I’m Jas – Exercise Physiologist here at FNQ Health Co. Following on from my previous blog about the psychology of injury and taking a psychological stand against injury, keep reading to hear my battling with an ongoing knee injury. 👊🏽
As lots of other people, I too have been caught in a loop, victim to the physical and psychological stressors of injury. At times it can feel constant and may even seem ‘never ending’. Welcome to a small piece of my story, that I would like to share with you all! 👇🏼
I’ll begin with the skeleton. Posturally and biomechanically, everyone has imbalances within their bodies. Whether they are muscular, joint, or bone, they vary for each person. I for one, have quite a few imbalances. I found myself having spinal issues, winging scapula, excessively tilted and rotated hips, knocked knees and flat feet, to name a few!
We often let our physical limitations overturn our capabilities, not realising how much power our mind holds.
Growing up this caused all types of imbalances and pain within my body and affected my performance when completing physical exercise. And of course I naturally like to be active and athletic and grew up playing majority of the ‘contact’ sports. Meaning, I needed to manage and work with my imbalances, especially when I then became injured. 😳
Growing up, a goal of mine was to one day be involved in professional football. I wanted to be the best I could be, exercising and training a lot, and I mean a lot. Sometimes two or three times a day, definitely once daily for about 6 days a week, regardless of how worn out I was feeling.
Fast forward to the present and I’ve dealt with two knee surgeries and am currently under review for a third! Yes, genetics definitely contributed to the root cause of the problems I dealt with, but we can’t change that!
I didn’t have anyone in my corner teaching me about things such as strength training for sports performance, the importance of mobility, the importance of rest etc. Surgery was the absolute last option for me, so I decided to help myself, twice to be exact. I started my rehabilitation from the ground up, from isometrics to functional exercise, twice. Both times I failed to resolve the issue and was advised surgery was my only option. You don’t know what you don’t know, right? 🧐
So I learnt and listened to those who did know and took surgery as my option. Once I had surgery, I needed to start from the ground up again for the third time. A year later a second surgery was needed to correct the first surgery and i needed to start from the ground up again, for the fourth time. Currently, following professional advice and the multitude of recovery options I have undertaken, I started my rehabilitation from scratch again to avoid another surgery, however, recently I’ve been told I need to build from the bottom yet again, for the 6th time, one last effort before going in for surgery #3. 😣
You can imagine the psychological strain this might cause a person. To start from the beginning and go through the same process six times over a number of years. To experience set back after set back, failure after failure and not accomplish success.
Giving up is never an option, we MUST do what we need to do.
The fact is that regardless of anything we all have our rough periods of time. Even when they seem great, that’s when the unexpected always seems to happen. 🙌🏼
What do you think of this? I think this is the essence of rehabilitative effort. Our thought process is what will allow us to push past our limitations and become better. I’ve chosen to accept my circumstances and am prepared to move forward. I want to strive towards creating the best possible version of myself. I have chosen to accept and prepare and I must take a psychological stand with myself and fight for myself. ✅
So if you have any concerns or questions and perhaps you too are stuck in this cycle of recovering from an injury or chronic pain, please reach out – we would love to hear from you and are always up for a good chat!
Jassi – Exercise Physiologist
👊🏽😃
