Injuries and Ownership - The "Broken Soul".

Unfortunately we have a capacity to break, many of us think it will never happen because we are the special ones, and this is where we go wrong.

There are many ways we can break, i use the analogy of little hammer and big hammer:

1.) Little hammer taps away at the body for weeks/months/years, this may be frequently felt with landing foot when running, or when creating front rack in cleans. Whatever the movement pattern that causes the little hammer to tap away, if no adaptation occurs, breakages occur.

2.) Big hammer happens in one fell swoop, this is either lifting too heavy with incorrect form (the deadlift is one of the main culprits here), sprinting from the blocks (warm up? underlying unaddressed issue?), a big collision in a field sports (this can be a case of wrong place, wrong time. However post match reflection can sometimes question body positioning?).

The "Broken Soul" is born (this sounds very deep!), when one sustains injury. Regardless of the little hammer, big hammer analogy (the causative factor), a breakage has occurred. How quickly the pieces are glued backed together depend on a number of factors. The severity of the injury dictates the duration of recovery, big hammer injuries commonly require longer lay offs, little hammer injuries, if picked up quickly, tend to rehabilitate a quicker. If little hammers are picked up late, these can sometimes be just as long or even loner than big hammers, due to adaptive/compensatory changes in the system.

In my previous post, i mentioned about getting a precise diagnosis, targeted treatment, and structured rehabilitation regimen. This is vital to get on the right track. What i have found with my clinical experience to date, is lack of ownership, and subsequent negative mood states, can have an overwhelming affect on recovery time, if not addressed early on. This can lead to the rapid evolution of the "Broken Soul".

The "Broken Soul" is a powerful, overriding, stubborn person who grunts to communicate, starts to skip their daily shower, and doesn't seem bothered that their coffee machine has needed descaling for the last 2 weeks. This lack of energy and adherence is part of the grief response, and can portray itself in the clinical setting, as lack of compliance and negative expectations. Acceptance (which is one of the stages of the grief response) of the injury, which for some people is a difficult process to achieve, is vital for efficient rehabilitation. This is synergistic with ownership of the process, ownership walks hand in hand with acceptance.

Acceptance and Ownership is what fuels the positive transition of the "Broken Soul" to the "Harmonised Soul". The "Harmonised Soul" is the target, and to have precision in achieving this, you need to have OWNERSHIP of your recovery, dictate the terms (with the guidance of your physiotherapist), and then your adherence to the rehabilitation regimen will be optimal.