Injuries.....it’s all in the mind!

Well, maybe not “all”, but bear with me while I explain.

The power of the human mind fascinates me, and I believe most of us are only using a fraction of its extraordinary capacity at the moment.

Consider a couple of extreme examples;

We’ve all probably known or heard of elderly couples where one of them passes away, only for the other to pass away within an extremely short space of time. It happens too often to be just mere coincidence. We talk about them “dying of a broken heart” and yet it seems to me that they are able to turn their understandable thoughts of grief and not wishing to carry on into a physical manifestation.

Conversely, I’m sure we’ve all experienced stories of people who have been diagnosed with serious illness, but who have taken an incredibly positive approach to recovery and have confounded medical science to either recover completely or, at least, prolong their life much longer than expected.

Both are surely examples of how the mind can affect physical health.

Now equate that to the situations we find ourselves in as athletes, and it doesn’t take a huge leap to see that the mind can have a vital effect on injuries we sustain and how we recover from those injuries.

As an example of the former, it’s amazing how many people get niggles that affect training in the build-up to a major event about which they’re nervous. Conversely, how many times have you finished a run or a long bike ride, during which you’ve felt fine, only to be in pieces for days afterwards and left with a legacy injury – but the mind was focused on the job in hand so ignored the injury at the time.

On a personal level, I suffered with what seemed to be a serious knee problem prior to my Bob Graham attempt in 2010, to the extent that I was planning to call it off and leave it for the year. At some point, I made a conscious decision to commit 100% for the attempt, with no thoughts of failure, and from that moment forward I had no knee problems at all (partly aided and abetted by a strict regime of knee strengthening exercises I committed to).

So what implications does this have for us as athletes? And, in particular, what implications when it comes to injuries.

Well firstly, on one level, when you get these niggles, it’s always worth searching inside yourself for why they have arisen now. It may be because you’ve changed training regime significantly? Or it may be because you have a major event coming up which you’re nervous about? Are there other stresses and strains in your life which are affecting your positivity and, maybe, causing physical manifestations of that stress? Have you simply lost some motivation for training at the moment? Search yourself for the answers and be honest with yourself?

Secondly, having looked for reasons why you might have got the injury in the first place, are you ready to commit, both mentally and physically, to recovering from it?

One of the main problems we all face when injured, is accepting the fact and acting accordingly. We refuse to believe it and place our faith in “running it off”. Even when we’re advised not to run, we think it’s worth a “test run” to see how it holds up. Or, having been advised to build up running again from a mile base with only slight increases each run, we head out for 20 miles over the hills.

What I see in my practice, and what I’m coming to appreciate more for myself as well, is that only when we mentally accept the injury and commit to sorting out the problem, will we be able to begin the recovery.

Once committed, we adopt a different mindset, have a different motivation in everything we do, and every action we take will be geared towards proper recovery from the injury.

This may mean we stop running for a while. It may mean cross-training to maintain fitness. It will almost certainly mean stretching and strengthening regimes on a regular basis to address the weakness which has caused the injury in the first place.  I’d humbly suggest that it will almost certainly include a commitment to regular sports massage, which will greatly facilitate the recovery (both in terms of the “hands-on” work and the advice on stretching, strengthening, training etc that a good sports massage practitioner should provide).Once we have a commitment and a positivity towards recovery, we’ll start to see improvement.

So, next time you have an injury, I invite you to stop for a moment and think, before deciding how to move forward. Think why you might have the injury and decide whether you’re committed to recovering from it. And you may be surprised at the results........