The chances hiding in injuries with a longer therapy
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The herein described ideas help me to cope better with bigger sports injuries and make “the best” out of the situation, or at least something better than just being sad and becoming grumpier. (I’m talking about injuries that require crutches a couple weeks and a recovery of several months to go back to sports).
Important disclaimer: These ideas are for inspirational purposes only and not a therapy or medical advice as they surely do not work well at all injuries. See a medical doctor or psychotherapist for serious (mental) health issues.
However, they could help to calm the mind and enable a very good use of the otherwise very sad injury time when there is a clear diagnosis of the symptoms and the (root) cause(s) are clear enough to enable a therapy with high chances of success.
Contents:
The cut in normal life: Not being able to continue as before
Changes that need to be made anyways
Opportunities that can be seized
Conclusion
The cut in normal life: Not being able to continue as before
Whenever I suffered from a injuries that kicked me out of doing sports for months, it felt like a world was falling apart. It is awful, hurts a lot physically and it just plainly sucks to be in this shitty situation (again). And when something is seriously injured and takes a long time to heal conservatively or with surgery, it’s even worse. The outlook on not being able to do anything fun in the next months and already feeling mentally demanding and depressive periods incoming already, is really nothing anyone wants to have.
By now, I unfortunately had this feeling often enough that I had the creative flow this Saturday to just write about my idea and particularly how I plan to cope with another injury again by moving my focus on the opportunities. I hope that these thoughts may not only help me but can also help others who get into such an unfortunate situation (FYI: This time I damaged my cartilage in the right knee, probably due to the PCL rupture 2 years ago).
I frequently experienced the following emotional stages during my long-term injuries before:
A cocktail of emotional stress in the beginning and not necessarily in that order, but maybe even all at once:
Disbelief
Sadness
Anger
Low energy and lacking motivation
Worries and anxiety
Feeling lost and confused by everything going on
Acceptance, rational reflection and constructive approach to therapize the injury and prepare other next steps
Depressive phases during the therapy (several ones in a long therapy), when progress is not as hoped and it’s still not possible to go out for a run to get away from them (or do other sports to distract)
Increasing happiness when you're able to walk, work out, run and do other sports again for the first time after the injury. Sometimes, the optimism gets too high and becomes a danger to risk doing too much before the injury is completely healed.
Normalization in everyday life when the accomplishments are not special anymore and expectations for physical performance rise and become more ambitious again.
I never really managed to skip any of these unpleasant phases in the beginning despite knowing them well.
(I’d like to know the physiological explanation of the mental / emotional phases on hormone base, but I haven’t found a good explanation quickly. Let me know in case you have one that I could also share here).
It feels like a rollercoaster ride when an injury that kicks you out of normal life. Photo by Stephen Hateley on Unsplash.
Furthermore, the idea how much time I’m losing for several activities in different categories keeps haunting me. The following aspects are the most obvious ones:
Sports:
Overall shape: min. 1 year to reach the same overall shape again (cardio, muscles, flexibility)
Lacrosse: Full stop of ambitions, hopefully <= 2 years until I can play just for fun
Snowboarding: up to 2 years
Learning how to ski properly: 1 more year after I can go snowboarding again, thus 3 years
Dancing Bachata: Min. 6 months
Hiking: ~1 year
Profession & Impact creation:
Demanding on-site client projects (out of my hometown): >6 months until I’m far enough in my rehabilitation training that I can afford not executing my recovery habits consistently
Demanding full-time remote projects: >2 months from the surgery until I can surely plan with complete availability every weekday (without regular doctor’s or physiotherapy appointments)
Fulltime commitment for the launch of an entrepreneurial project: > 1 year until everything is running so smoothly again that I can make a demanding long-term commitment with a good conscience of not risking my recovery
Travel: Explorative travels with a lot of walking and local activities: >6 months
The thoughts of so much lost time motivate me to at least use the time well for other things that I still can do during the injury and therapy, though…
Changes that need to be made anyways
In any disruption, I try to see the opportunities, as well. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a personal one like this subsequent knee injury, one at work e.g. due to a necessary pivot or restructuring, or a societal crisis e.g. during the corona crisis as I wrote about before. Whenever there is a change somewhere, there are consequences (positive and / or negative), but also a chance to change something because the status quo was broken up.
One could imagine it as a new year, a new phase of the life starting, moving to a new town, or metaphorically reshuffling the cards for the next game.
The focus of this blogpost is on the injuries and the changes that need to be made anyways. I structured the journey into three periods, which partly require very drastic changes anyways and are all good options to steer personally motivated changes from different categories.
The injury - reflections and plans: In the first days and weeks after the injury, I usually notice very many thoughts popping up, especially about all the things that I would like to do or to be different. These thoughts can be a great base for a structured reflection about wishes for future life. Identifying and documenting these (un)conscious desires is the first step to create plans for enabling them.
The therapy - habits: A therapy requires good habits to be successful: the right movements, good food, good sleep, potentially additional medical treatments, other things apart from sports that make you happy. Especially the small exercises to keep muscles functional and then slowly start movements again need to be integrated in the daily habits because it is most of the time best to do execute them on a daily basis to make the best progress. While initiating the required habits for a successful therapy, it is the best moment to include other habits that you want to start with. Because the habits for the therapy are very important, it is also more likely that you practice the other habits for 30 days and establish them in your daily routines that can last long after the therapy.
Getting back to normal life - hobbies and activities: Once the most important parts of the therapy are over and you start going back to everyday life by first walking and later starting to do sports again, you have the chance to do more things again both in your professional and free time - congrats! Probably, the weekly schedule is not as full yet as before injury, because physiotherapy can be reduced, or one cannot start with the previous hobby again. Then is a great option to try something new in the open timeslots of the calendar with anything that one might enjoy. A good moment to think about these “new” hobbies and activities and make sure you will have time to try them out is during the first phase and beginning of the second phase, when the highest restrictions to daily activities exist.
For every big step on the way from the injury back to normal life, there is a chance to add something uniquely positive to it. Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash.
Opportunities that can be seized
I have seen the following opportunities for myself and share them as a longlist, so you might as well be inspired by one or two of them. The examples are used from past injuries and I have just started to make new plans for the current injury:
Improving long-term physical resilience by identifying weak spots and malpositions, and then leveraging the physiotherapy to learn how to move again very clean. The rehabilitation after a knee injury incl. surgery often involves slowly learning how to walk again and the detailed leg axis training helped me mitigate the issues from a long-lasting runner’s knee with pain in my tractus iliotibialis that kept coming back over a period of 7 years before.
Working out other muscles to not only keep them in shape to handle daily tasks better, but also to make some progress there while it is not possible yet to do other sports that require the legs for example.
Establishing new daily habits by challenging the status quo; researching, evaluating and testing new ideas; and train the new habits while other habits need to be established at the same time. My past injuries made me create and always adjust my morning routine with stretching, push-ups, ab-exercises, meditation and a short learning to start the day right.
Adjusting existing and setting new objectives such that all of them are both motivating and reachable (Especially short-term, probably mid-term, as well and maybe long-term objectives). My 3-month interrail trip was created as such a mid-term objective to enable a wish that I had for several years.
Discovering and enjoying new hobbies & "sanctuaries" as I like to call the things that give me positive energy quite reliably. It is important to find something else than sports that can make you happy, especially if sports are the major hobby. During the PCL injury, I started dancing Bachata Sensual and can’t imagine a life without dancing anymore. Luckily, it is a sport that can doesn’t require much fitness and I can still do it when I’m old.
Catching up with other “tasks” and wishes that don't require a lot of movement. During the following months I plan to catch up on blogging about my interrail trip while sorting, editing and sharing some photos from the trip.
Enabling others to learn from your learnings, as well by writing about it and talking in case the situation allows. This is exactly what I try to do with this blogpost and hope that the positive thoughts may support you in case you’re in a similar situation. It also helps me to process and structure my thoughts and hopefully get some helpful feedback, too.
Conceptualizing, sparring and challenging new professional and impact opportunities: Thinking, talking and writing are most often still possible even with many major injuries. I often have ideas including drafts for business plans and impact ideas of what I believe the world needs, which I’m planning to write down and further develop.
Reading and learning something new: After my PCL injury, I started learning some French again, learned about the effective altruism and thereby initiated the idea that the concepts could be very useful for consulting companies that want to maximize their impact: www.effectiveimpact.de
… there are probably many more opportunities, but I just don’t think of them right now :)
In my next step, I will go through these points and create OKRs what I want to achieve throughout the injury and therapy time and plan initiatives that enable me to get closer to these objectives.
There are many opportunities for the future in your hands, even when you have an injury with a longer therapy. Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash.
It is also important to acknowledge, that it is not a problem not to reach all objectives, especially in case of complications during the recovery etc. When reflecting backwards, every reached objective is something accomplished in addition to the mere comeback to the previous shape. Simply moving the focus on the opportunities and a better future help me to calm the mind and stay more positive during the injury struggles.
While planning ahead, every objective should be motivating and addressed when planning the next months. The wish and brighter outlook do help myself feel a bit better, but when I can see that I have a plan and make progress, it not only gives me the advantages of the process but also is a reinforcement for my motivation.
In my personal opinion, it is good to set objectives across all the dimensions of your personality that are important to you and affected by the injury, e.g. physically, mentally, socially, professionally, passions-related (what makes me happy), impact-related (how I intend to create positive impact for our world),…
There might also be some more ideas in the blog post I wrote about the opportunities in the corona crisis. Do not get frustrated by the aspects that unfortunately did not stay but remember that most opportunities are in your own area of influence in case of an injury.
Conclusion
Being sad, angry, grumpy and tired after a major injury, are very normal human emotions. Similarly to other disruptive actions, I try to find and exploit the hidden chances that lie in the injury and therapy time to make the best out of the situation and cope better with the injury and mental pain. Some of my favorite possibilities to identify and create new opportunities are:
Coming back stronger in terms of being more (physically) resilient after the therapy
Building new habits based on the anyways required changes
Reflecting and adjusting life plans and objectives
Finding new hobbies and interests
Learning something new
Remember: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”
Hiking, walking and running around as much as I did on last year’s interrail trip without any knee pain was unimaginable before the PCL recovery that helped me remove the recurring “runner’s knee” pain in my tractus iliotibialis.
Last words and feedback
What is your opinion about my ideas? Do you have a similar injury history or were feeling the same at some point? How did you react and what were your actions and plans to cope better in the present and the future?
In case you're personally interested in more details of my current knee injury and the whole history following past knee injuries, send me a message, so I can share it with you.
And feel free to share your thoughts and feedback with me. I would be happy to also share more about my current approaches and the progress how the concept works for me this time.