Injuries do more than just physical harm

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    By ELIZABETH PALMER

    For many athletes, what they do is who they are. So when they suffer an injury — especially one that could end a season or a career — rehabilitation must deal with more than simply mending bones and muscles.

    “Athletes have their identity wrapped up in what they do,” Blaine Empey said. Empey works in BYU’s athletic training room for NCAA athletes and said because of the almost egotistical attitude athletes must have in order to succeed, losing the ability to perform can be devastating.

    “(Their sport) is their whole lifestyle,” he said. “When they lose that, they lose that identity and learn that they’re not invulnerable. It’s a shock to the system.”

    Empey said dealing with a significant injury is, for an athlete, similar to going through a grieving process. He said it is psychologically documented that injured athletes go through the same stages as a person dealing with losing a loved one: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, ultimately, acceptance.

    BYU sports psychologist Ron Chamberlain said theory can have merit in instances of a major season-ending injury, but that often it is much simpler than that.

    Chamberlain said there are other theories that talk about only two stages: distress and coping. He said the simpler theory can be more accurate because it doesn’t specifically assign emotions.

    “You have to deal with the confusion of being hit with an injury you weren’t expecting,” he said. “Following those emotions, if you’re going to recover, you’ve got to cope and start the goal-setting process.”

    But getting to a point where coping is possible is not necessarily easy.

    Tiffany Lott, a former member of BYU’s track and field team, tore her anterior cruciate ligament in 1996, only to come back and break Jackie Joyner Kersee’s world record in the 55-meter indoor hurdles just 11 months after reconstructive knee surgery. But before making it back to that level, Lott said she had to deal with some much lower moments.

    “(When the doctor told me how long I’d be out) I was in shock … I just broke down,” she said. “(Rehabilitation) is not what an athlete wants to do. To go into rehab, and all you can do is have someone help you flex a muscle and the muscle won’t flex — it’s a very humbling experience.

    “It was really hard because I was in the best shape of my life before my injury, and all of a sudden I couldn’t walk one day.”

    This abrupt change from performing at peak level to being unable to complete the simplest of exercises can strip athletes of their confidence.

    BYU head women’s track and field coach Craig Poole said regaining that confidence can be the hardest part of recovering from an injury.

    “During rehabilitation, there’s a lot of negative self-talk that goes on,” he said. “(Athletes) think in terms of lost self-value, lost self-esteem, feeling not as good as some others, feeling they’ve let the team down.

    “They can no longer do what they’re trained to do, and sometimes they think that they’re a failure because they didn’t prevent what happened from happening.”

    Empey said building confidence is an important part of the rehabilitation process. Athletes must meet set protocols before they are allowed to play again, pushing them to be at the level they need to be at to succeed.

    But for some athletes, even after rehabilitation there is still fear — fear of reinjury or of not being able to get back to playing at the level they once did.

    “Before an injury, when you’re playing in sports, you don’t think a whole lot about injury because you’re focused on the game,” Chamberlain said. “It’s not uncommon for athletes returning from a major injury to have some fear and anxiety. They worry, ‘is my injury going to be a problem?’

    “They’ll maybe even favor it or be tentative so they don’t reinjure it.”

    In these cases, Chamberlain said he encourages athletes to use mental imagery, which he said has a powerful effect on helping them regain confidence.

    “I encourage them to do imagery work, to see themselves playing like they used to when they were confident and successful and not worried about injury,” he said.

    “(You try to) re-program the mind that they can be successful again … (until they can) gain trust in their body and its ability to function without hindering their performance.”

    Steve Pincock, a trainer for BYU’s football, basketball and baseball teams, said as much as you try to help athletes believe in themselves again, what it often takes is simply time and getting back into their game.

    “They have to take that first hit in a real game sometimes before they have their confidence back,” he said.

    Chamberlain agreed that, ultimately, the athlete must be willing to jump back into the fire.

    “At some point they just have to get out there and take the risk. Once they see they can play again without reinjury, (they’re on the right track),” he said.

    Poole said the range of how athletes deal with injuries and rehabilitation is as wide as the number of athletes there are. No matter how much outside help doctors, trainers and psychologists can give, he said that how an athlete comes back from an injury is ultimately determined by his or her character.

    “(It takes more to come back for) people that aren’t willing to be daring, who don’t dare to go the extra mile. They hold back, go in second gear,” he said. “It can be a long, slow process … it just depends on the commitment of the athlete to healing.”

    Both Empey and Lott said athletes can sometimes come away from a major injury with more drive to succeed.

    “They see that they could do more, and sometimes when they see what they can lose and are out of the sport, they see what they’re missing and push themselves harder and learn from the trial,” he said.

    Lott’s coach said she came back from her injury running even harder than she did before she suffered it.

    “She came back more dedicated, more willing to pay the price to be as good as she’s become,” Poole said. “I think it’s a matter of having concrete goals. They’ve got to put forth the effort.”

    Lott said being unable to run taught her a lot about motivation and instilled in her a desire to work harder and develop more patience.

    “I always try to look ahead and not behind,” she said. “I had a deeper love for sports after (my injury). I’m more competitive yet more able to let go of things … I’m a much better athlete after (suffering the injury) than I was before it.”

    Pincock said he has seen evidence of that increased desire, especially in football players.

    “Once they’ve had time off, they’ve missed (the game) and just want to get back out there and hit somebody,” he said.

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