time. I felt it go. I was SO MAD, SAD, FRUSTRATED all at once within 2 seconds.

That night I text my physio colleague (also a soccer friend) and had my appointment booked with him for 48hrs later. When I went to see him, I was able to take all the info I shared here to better help him. Had I done NOTHING in that first week, it would've potentially set us back a bit further in the healing process.

Now though, because I didn't wait - I have a path for healing. And that path is part of what helps our mental game when it comes to injury. Waiting in "the unknown" and "wishing the injury away" does NOT help us get onto the path of acceptance any quicker, that's for sure.

You gotta DO the WORK!

I've said this many times on the Zen Blog and will continue to probably the rest of my career. It echos the statements of EVERY health professional out there from trainers/coaches, physios, athletic therpists, chiros, doctors etc... YOU GOTTA DO THE WORK if you want to feel better!!!

Maybe I'm just weird because of my line of work, but I get a bit excited after seeing my physio, nutritionist, chiro ... whomever I'm working with, because I NOW HAVE SOMETHING I CAN DO that's LEADING ME TO BEING HEALTHY again!!! Once again it bares repeating; DOING NOTHING CHANGES NOTHING. We NEED to take ACTION!!!

Here's a harsh truth: When you see a professional to help you rehab an injury - if you DON'T put the work in and do what's recommended, it doesn't impact the professional. It impacts YOU! Granted, it DOES make their job tougher when you're not taking the steps to promote healing. However, your physio still will go to work and live his/her life. YOU have to continue living in pain/discomfort!!

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Okay, lets get back to the positives. Remember when we're hurt we fall even more easily into the NEGATIVE mindset and "all the things we CAN'T do right now" while we're injured. We have to ACTIVELY focus on what we CAN still do!!

☯ Sometimes if we physically can't do something, we can put our energy into other aspects of our deep health that maybe we've been neglecting such as sleep, mindfulness, breathwork or social relationships for example

☯ Maybe we shift into improving a few nutrition habits

☯ Perhaps we take the time to dive into a hobby we've been putting off

☯ Or we find physical things we CAN still do

**Injury also allows us to be GRATEFUL: Grateful for all our body does for us that goes completely unnoticed. It allows us to appreciate how much energy is put into the simplest of movements and tasks that we take for granted, until they're taken away. To me, this is a positive of injury. That "ah-ha" moment and lesson that can help SHIFT perspective for us. **

My physio friend recommended biking to me for example, as movement is what my calf needs to heal and break up some scar tissue. I'm not a big "bike guy" at all, never have been but I do have one and was not oppose to that idea. So this afternoon I went for a short ride.

It felt really GOOD for a few reasons...

1) Anytime we change modalities/activities we get different perspectives, even if we're doing it in a similar area. Since I tend to walk, run, hike or paddle, biking gives me a fresh perspective of familiar spaces which is refreshing both mentally and physically.

2) The human body responds well to variety in our movement and activities.

3) It felt good to do something with some normalcy. For example, I can't walk too quickly still or I'll be uncomfortable or re-injure myself. But I can bike comfortably at a reasonable pace without feeling uncomfortable.

Not to mention, along the trail are a TON of wildflowers; whites, yellows and purples especially. The flowers were full of big bumble bees and there were so many birds all around on either side of me at times. Lots of goldfinches as well, which coloured the sky with the pine trees as the backdrop and wildflowers beneath them as I rode alongside them. So cool!

The biking and my REHAB EXERCISES I do each day all make me FEEL BETTER and on the path to being back to my sports as well. ALL OF THAT lends itself to a healthier mindset while dealing with my injury. It's no different than our everyday life; When we sit and mindlessly scroll, binge watch a show or bury ourselves in our work we FEEL WORSE NOT BETTER. When we ACTIVELY HELP OUR BODY HEAL, we feel better on the whole. Even when we're still not quite 100%.

Let's end with some GENERAL IDEAS if you're dealing with a MINOR injury/discomfort:

• HEAT is typically the go-to. If the injury JUST happened, ice may help but generally heat is now the accepted practice. Regardless, if the injury feels worse after either - STOP it.

• Movement IS medicine. By movement this means PAIN FREE movement and with LESS intensity.

• Massage / Release work may help. Depending on the injury, physically releasing the muscle and surrounding tissues with body work may help. If you don't have a massage therapist accessible and/or myofascial release tools like a ball or foam roller, you DO have your hands. If the muscle is reachable for you, even a light touch massage can at the very least help move lymphatic fluid around the injured area.

• Strength & Stability once pain has settled. The first step is manage pain/discomfort with an injury. But after that, stretching won't do a whole lot in many cases. Strength and stability work will. Utilizing lighter weights, resistance bands etc can be helpful.

• Write things down. It can be VERY helpful to write things down, both for yourself and the professional who's guidance you may seek. Log things like pain levels (use a 1-10 scale), movements and/or activities that make the discomfort worse, ability or inability to sleep etc...

*DISCLAIMER - I AM NOT a physio or athletic therapist and I am NOT "telling you" to do these things. However most often common sense and EFFORT to do SOMETHING typically works out well. Even if it's figuring out what does NOT work for you prior to seeing a physio. Listen to your body. If something feels worse, stop immediately. If something helps, even temporarily, do it regularly.