loader from loading.io

12 | Cindy and Carrie Take Stress Head-On

The Injured Athletes Club

Release Date: 07/25/2019

156 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question: How to Cope with Shifting Timelines show art 156 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question: How to Cope with Shifting Timelines

The Injured Athletes Club

“ How do I deal with expectations around timelines?” —Every injured athlete, ever   In season 8 of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question every other week about the mental side of overcoming injuries. And for our season finale, she tackles an issue that’s come up from more than one person: how to manage when recovery takes longer than you’d like.   So many injured athletes have had the experience of latching onto an initial timeline given by a doctor, physical therapist, or other medical professional—then feeling let...

info_outline
155 | Volleyball Player and Dietitian Tatum Vedder on Nourishing Your Recovery show art 155 | Volleyball Player and Dietitian Tatum Vedder on Nourishing Your Recovery

The Injured Athletes Club

“  Surgeries one through three, there is still this fear around weight gain and therefore restriction. And I think part of me wants to know, is that a major factor in why I didn't heal well? I'm not going to dwell on that or guilt-trip myself over it; it's in the past. But it was also an opportunity for surgeries four and onward, to say: ‘Let's take a different approach. Let's nourish to heal. Let's not feed to skate by.’”   Tatum Vedder was heading into her last year of collegiate volleyball, playing in a co-ed tournament, when she took a rough landing and had to be carried...

info_outline
154 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question from Kat: Having Radical Honesty with Your Coach show art 154 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question from Kat: Having Radical Honesty with Your Coach

The Injured Athletes Club

“ I’ve unfortunately faced a series of surgeries and setbacks over the last few years. While I feel like I have a supportive group of friends, I don’t feel like my primary coach has been that understanding of the mental toll that this has taken on me or how to navigate a game plan through my recovery, even though she’s successfully done that in the past with me as injuries have come up.  She doesn’t feel approachable to talk to and rarely reaches out to me. While I know she isn’t my therapist, I feel like I should be able to have honest conversations with her. When I’m not...

info_outline
153 | Elite Runner and Coach Becki Spellman: Embracing Your Best Each Day show art 153 | Elite Runner and Coach Becki Spellman: Embracing Your Best Each Day

The Injured Athletes Club

“ It really helped me as a coach to be able to look at my athletes and remind them, it doesn't have to be about a PR, doesn't have to be about the best day you wanted, but it can be—if you're healthy—about the best day you have that day. And that can be celebrated, that can be fun, even if it isn't the outcome you would've ideally written in your book.”   Becki Spellman has had a long, successful career in distance running—she qualified for her first Olympic Marathon Trials in 2008 and her fourth in 2020. In that time, she’s dealt with her fair share of setbacks, including...

info_outline
152 | Coach Carrie Answers Two Questions: Don’t Play the Self-Blame Game show art 152 | Coach Carrie Answers Two Questions: Don’t Play the Self-Blame Game

The Injured Athletes Club

“With overuse injuries especially, how do you help injured athletes recognize what to take ownership for, and what was out of their control? For example, one's weightlifting form may have led them to injury. Shame and guilt can be common emotions here, which are not helpful to our recovery, but how do we recognize what causal factors to take ownership of in a healthy way?” —Clark   “If a series of acute injuries are a consequence of a chronic condition, how can you ever live without fear of reinjury or, perhaps worse, self-blame? Asking for a friend.” —Jennifer   In...

info_outline
151 | Paralympian Ryan Medrano on Visualizing Success—then Living It show art 151 | Paralympian Ryan Medrano on Visualizing Success—then Living It

The Injured Athletes Club

“ That's how I learn life. I look at it, I visualize myself doing it, and then I execute. And if it doesn't feel right, I can feel it. I can see it, almost like a third person's view. That's the way I've approached life; that's the way I've been able to really reel in on what I'm good at and what I'm not good at.”   Ryan Medrano has faced his share of challenges—he was born with mild cerebral palsy, which caused motor and cognitive delays, and was often bullied as a child because of it. But as he learned to walk and read social signals, he gained knowledge about himself and the...

info_outline
150 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question from Kathy: On Having Patience for the Long Haul show art 150 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question from Kathy: On Having Patience for the Long Haul

The Injured Athletes Club

“ How do you stay patient when the doctor says you’re doing too much? Mentally I get so down.” —Kathy   In season 8 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, she empathizes with Kathy’s conundrum—most injured athletes aren’t happy with the pace of their recovery, because they don’t want to be injured in the first place. But patience is essential, and the way to cultivate it is to recognize it for the strength and power that it...

info_outline
149 | Hockey Player and Marathoner Thomas E. Smith on Becoming What’s Possible show art 149 | Hockey Player and Marathoner Thomas E. Smith on Becoming What’s Possible

The Injured Athletes Club

 ”What went through my mind—I was 19 at the time, my birthday was the prior month—was, oh my goodness, is my life over in terms of being able to live my dream? Because hockey, for me, wasn't just a sport. It was a gateway to do better in all facets of life.”   doesn’t like the word “impossible.” After all, time after time, he’s beaten the odds. After a paralyzing spinal cord injury during a hockey game, some doctors didn’t think he would walk again—but he found a team that believed he could not only walk but skate. Nine months later, he returned to the ice.  ...

info_outline
148 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question from Whitney: Rejoining the Group Ride show art 148 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question from Whitney: Rejoining the Group Ride

The Injured Athletes Club

“ When you're injured and beginning to rejoin group rides/workouts, how do you let other riders know you're not at 100%? I'm thinking specifically of gravel and mountain biking. I have trouble clipping out quickly, and am currently overly cautious. I want to ride in the very back, but sometimes there are other people ALSO trying to ride in the back. I know people don't want/need to hear my ‘woe is me' injury story, but I also don't want to be a hazard!” —Whitney   In season 8 of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question every other...

info_outline
147 | Coach Carrie & Cindy Explore Your Identity show art 147 | Coach Carrie & Cindy Explore Your Identity

The Injured Athletes Club

“ When you give yourself permission to explore your identity, you will start to realize that being an athlete is an important part of who you are, but it is not all that you are. When you develop other areas of your identity, it can sometimes open up your performance in ways that were never available to you before.”   As we discuss frequently in The Injured Athletes Club, injury brings a rollercoaster of emotions. But often, one of the most destabilizing feelings is the question of identity: Who am I without my sport?   In this host-ful episode, Coach Carrie explains how common...

info_outline
 
More Episodes

On 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.