By: Cate Wittman
Any
athlete that has experienced an injury understands how it can be hard to bounce back. Often, you lose a lot of ability due to the rest and recovery process. It’s normal to feel like things are out of your control and there’s nothing you can do about it, but it’s important to keep calm. The main thing you can focus on is what is in your control; things like staying healthy with nutrition, keeping your physical ability in check with stretches and/or walks (if possible), and most importantly, resting! While recovering, it’s easy to forget the fact that you have to let your body rest and get your health back before pushing yourself again.
My experience with injury:
Summer of 2022 I was racing Ore to Shore in Marquette, MI and dislocated my shoulder in the race. I had to be in a sling for a month and was off the bike for three months. I found myself feeling like I could never get back to what I was capable of. My ability and strength on the bike was diminished greatly while in recovery and I could feel it. After a little while, I got professional help with physical therapy and allowed myself to rest. With this time, I reflected on my biking and created goals for myself when coming back. I made sure I was ready physically and mentally to start from the ground up and had to be willing to put in the work to reach my goals. I reminded myself what I was working for and why I am willing to push through these hard times.
After the injury:
Coming out of an accident/injury can be scary. You may feel unsure of how active your future might be and frantically try to get back to how things were before, but slow down. Take time to reset and take a break from the usual of pushing yourself to your hardest. Your body needs to heal fully before you can excel again, or you’ll do more harm than good to yourself. Make sure you’re prepared to put in work to get back to where you were; one thing that could help is creating a plan to achieve your new goals.
Recovery:
It can be difficult to manage resting and keeping yourself healthy when in recovery. Make sure to ease back into what you were doing before. Training can look like doing yoga one day and intervals another. Allowing your body to settle back into harder workouts is important so you don’t overwork yourself as you try to get back to how things were before the injury; things like easy days and active stretching will help you fully recover. Another thing to keep in mind is listening to your body and how it reacts to these workouts, especially on more intense days. If your body isn’t up to sprints, you probably are rushing into things too fast. Take as much time as you need; patience is how you excel in the long run.
Being able to find your confidence and ability is key to achieving great things. Getting comfortable with what you used to do isn’t easy; it takes time, patience and practice in order to be great. No matter what, you always have to believe you can do something in order for you to be able to do it; so make sure you believe in yourself and your ability to improve so you can be better. Today, I am on the bike again after learning how to be confident with my riding and my training.
