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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