Sidelined. Restricted activity. Surgery. Therapy.
Those words have the power to drag down the spirits of any martial artist. When you’ve been taken out of your game by sickness or injury, you discover a whole new team of opponents standing between you and your rapid return to training and competition. And the longer it takes to get back in the game, the more prone you are to experiencing injury-related depression.
Depression, that energy-sapping, happiness-stealing frame of mind, is almost certain to visit any athlete who’s been sidelined because of injury. And it will kick you while you’re down. So be prepared to fight back should you find it attacking you.
Depression During Martial Athletic Injuries
Here are a few reasons injured athletes fall prey to depression:
- The injury itself: The knowledge that you’re injured is enough to darken your mood.
- Pain: The chronic pain that accompanies many injuries can wear down your attitude.
- Months of hard work down the tubes: Inactivity brings atrophy, causing hard-fought gains in physical ability and skill to disappear.
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- Time: The period needed to recover and return to your former levels can be overwhelming if it stretches to months or even years.
- Missed opportunities: The goals you’ve set for yourself in competition or personal achievement are suddenly out of reach.
- Endorphin withdrawal: Your regular workouts have provided you with natural mood-elevating chemicals. Being injured means no workout, and no workout means no endorphins.
Fight Back From Your Martial Athletic Injuries!
But enough of the bad news. It’s more beneficial to discuss ways to defeat depression, recover from your martial athletic injuries and get back into training. Here’s how to start:
- Don’t deny — identify: If you ignore your martial athletic injuries, they won’t go away. And if you’re not impervious to injury, then neither are you immune to depression. You can’t deal with it until you recognize and acknowledge it.
- Don’t quit: An injured athlete is still an athlete and should act accordingly. You didn’t quit when the workouts got hard, and you won’t quit when your athletic career faces the unexpected challenges that martial athletic injuries and depression present.
- Take responsibility for your athletic injuries and your response to them:It’s your body, mind, career and injury. You must take responsibility for your healing, and that includes your attitude. Medical professionals have their roles to play, but ultimately the responsibility for health and healing lies with you.
- Be proactive in your recovery from martial athletic injuries: Regaining a sense of control is mentally therapeutic, so instead of passively waiting for your body to heal, get involved and develop a plan of action.
Form a Plan to Recover From Your Martial Athletic Injuries
A blueprint for healing will help you focus on what you can do, as opposed to what you can’t do. It’ll help you direct your energies toward achieving as quick a recovery as possible. Just having a plan will go a long way toward lifting the weight of injury-related depression. Your blueprint should include the following actions:
Redefine Your Goals for Recovery From Martial Athletic Injuries
Most martial artists are goal oriented and have used that characteristic to reach their current level of health, rank or competition. You should tap into that same power to speed your healing. Set new goals for yourself such as consistently attending rehab or therapy sessions as directed by your doctor.
Get Smart!
If you’re going to become proactive during the process of healing from your martial athletic injuries, you’ll need to arm yourself with all the information you can get. Study your injury and the schools of thought surrounding it. Learn the treatment options available. Discover which medical professionals in your area specialize in your type of injury. Find out what your body requires to heal and do all you can to provide it.
Work Around the Injury
Not all martial athletic injuries require bed rest, so ask your doctor what you can and cannot do. Questions about your martial athletic injuries might include the following:
- If your shoulder is jacked up, can you get in a lower-body workout?
- If your knee is torqued, can you work your upper body?
- How can you train around your injury, allowing it the inactivity it needs to heal while still working your uninjured parts?
- Can you swim or ride a stationary bike?
- Can you work your abs?
- What about developing flexibility?
There is much to be said for creative cross-training and the benefits it will bring. You may find that a return to working out, regardless of how strenuous or unconventional it is, creates a new sense of mission, a hedge against atrophy, a productive and positive use of time, and those wonderful endorphins that will elevate your mood.
Understand that the regimen of therapy devised by a medical professional is one thing and a workout that allows you to train around your injury is quite another. It’s important to separate them so you can set medically sound goals for the rehab and the training.
Editor’s Note: This is a continuation from Part 1 of BlackBeltMag.com’s guide to overcoming martial athletic injuries. For more information on this topic, consult the co-authors’ full-color book: Stay in the Fight: A Martial Athlete’s Guide to Preventing and Overcoming Injury.
Think Holistic When Considering Treatment of Martial Athletic Injuries
To optimize healing and your state of mind during recovery from martial athletic injuries, you must address as many components of health and wellness as possible. The six primary components are the following:
- Strength: Ask your doctor when and how you can lift weights or do resistance exercises.
- Cardiovascular health: Also ask to what degree you can maintain your endurance level.
- Flexibility: The inactivity often associated with recovery from martial athletic injuries doesn’t always have to result in a loss of flexibility. In fact, you may find that you now have time to focus on it.
- Nutrition: Your body has been traumatized by an injury and requires top-notch nutrition to rebuild. The best diet is complete in terms of proteins, carbohydrates and fats, as well as vitamins, minerals and trace elements. Take time to study what you need and then consume it.
- Hydration: Every athlete knows the importance of water in a workout, so don’t let inactivity result in dehydration. Keep the water flowing.
- Rest: The best healing and the best attitude require the best rest. During your recuperation time, you may discover that a sufficient amount of deep, undisturbed sleep will not only heal your body more quickly but also refresh your mind.
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Adopt a Positive Mental Attitude Toward Your Martial Athletic Injuries
The ultimate goal is to experience the opposite of depression — and that’s a positive mental attitude. Having such an attitude about your health — knowing that you’re being proactive in the process and exercising some control over it — will help you feel better and heal faster from your martial athletic injuries.
If you’re fired up about your therapy or your training-around-the-injury workout, you’re more likely to do the work that’s required to recover from martial athletic injuries.
So acquire the necessary tools: motivational books, tapes, magazines, videos, buddies or whatever works for you. Then intentionally build your positive mental attitude. Like a muscle, your attitude will respond to such exercise by growing stronger.
Voice Your Attitude
Words are powerful mental programs, so take care to be positive in all that you say.
When you talk about your martial athletic injuries or recuperation therefrom, intentionally speak in positive terms. You need to hear yourself talk about the gains you’ve made and how much worse it could have been. Be attentive to that little voice inside your head and make it a source of optimism. If you convince your mind that you’re healing, your body will believe it and act accordingly.
Don’t Obsess Over Your Martial Athletic Injuries
Is there more to you than your injury? Is there more to life than your athletic endeavors?
Of course there is! So embrace those aspects while you recuperate.
If you catch yourself always thinking or talking about your martial athletic injuries, your healing, your goals — in short, yourself — stop it! Nobody likes a self-absorbed person, not even you. You may find that your downtime gives you an opportunity to focus on others and be productive in different areas.
Tell Your Doctor
Be sure you talk to your health-care professional about your state of mind in addition to the state of your body. He can’t help with your overall health unless he knows your overall condition. Don’t let continued or chronic depression related to your martial athletic injuries go unaddressed.
Laugh Yourself Happy
What makes you laugh? Is it movies, TV shows, books, comics or friends? Well, get what tickles you and enjoy. A good dose of laughter not only lifts your mood but also releases those mood-elevating chemicals you get from a workout. Laughter really is good medicine.
Celebrate Small Victories in Your Recovery From Martial Athletic Injuries
Is it your first step since your injury — literally, your first step? Then throw a party!
Did you just complete your first lap in the rehab pool? Rejoice!
Are you finished with your first round of medicine? Reward yourself!
Find a way to mark your progress so it builds a positive mental attitude and makes your life more fun.
You’re getting better, so be glad!
Remember that while you’re an injured athlete, you’re still an athlete. Moreover, there will always be more to you than just your athletic ability. So stay positive, stay busy, take control and take heart.
Fight against depression the same way you’ve fought against other opponents — with the courage of a warrior and the heart of a champion!
About the Authors:
Danny Dring — owner/operator of Living Defense Martial Arts and a seventh-degree black belt who holds dan ranking in five martial arts — and Johnny D. Taylor — a second-degree black belt under Dring — are co-authors of the book Stay in the Fight: A Martial Athlete’s Guide to Preventing and Overcoming Injury. Over the course of their martial arts careers, they’ve faced overwhelming odds to recover, maintain and live out the high expectations of a modern-day athlete. Stay in the Fight: A Martial Athlete’s Guide to Preventing and Overcoming Injury is their big-picture guide to martial artists and athletes who are facing or have faced those daunting obstacles, offering a holistic discussion on how to achieve and maintain optimal wellness through a variety of mental, physical and emotional means.
Danny Dring — owner/operator of Living Defense Martial Arts and a seventh-degree black belt who holds dan ranking in five martial arts — and Johnny D. Taylor — a second-degree black belt under Dring — are co-authors of the book Stay in the Fight: A Martial Athlete’s Guide to Preventing and Overcoming Injury. Over the course of their martial arts careers, they’ve faced overwhelming odds to recover, maintain and live out the high expectations of a modern-day athlete. Stay in the Fight: A Martial Athlete’s Guide to Preventing and Overcoming Injury is their big-picture guide to martial artists and athletes who are facing or have faced those daunting obstacles, offering a holistic discussion on how to achieve and maintain optimal wellness through a variety of mental, physical and emotional means.
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