The Injured Athletes Club
“ How can you deal with anxiety not of a specific reinjury, but a more generalized fear about your sport being taken away from you again? That fear does help me appreciate what I have now that I'm running again, but also makes disruptions to my training or race plans—whether from how I'm feeling physically, or work/life stress—harder to deal with. How can I cope?” In this episode of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question from Emily regarding handling the anxiety associated with the potential permanent loss of her sport due to...
info_outline 119 | Ultrarunner Aum Gandhi: Your Inner CoachThe Injured Athletes Club
“Instead of being mean to myself and saying, ‘You’ve got nothing else outside of running,’ I said, ‘Look at all the other multi-faceted things you are. You are a son, you are a brother, you're a business owner. Humans are multi-faceted; you have an identity outside this sport. The sport may have helped you find more of your authenticity, but you're not bound to this sport. It's only a piece of the puzzle, a part of your identity.” When Merrell Professional Athlete Aum Gandhi first started running six years ago, he barely went a quarter of a mile—and he describes it now as...
info_outline 118 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question: Cecile’s SituationThe Injured Athletes Club
“ How can you let go of the injury? Sometimes when you spend a long time with a chronic injury, it shapes how you move, plan, and think about life and your body. How do you let go when the time has come?” In the seventh season of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question every other week about the mental side of overcoming injuries. This week, Coach Carrie delves into the complex issue posed by listener Cecile on letting go of the identity formed around a chronic injury. She points out how this attachment can make the...
info_outline 117 | Strongwoman and Author Alyssa Ages: Learning through FailureThe Injured Athletes Club
“Because I wasn't a competitive runner, I don't think I ever had to face failure in that situation … but in strength sports, when I compete, I'm doing that in front of a crowd and a judge who is just looking at me. And it's totally changed the way that I have to handle that fear of failure because it's right there in front of me. I can't escape that someone is looking directly at me and judging whether I've passed or failed. And what I've learned from that is just that it makes you, I think, a better person when you face failure in that way.” On this week’s episode of The...
info_outline 116 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question: Cassandra’s CocoonThe Injured Athletes Club
“ As someone in long-term recovery, likely 12 to 18 months before I'm running again, I've struggled a lot with the muscle loss and atrophy to the point it's causing identity struggles. I don't look or feel like an athlete anymore. My coach and I will have to literally rebuild my strength and my body. How can I cope?” In the seventh season of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question every other week about the mental side of overcoming injuries. This week, listener Cassandra is struggling with losing her athletic identity. Coach...
info_outline 115 | Former NCAA Basketball Player Britt Hunter: Pour Into OthersThe Injured Athletes Club
“You need to equip your young adult for how to get through it on their own. So shepherd them. Get them the tools and resources. Let them mess it up a little bit. It's natural to protect, protect, protect, and direct, direct, direct—but your child needs to explore this time on their own a little bit with the right resources and the right people around them. They're going to go through this again and again and again at different stages of their life and going through an injury at a young age, they're going to have to grow up a little bit faster. So help them, but don't control them.”...
info_outline 114 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question: Jennifer’s JunctionThe Injured Athletes Club
“ How do I walk the fine line between being independent and self-reliant in recovery—a positive—and opting to go it alone, which can be a negative? Separately, I’d love to know more about managing an injury in the context of a chronic condition. For example, I have epilepsy but seizure meds are not great for bone density. Flip side, reducing meds is good for bones but bad for the brain. Doctors can offer guidance but making the decisions is ours alone.” In the seventh season of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question every...
info_outline 113 | Ultrarunner Amelia Boone: The Best Days Are AheadThe Injured Athletes Club
“I would tell [Amelia of four years ago] that you may not believe it, but it's gonna get better, and recovery is possible, and honestly, your best running days are to come. And that's something that I've had to tell myself now too. I actually still do believe that, especially as we're seeing women in their 40s just blossoming in distance running.” In this episode of the Injured Athletes Club, Coach Carrie and Cindy are grateful to catch up with our first guest ever—and first repeat guest—elite ultrarunner, championship obstacle course racer, and eating disorder advocate Amelia...
info_outline 112 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question: Amy’s InquiriesThe Injured Athletes Club
“ I have a question about the mental roadblocks when you are coming back from an injury. How can you handle the sensations you feel when you return to movement and the worry whether you made it worse; the patience to progress back slowly; and the fear that you won’t ever feel 100 percent again?” In the seventh season of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question every other week about the mental side of overcoming injuries. This week, in response to Amy’s uncertainty about her recovery, Coach Carrie outlines various...
info_outline 111 | Ballet Dancer John Lam: Open to GrowthThe Injured Athletes Club
“Dancing on a high level is—you have to be open. You have to be open that you can get injured. You have to be open that you will have to face things that you don't want to face. Because if we are not open and instead are close-minded, we cannot grow.” In this week’s episode of The Injured Athletes Club, principal dancer at the Boston Ballet, John Lam, discusses his journey from a catastrophic injury back to the stage. He details the physical and mental struggles he encountered during his recovery, emphasizing the importance of patience, personal growth, having a...
info_outlineOn some level, we all know what stress feels like—a sense of panic, a pounding heart and quicker breath, a notion that we’re overwhelmed and just can’t handle it all.
But injured athletes might not realize the degree to which stress infiltrates deep within our bodies. The cascade of hormones that triggers our flight-or-fight response, if repeatedly activated, can have real and damaging effects on joints, bones, and other tissues, and impair the healing process. And of course, it unsettles our minds too, affecting our psychological recovery.
This week, Carrie talks in more depth about the perils of stress for injured athletes—and shares one concrete tool to begin neutralizing it. Using the Stress Busters exercise, you’ll think through some ways to ease the pressure ahead of time, then take steps to incorporate them into your schedule and lifestyle.
And, if you stick around to the end, you’ll hear a special announcement from Carrie and Cindy—news about the publication of our forthcoming book Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries. It’s out Oct. 15 from Bloomsbury Sport (a bit earlier if you’re in the U.K.) and you can pre-order it on Amazon or through the publisher now.
Rebound includes many of the concepts and tools we’ve talked about on this podcast, and lots more—a total of 49 mental drills to try, along with explanations of why they work and stories of athletes who’ve been there. With these resources, our goal is to not only help you recover from injury, but come back a stronger, more resilient athlete and person within your sport and outside it.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why self-care goes out the window when we’re stressed—and the harms that can cause (1:50)
- Why athletes need to be deliberate and proactive about addressing stress (3:56)
- The ways in which we often needlessly spike our stress response, and how to stop (7:29)
- How being concrete and specific about what’s bothering us helps us let go of what isn’t truly a stressor, and get to work balancing out the challenges that remain (9:41)
- The difference between stress balancers and stress relievers, and why it’s important to build both into your life (12:45)
- How things like blowing bubbles, playing with cats, sitting on the deck with coffee, and creating art have real power in your recovery process (13:51)
- What Carrie does when she’s entering a time of high stress to prevent injury and illness (21:43)
- The power of actually writing stress relievers and stress balancers down on lists (24:52)
- How to start making a profound mindset shift from a framework of “stress management” to “living my values” (27:11)
- The ways in which these tools build you into a stronger, more well-rounded athlete who can better handle any obstacle (30:01)
This is our last episode of season 1; thank you so much for joining us! We’ll be back in September with season 2, and will have a whole new slate of athletes and others to interview, as well as more tools and techniques from Carrie’s practice. Subscribe, if you haven’t already, on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or a review in Apple podcasts. That helps other injured athletes find the show.
To access more resources for injured athletes:
- Join The Injured Athletes Club mailing list, for weekly news and updates
- Join The Injured Athletes Club Facebook group, for support and camaraderie
- Email us at [email protected] with questions, guest suggestions, or other feedback
DISCLAIMER: This content is for educational & informational use only and & does not constitute medical advice. Do not disregard, avoid or delay obtaining medical or health related advice from your health-care professional because of something you may have heard in an episode of this podcast. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please consult with a qualified medical professional for proper evaluation & treatment. Guests who speak on this podcast express their own opinions, experiences, and conclusions, and The Injured Athletes Club podcast hosts nor any company providing financial support endorses or opposes any particular treatment option discussed in the episodes of this podcast and are not responsible for any actions or inactions of listeners based on the information presented. The use of any information provided is solely at your own risk.