So rather than not write anything at all i thought i would share mine and other professional advice about how to deal with the physical and mental trauma that goes with having any injury or illness when participating in sport.
 |
| August 2010 - the second time i broke my Clavicle after being hit by a car whilst training in France |
Yet, with all this effort it is a very scary thought to think that a silly little incident or mistake could render all of that hard work useless, at least for the short term at least. Injuries such as fractures can take anywhere from a few weeks to many months to completely heal and even then it can still drag on due to other physical issues that can remain apparent for a long time after the injury such as aches, pain and niggles all of which can further disrupt your training and every day life.
There are 2 main areas to discuss when considering how to overcome an injury and how to go about getting to your post injury fitness or performance level, these come in the form of the physical issues i.e directly dealing with the injury itself and aiding the healing process as quickly as possible. The other is possibly the harder aspect to deal with which are the mental issues that exist when trying to overcome forced rest when you sustain an injury. i consider this the root of all of the issues that go with this subject, get this wrong then whole recovery process will take a lot longer, this is why i will tackle this aspect first.
ACCEPTANCE
The first and most important step is accepting that the injury has taken place and that you may be out of action for a weeks, the sooner you can get around this fact then the easier everything else will come. This can be very hard at the time, especially if things were going well and you had been training hard or getting good results in races and its very easy to be saying this if you are not the one who is facing a few weeks of the bike. However, one way in which i have managed to get over this initial issue to approach it from a different angle. i do this by finding a positive within the situation and focusing on that rather than the negatives, the one thing i always tell myself when injuries occur is that they happened for a reason and if you try hard enough you Will, always be able to actively convince yourself that yes, this did happen for a reason. When ever i break a bone or get a really nasty virus, it always comes at a time when maybe my training or racing isn't going so well or i am having hard times dealing with other issues in my life. therefore, this injury could have happened as a way to force me rest in order to recharge my batteries and refocus on my goals as i may have been steadily tracking in the wrong direction for a while, or maybe its happened as a way to force training down my life's priority list and allow me time with no other distraction to sort out other personal issues in my life, therefore making training easier and more efficient when i do return to riding.
MAKE THE MOST OF IT!
Athletes never have any trouble when it comes to training hard enough, give them a ridiculously hard workout and most will jump at the chance to challenge and push themselves beyond the realms of pain and suffering. yet tell them to have a few easy days in order to allow there bodies to repair and adapt and you may as well be flogging a dead horse to most of them. Many Committed athletes only feel they are doing all they Can to improve if they are gasping for breath or struggling to walk up the stairs after training and the vital recovery process is ofter over looked in the pursuit for higher levels of performance.
As mentioned above, less serious injury or illness can create a great opportunity for athletes to take an enforced rest period during which there bodies will finally get the Chance to fully recover and shed the deep underlying fatigue from weeks and moths of the vigorous and consistent onslaught of intense training. This is the time when the body can also enter the sacred state of over-compensation where by the body rebuilds its self stronger and fitter than its pre recovered state, this process can take alot longer than most athletes will allow so rarely gets the chance to finish miracle work on your body which is why most athletes struggle to reach there full potential. Use it as a good excuse to have break from training as the chances are you need one but just realise it, 9 times out of ten after a week of the bike you will come back stronger and fresher due to allowing your body to fully recover from the constant training load.
REFLECT
down time is a great time to look at what you have been doing both i regards to your training and everything else in your life. Looking back over the season whilst looking ahead to upcoming races and events, you may find that you have strayed off course and need to reset your sight on the objective or possible change that objective. Those with training files and past training data can look back and review there training and see whether they really have been training effectively and making the kind of progress that they know they should be. I always that a forced lay off from training enables me to wipe the bad habit slate clean and go back to the basic principles for a few weeks, sometimes we get so focused on all the advanced stuff that we forget the fundamentals of training and let them rot away. you will be amazed at how much your riding will be refined by working on the simple things for a while. These include cadence, pedal stoke, position, handling, gear selection, braking and even practicing eating and drinking whilst riding.
LOOK AHEAD
Like i mentioned in the previous paragraph, i use down time as a way of putting a full stop in to my training and then starting a fresh afterwards. I never drown in my sorrows when i am injured, i look ahead towards new or existing goals and refine and clear the path that i wish to take in order to get there. I will sit down and plan out the next few month of training from the point where i estimate i can ride again, i devise new training session and workouts in order to Target specific areas, i make various spread sheets on my computer in order track a variety of metrics and i plan new recovery strategies and nutrition plans in order to give me the best response from training. I always find that doing this me huge amounts of motivation and excites me about resuming training. just be careful to make sure you don't get over enthusiastic and dig your self in to a hole of fatigue with in the first few weeks of been back on the bike. Again, look ahead towards the bigger picture.
WHEN ARE YOU READY TO START TRAINING AGAIN?
This is an area that i am not going to dive too deeply in to, i am no doctor or medical professional and i have no qualifications or experience in medical science. However, what i will say having had broken many bones and suffered various illnesses over the last few years, one conclusion i can take from going through the process of recover again and again is that everyone heals and recovers at vary different rates. different breaks and fractures repair at hugely differing rates and virus clear at different speeds. only you will have the best idea of how your recovery is going and how you are feeling, one piece of advice i will give you is that you need to be honest with your self when thinking about recovery time. It is way to easy to convince your self that you are ready to go when deep down you know you are trying to run before you can walk, I have done it myself, various times. i have been so desperate to resume training that i failed to listen to what my body was clearly telling me and would you believe it, i ended up back at square one with in a few weeks having stressed my body when i should have still being rested.
Ignoring doctors orders is one thing that we are all guilty of and for athletes its even harder because when they give you standard answer of 6-8 weeks, you sit there telling yourself that his man knows nothing about you or your sport as he is no athlete. Yet, it might be worth considering how that man got to sit behind that desk with DR in front of his name and that's because he knows what he is talking about so take his advise on board, even if its just as a rough guide line. Another thing i have learnt to do or not to do in this case is to set a date for when your recovery process should be complete. this is the most emotionally destructive thing that you can do because you cant put a n accurate date on when you will be ready, too many factors can influence your recovery and you are simply setting yourself up for a huge disappointment if you aren't ready when you though you would be. It takes as long as it takes, all you can do is be as good to yourself and your recovery as possible. With broken bones you can begin to track your progress by how you feel from day to day and you know when you are ready to again. With colds and viruses the old age tip remains true; when you feel ready give it another day. If you hit training hard as soon as you feel good, you are simply suppressing your immune system which will allow the virus to develop again in a very short space of time.
EASY AS SHE GOES
When you are finally ready to get back on the bike remember to begin with baby steps and build up. The injury may still be sensitive and fragile even though it feel fine. When i broke my Collar Bone for the second time, i was informed that although the bone will be strong and fully functional after 8 weeks, which it was, it would tale up to 18 moths for the bones to fuse completely back to how they would have been before the break! 18 months is a long time.
Although i wont go in to huge amounts of detail in this post about the effects of reversibility on fitness and muscular atrophy i will give a brief over view. Keep in mind that if you have been completely in active for more than 2 weeks you will have lost some fitness and if you have a limb immobilized by a cast or brace then you can expect to see a reduction in the size of the adjoining muscle but Don't panic, this isn't lost for ever and you will get it back.
If you are an experiences athlete and been training for many years, you will find that you will have maintained most of if not all of your basic endurance and muscle memory, this kind of thing becomes en grained in to our bodies and motor functions after years or training and is very hard to loose. The things that you will loose are you top end speed and power and muscular strength and size. however, with steady and progressive training these will return and you will generally find that they come back a bit easier that when you had to develop them first time round, almost as you have some kind of blue print left behind which your body uses to get back that little bit faster.
PREVENTION
As it is commonly stated, it is always easier to prevent an injury or illness from taking place than it is to deal with it when it has occurred. If you find that you are getting injuries or illnesses often and they seem to be happening in a recurring fashion then it may be time to address the underlying problem rather than keep treating it when it crops up. Stress fractures, strains, sprains, aches and niggles can be down to something as simple as bike fit so it may be worth forking out a bit on a full bike fit session with a professional fitter. it could also be down do an old injury that you had many years ago that is becoming aggravated by the training you are doing, this could mean that you would be best seeking some professional help in the form of a sports injury specialist or physiotherapist.
If you find that you keep getting bogged down with a runny nose or sort throat or similar virus, you should consider getting some blood tests down as you be lacking in some of the essential vitamins and minerals that keep your body and immune system working at full capacity. these kind of issues could be dealt with simply taking a supplement to top you back up.
Hopefully there are somethings that have helped you in this post and if you have been recently injured and come down with a nasty virus then i wish you a speedy recovery but remember, don't panic as you will be back on your bike in no time and the chances are you will be back in a better frame of mind and and refreshed and ready to go
Train Smarter, Ride Faster. Simple
Dan
No comments:
Post a Comment