Sports injuries are highly prevalent, yet a system to address the athlete’s challenges throughout injury and recovery is nonexistent at most levels of sport.
Injured professional and elite athletes may enlist a sports psychologist’s help and have an extensive medical team. However, most athletes struggle through injury without an adequate support mechanism.
While medical professionals treat most injuries, their lack of time and training to manage the athlete’s mental and emotional aspects leave the athlete without much-needed support.
Injured athletes often have less interaction with their coaches at a time they need guidance.
A system is needed to address both the physical and mental needs of the athlete through injury.
Finding FITNESS through injury.
Using the acronym FITNESS, we can focus on many of the areas currently lacking in managing injured athletes.
FITNESS identifies the stages of sports injury as:
1. Initial Injury
2. Healing
3. Rehabilitation
4. Return to Sport
5. Performance
At each stage, the injured athlete is given tools to manage the complex emotions and related concerns that often accompany an injury.
Whether the athlete is a high school gymnast, an age-group triathlete, or an Olympic athlete, the injury education, mental skills, and social support needed through injury is the same.
The Research on Athlete Injury
While there are publications indicating the importance of the biopsychosocial model for managing injured athletes, few interventions highlight the athlete’s needs through the stages of injury and desired return to performance.
Psychology literature also cites the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief as a mechanism to manage athletes going through an injury. Extensive physician experience and research show this pertains only to a small number of athletes. Typically those with traumatic or career-ending sports injuries.
The FITNESS Practice aims to put the athlete in charge of their injury recovery by “training” through their injury and allowing them to take an active part in their recovery. The system also provides a way for physicians, physical therapists, trainers, and coaches to guide the athlete through the maze of sports injury.
FITNESS puts the focus on the athlete and not on the injury
The accepted medical approach to sports injury takes a narrow view of the athlete by focusing only on the injury. Providing the athlete with mental skills, guidance, education, and purpose can better manage the injury and potentially create better outcomes.
Outcomes
Most approaches consider the outcome goal for the athlete to be a return to sport. The FITNESS final stage of injury, a return to performance, is the injured athlete’s true goal.
The FITNESS Practice is athlete-driven; therefore, it provides an efficient way for sports medicine professionals and coaches to aid the athlete through injury and recovery stages.
Part 2 will dive into the FITNESS Practice’s specifics by highlighting a system to manage initial injury.
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