Hello friends, and welcome to another issue of The Athlete Spot™ Weekly.
Today's issue is brought to you by The Athlete Spot™ Injury and Performance Coaching Program. Helping athletes overcome chronic injuries, get stronger, boost energy, and build healthy tendons and joints.
If you are interested in:
- overcoming past injuries
- improving your mobility
- getting stronger
- running longer and faster
- and staying agile as you age
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😒 You are going to get injured.
It’s the risk-reward ratio of any activity.
The more exciting (risky) the activity, the greater the outcome (reward), but also the greater the chances of injury.
Take skydiving.
An exhilarating activity that takes you 10,000 feet in the air and allows you to experience the thrill of flying.
For a moment you feel weightless suspended in mid-air. In just a second, your body becomes a free-fall object. Soaring through the open sky with your arms wide open. The wind, hitting your face and gliding under your arms, guides you through the open sky. Cool clouds give your body chills, but they go unnoticed thanks to the adrenaline rush that now courses through your blood.
You feel invincible.
Your first flight is not alone, of course not. You’ll be strapped to a master diver. A person who has done thousands of jumps. Someone who has spent hours mastering these skills and honing their timing as they dive through the sky reaching close to 120 miles per hour.
One mistake and the injuries here can be catastrophic.
In comparison, take soccer.
The world’s sport. One of the most riveting sports in the world with a following of over 3.5 billion people. You can’t go anywhere on a Spring Saturday morning without bumping into families who are on their way to their kid’s soccer game.
For an outsider, this game might look quite safe. Running through an open field with a soccer ball, strategically passing it to your teammates with the sole purpose of scoring against another team, and winning the game. Seems quite safe. Especially at the age where kids run to the ball like a tiny herd of ducks running away from a dog.
Have you watched high school, college, or professional soccer? It no longer feels safe. These athletes are ruthless. Colliding against each other like it’s a battlefield. Pushing, pulling, and fouling one another as if their lives depended on it.
One wrong turn and your ACL might rupture. This is the most common injury among female soccer players, followed by cartilage damage (in all players), and ligament and muscle injuries.
A muscle or ligament injury might sit you out for the next 4-6 weeks with adequate rehab. An ACL tear will sit you out for the next 6-9 months.
Not terrible, when you compare it to skydiving. A small mistake and it may cost you your life.
But don’t let the idea of getting injured stop you.
You might have heard of the idea of “injury prevention.”
In my opinion, there is no such thing as injury “prevention.” Mitigation, yes.
The best way to prevent an injury is by avoiding any activity where there might be a risk of said injury:
You don’t want the chance to be paralyzed? Don’t go skydiving, don’t drive a motorcycle, don’t drive a car, don’t walk near large intersections.
You don’t want the chance to tear your ACL? Don’t play soccer, don’t run, don’t turn on one leg too quickly, don’t skate, don’t squat.
Does that sound like a good life?
It sounds quite sad and empty.
Instead of thinking about ways to prevent injury, we should be thinking about ways of mitigating an injury.
The only way to mitigate an injury is to accept that injuries will happen, and you must take action to reduce the chance of them happening.
How do we mitigate injuries then?
By making our bodies more robust and resilient.
What happens if we get injured?
We figure out how to overcome the injury and return stronger with more confidence in our bodies.
Injuries will happen the moment you least expect them. Whether you are ready for them or not. That is life.
So might as well build a life full of experience, joy, and core memories by having a resilient and robust body and mind that can adapt, dominate, and conquer any activity you want to be a part of.
Want to go hiking? You are ready.
Want to go skydiving? You are ready
Want to learn how to surf? You are ready.
Want to play with your growing grandkids? You are ready.
Wouldn’t you like to be ready for anything, at any age?
Over the last five years, at The Athlete Spot, I worked with over 300 athletes and active individuals who either loved participating in sports, or sports where their careers. From weekend warriors to professional NBA players and Olympic athletes.
They all had one thing in common.
They got injured.
Working with every single one of them gave me a glimpse of the hours they spent preparing for their sports. It also gave me a glimpse of their lifestyle, their frustrations, their fear, and their hope.
For some, coming back from an injury was more than physical, it was mental.
Changing their mindset from what their body couldn’t do, to what it could do proved to be more difficult than teaching them how to move their body.
Some had their careers on the line.
Others their lifestyles.
No matter how bad the injury was, or whom we needed to refer them to. Every single one of them trusted me with their recovery.
Not because I had all of the answers…
Because I listened to them.
I made an effort to understand them.
This wouldn’t go unnoticed.
It is because of them and their trust in me that over the last 5 years, with their input and effort, I developed the Anti-fragile Athlete Framework™ (AFAF).
A framework that I now use with all of my athletes to help them overcome injury, and become robust and resilient humans both physically and mentally.
A framework that builds athletes inside out.
A framework that is grounded on building the physical and mental resiliency and robustness of all athletes, weekend warriors, and active individuals to help them return to their sport and active life with a high rate of success.
A framework that I will share with you at a later time.
For now, that is all for this issue!