Sunday 15 January 2012

Injury Management

Since my last blog post things have moved on quite considerably.   A physio session last week moved me onto the next phase of recovery which involves some specific strengthening exercises, stretching, proprioception and a general push on activity to shake things up a bit.   A session of friction massage and ultrasound last Monday meant that the ankle was a bit sore to start with but once things loosened up a bit I have made some good steady progress this week with a few gentle jogs thrown in (the physio did say to shake it up a bit!).  The majority of the time I have been in the pool mainly aqua jogging but with a few steady mile swims thrown in for a change.   Sunday mornings in the pool are a dangerous place to be if you are a slow moving object in the deep end!

I am managing my injury at the moment and whilst I feel like I am moving forward am remaining positive and should be back up to full strength soon.

There was a quite appropriate article in this weeks Athletics Weekly about injury management.  It equates an injury to almost a feeling of grief which might be a bit far fetched but I kind of know what it means. The stages are:

Denial - convincing yourself that the injury is not too bad...the injury will ease off in a few days and no need to interrupt training (so you try and convice yourself!)  I think I probably thought that and maybe even now I think that the injury I had was not too bad....is this denial or just trying to stay positive?

Anger - Why now - Why me?   If you heard me using unusual expletives half way down Guisborough Woods slopes F-ing and blinding then I apologise now!   It was just me getting my anger phase out of the way early!  

Bargaining - accepting the injury and overcoming it by adapting to it - this is often in the chronic phase according to the article when you accept the injury and overcome it by adapting to it.  I think this is a slightly dangerous phase and one which sees people "ignore" the root of the problem and continue regardless.  One to avoid - we all know people who have been stuck in this phase only to find a worse injury further down the line!

Acceptance - the stage that we need to come to in order to be rehabiliated.   I think in some ways accepting the injury is hard to do but once this point is reached the rehabiliation can begin properly.

It is now almost three weeks since my injury and to a certain extent I recognise all the above phases.  Seeing a physio has helped massively in understanding the injury and taking positive steps forward.     With something like a sprained ankle it would be easy to do the wrong things at the wrong time - when to strap it, when to ice it, how long, proprioception exercises, types of movement to help, what to avoid etc....It really is a minefield out there.

The main thing with any injury is to seek some professional advice and understand the phases that you will go through in getting to a point of acceptance about the injury.   

Right - back to the wobble board it is then !   This weeks aim is 20 seconds on my injured leg with my eyes closed! small steps - big progress!

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