Running
fromPsychology Today
11 hours agoThe Psychological Side of Sports Injury Recovery
Sports injuries significantly impact mental health, requiring attention to emotional recovery alongside physical healing.
After a tough workout, your body enters a state of stress: muscle fibers are damaged, energy stores are depleted, and hydration levels drop. This is a critical moment. If your body gets the right nutrients, it starts rebuilding immediately. If not, recovery slows down, and so does progress.
Those of us who watch the Olympics as bystanders tend to smugly judge athletes for succumbing to pressure without understanding what we even mean by the term. The first thing to know about pressure is that it has actual physical properties. Feeling it is not a sign of a too-thin veneer of character. Pressure might as well be a snakebite, given its very real qualities in the bloodstream and how it can paralyze even the strongest legs. The way to deal with pressure, and become
"We have a golden retriever, and so I walk her three or four miles a day, and I do a weight training class twice a week," says Brown, 62, of Arlington, Va. She knows muscle mass will decline without regular strength training. "We have a fun group with a personal trainer and we call ourselves the Beastie Girls," she says, describing how her group helps her stick with it. She also plays tennis and golf.
When you have an acute injury, your body is sending signals through the peripheral and central nervous systems and the immune system to say, hold on, I need to stop doing this so we can allow the tissue to heal, says Ericka Merriwether, a physical therapist and pain researcher at New York University. Rest, after all, is the first part of the familiar RICE therapy, which stands for rest, ice, compression and elevation.
I have evolved from someone who didn't think much of the bar except for resting my legs to thinking of it as an obvious life-saving precaution. Dr. Bourne shared several examples from Mammoth in which the bar could have saved lives, including the death of her former ski coach, who fell from a chairlift to his death, most likely from a medical event which may have been treatable.
You feel an unpleasant sensation - like a sinking feeling of anxiety in your stomach as the game begins, and you think, "I'm anxious. Here we go again. I'm about to blow it." You feel your pain increasing, and the thoughts churn: "Great. I'll probably miss a whole week of work." Imagined catastrophes fill your mind. Manage these thoughts with the 3 C's: Catch it, Check it, and Change it.
Cross training and running go together like peanut butter and jelly. If you build it into your schedule intentionally, strategically, and with a clear understanding of what you're trying to accomplish, you'll thrive. Megan makes the case that cross-training serves runners for several distinct reasons, and the right reason for you will shape how you approach it.
In this episode of the On Coaching Podcast, Steve Magness and Jon Marcus discuss the concept of 'fit but flat,' exploring the phenomenon where athletes excel in metabolic fitness but fail to perform competitively due to a lack of neuromuscular coordination. Using examples like middle-distance runner Ingram Brion, the hosts delve into how metabolic training alone can lead to race failures.