How to Deal with Injury
by Julian Illingworth

Posted March 1, 2012

Being injured really sucks. 

When you’re injured for an extended period of time you feel like you will never be the same again, and rehabilitating your confidence mentally can be as big a challenge as the physical recovery.  

I have been dealing with a hamstring issue since the end of August, a time period of (gulp...) nearly 6 months as of the time of writing this.  It started at the World Team Championships, and has nagged me until very recently.   

All athletes deal with injury at some point in their career, and I would actually count myself relatively lucky in this regard.  My good friend Gilly Lane, the #2 US player, has recently been forced to retire due to a back issue.  Being a professional athlete is a privilege some of us are afforded, and our job security is completely dependent on our bodies holding up.   

So what should I have done to avoid this situation (AKA having a nagging injury for 6 months)?  How can I learn from this?  

Both Nick Mathew (WR #1) and Ramy Ashour (WR #2) faced injuries in the fall of 2011 as well.  Ramy showed up to a few events and limped through, while Nick withdrew from several events, and then several more.  Subsequently, Nick dropped his #1 world ranking and fell to #2.  However when he returned to the court, he was fully fit and quickly regained his dominance and won his first major tournament back, regaining the world #1 spot in the process.  

In hindsight, I needed to immediately pull out of several events and take the necessary time to completely and fully recover before beginning competing and training again.  The process of deciding how to deal with injury is tougher for me than a lot of squash athletes, due to the lack of a systematic support system for US Squash athletes (I lay no blame at US Squash, which lacks Olympic or government funding that other national bodies recieve).  Nick after any injury is immediately looked at by doctors and physical therapists with extensive knowledge not only of medicine and injuries, but also by people who deal regularly with elite athletes and their special requirements to be back competing as quickly and safely as possible.  

While I do have quality health insurance (luckily!), my biggest issue is finding doctors and therapists whose immediate reaction is not “rest it for 4 to 6 weeks and then come back and see me if it is still bothering you.”  After a couple months of floundering around, I got a good team around me and have finally been able to put this injury behind me.....I hope!

Good luck with your game,

Julian

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More from Julian   www.JulianIllingworth.com





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