Strategies for Avoiding and Recovering from Injury

Joan S. Ingalls

Paul had been taking time off from training due to an injury. He had strained a muscle. He remembered looking suddenly and forcefully over his shoulder in the middle of the drive. He said it was "misguided aggressiveness." He informed me that he had the good sense to rest as soon as he noticed the pain. It was a sharp stabbing feeling in his shoulder blade when he turned his head. He said, "It gives me a chance to cross train. I'll do some roller blading, running and cycling. I'll have more time to get work done on an important project at work. I am pretty excited about that."

After several weeks the pain went away and Paul went back to his rowing routine. One could argue that Paul’s injury was just what the doctor ordered. It gave him an excuse to cross train and attend to an urgent task that his boss wanted him to get done. Or one could argue that the injury was a problem, but he was making the best of it. If the former was the case, Paul and I wondered whether there was a way to avoid the injury.

"Do I have an inner voice that knows when I need to shift gears - take a break from training? If an injury gives me an excuse to do things that I should do, but otherwise wouldn’t, it sure would be nice if I could give myself permission to do them before I got the injury. If the injury really does happen to get me to take a break then some part of me does know I need shift gears. But it's not so easy to pay attention to it. When I hurt myself, I was out there training — just my normal workout. Well, maybe not. I was being extra zealous about trying to get around a turn without losing speed. But when would I have had time to sit back and meditate on what I really want to do - pay attention to that inner voice?"

Part of the skill of listening to our inner voice has to do with sensing when we are tired and getting the proper rest. Part is knowing that it is okay to take a break so that we can be more productive in another area of our lives. It has to do with knowing that it is okay to relax into a workout, warm up slowly, push ourselves to our limit only when we are ready and believing that we make gains when we take care of ourselves.

Many of us are familiar with the "less is more" philosophy when it comes to training. Mark Allen, six-time Ironman champion, perfected his training routine after ten years of competing and winning. He says that your aerobic threshold is lower than you think — you should be able to sing when do your long slow distance. He recommends beginning workouts extra slow and if there isn't time for a usual workout, grab 20 minutes; it makes a difference. With as little as five hours a week, according to him, you can make  gains. I have seen this with my clients. Clara (the name is fictitious, but the story isn't), an elite athlete, moved up to national champion when she had to cut back on her workouts due to her job. Unable to overtrain, she got stronger and rowed better.

Paul’s strategy was an excellent one. He trained around his injury and took advantage of the extra time to get ahead at work. During our sessions, he also learned visualization for healing. We began by creating an image of healing. In guiding Paul through the imagery exercise, I used the research-based assumption that images of physiological processes of healing aren't as effective as images of metaphors of those processes. While no researcher claims that there is a causal relationship between mental imagery and healing, there are many studies that have the identified characteristics of healing metaphors that cancer survivors, for example, used. Adjectives to describe their metaphorical images for their cancer cells or tumors were "weak," "porous," "fragile," "brittle," and "stupid." Those for the a force that defeated their cancer were "strong," "agile," "robust," "responsive," "creative" and "smart," heal the injury, and a metaphor for how they will interact - what the force will actually do to the injury.

For Paul's healing image, I ask him to relax and focus on the injured area. I ask him what his injury looked like, what mental image came to him. He said that he saw feathers. I asked him what he thought about the feathers. Paul remembered hearing somewhere that when a muscle was strained, microscopic fibers were frayed. Very small fragments lay around the wound and as part of the healing process were cleaned up - removed or absorbed. He imagined a vacuum sweeper (the force) drawing in (the interaction between the force and the injury) feathers (damaged muscle tissue) from a carpet (healthy muscle).

When practicing imagery for healing follow the steps below:

• create a metaphor for the injury that is weak, porous, fragile, brittle, and/or stupid

• create a metaphor for the healing force that is strong, agile, robust, responsive, creative and smart.

• create an image of a process in which the force for healing and the injury interact

Healing imagery is part of a "positive" attitude toward an injury - making the best of it. Along with proper rest and adherence to your doctor's orders, it is a prescription for active participation in your recovery.

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