INJURY IS PART OF LIVING IN THE PHYSICAL BODY
Obviously, we want to minimize the risk of injury by executing movements with awareness and the best form you know at that moment, selecting movements and weights that suit our current physical state, but injuries still happen.
I’ve had my fair share of different types of injuries— from tearing my hamstring off my pelvis in Year 8 (POP!) to developing stress fractures in my ribs and lumbar spine eight years ago, to just recently falling off my bike and hurting my wrist. They’ve all taught me new things about my body and about bodies in general.
Here are my 5 steps after an injury has occurred:
Freak out appropriately. Feel into your body and the edges of the pain and injury.
Get appropriate support. Some injuries we can manage by ourself depending on our level of knowledge, confidence and experience or seek professional help to determined what happened and a plan forward.
Continue to move but modify your physical practice. feel into the edges of the pain, don’t over ride the pain or be too tentative, practice finding the middle, this will build confidence and somatic knowledge.
Reflect and learn from what may have caused the injury. You can do this on your own or explore it with a professional or friend.
Practice patience as your body heals. Give all injuries 8–12 weeks to resolve.
My injury stories and lessons:
1. Hamstring POP:
Don’t wear socks on a carpeted floor while doing cartwheels into splits. #Obvious.
I still went to dance class and learned the arm movements for the routine we were working on.
2. Stress fractures in ribs and lumbar spine:
When doing gymnastics training, you have to build the strength of your joints and ligaments along with your muscles. My muscles were strong enough to perform certain movements, but my joints and ligaments weren’t, which led to stress fractures.
This experience helped me understand the landscape of skill work better and rethink how quickly I was progressing to more difficult exercises.
3. Fell off my bike:
Don’t copy your cousin when he’s doing a hands-off move on his bike! Ha-ha.
I gently moved my wrist every day and gradually started putting weight on it. It was better within 3 weeks.
Lifestyle habits that help with injury recovery:
Nutrition: Nutrients are essential for rebuilding and healing. So practice eating nutrient dense food and enough of it.
Sleep: Good quality sleep is when the body restores itself. Magnesium supplements can aid sleep and recovery.
Hydration: Staying hydrated helps lubricate our body and supports overall recovery. I add Salt into my water to help that H20 get into my cells.
Injuries are nothing to be ashamed of. We’re all figuring this out, finding people with a keener eye for what’s happening, and learning how to manage them.
Nicole x
