High Performance Mindsets: Coming Back from an Injury

Performance mindsets strategies and tactics to move through injury, recovery and enhanced practice  

The yearly Thanksgiving flag football game is a wonderful American tradition in our family where all ages from four to sixty head to the cow field and run the ball. This year I had the football in my hand, turned left while running and heard a pop-crunch as my right knee buckled. That sound was my anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) breaking and the tearing of my lateral meniscus.  I’m now eight weeks post ACL and meniscus repair surgery. Now that things have normalized, I’m beginning to share the experience and identify helpful mindset, strategy and tactical lessons from the field of human performance that are helpful in moving through this and other injuries. 

The lessons and experiences of this episode can have some learning and value for other injuries and maps directly to other personal challenges. Although I wouldn’t have chosen this injury, the experience has been an opportunity to practice high performance mindsets, strategies and tactics in a new dimension. 

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Recovery Mindset
Having a well oriented mindset when dealing with an injury can help guide, ground and direct the recovery process. 

The first recovery mindset is acceptance. Accepting the reality of the injury means coming to terms with the interruption of the emotional, friendship and nature connections of athletics and sport. Entering a period of ‘mourning’ for the lost snowboard season, the missed group bike rides and the nature connected solo trail running is a real and irreplaceable vacuum. It is also possible that the surgery could go wrong and I could die of a blood clot, or never run again. At the same time, there is a high likelihood of complete return to pre-injury activities with many hundreds of thousands of people experiencing this injury and going on with their lives. 

The second recovery mindset  is leaning into the healing process. How you approach the physical therapy process, and your physical condition (strength, endurance, flexibility, muscle mass) going into the injury and surgery seems highly determinant of the outcome. There is a wide range of potential results, with nothing whatsoever guaranteed in this uncertain situation. Personal mindset, strategies and tactics (with a dose of luck) seem to play an outsized role in the outcome. How well a person adheres to their physical therapy routine, their level of motivation to return to a certain activity, and their trained and genetic athletic level  makes a massive difference. 

The third recovery mindset is to cultivate tempered optimism. The tempered optimist mindset gives me a realistic but positive outlook for returning to my sport and life movements. Healthy muscles will grow in strength while the injured area atrophies. Mindsets that I’m practicing are centered around phrases like: I have the skills and consistency to rebuild the weak areas. I have the discipline to rest and not reinjure the meniscus or new ACL graft. I have the physical and emotional intelligence to physically train the uninjured parts of my body to the best of my ability. 

Recovery Strategy
Strategy input: reading & reaching out.  My reading of the publicly available research related to ACL and meniscus repair outcomes reveals an unsatisfying conglomeration of all ages and athletic pursuits which do not provide specific outlooks for my age (45 at the time of injury & repair). Both anecdotal evidence and the existing literature point to a high chance of return to sport in approximately six months. Preparing for and recovering from the ACL/meniscus repair surgery gave me the chance to reach out to the many friends who have gone through this common athletic injury before. I have so much gratitude to the many friends who spent time walking me through their experiences and sharing the accumulated wisdom of how they made their way through this challenge. Each is still active and getting after their chosen sports. Their injury recovery stories are a source of inspiration and guidance. 

Honing in on the recovery strategy - My focus will be complete rebuild and recovery based on strength testing rather than external deadlines around races, events or activity participation. I hope this stacks the deck in my favor and allows for the best possible chance of pursuing my multi-sport enjoyment and athletic expression. 

Respecting and following the well established process - The ACL recovery process is a well known physical therapy progression. The primary strategy is to follow the guidance of my physical therapist and devote two hours per day to these gentle movements of lifting, stretching and tensing the muscles around the injury. This is very possible to do while reading, working on the computer or riding in a car. 

Supporting your support network - This injury and recovery process knocks me out of driving and walking for several weeks. I’m doing what I can to support my family and others helping me through this time. Regular check-ins and expressing thanks with my family supporting me with driving, lifting, and other tasks is a basic necessity. This means trying to take care of things that I can still do while standing or on crutches. This also means doing work on organizing the schedule for the family & work, and taking care of administration. 

Recovery Tactics
Daily physical therapy - The daily tactical approach means following the physical therapy protocols on the physical therapy app, and as much movement as possible that allows for the adequate healing. 

Nutrition changes - Supplements and diet can play a role in overall health. I’m aware of the possibility of temporary weight gain. I’m slightly replacing carbs with protein to preserve muscle mass and minimize loss during this recovery period, and scaling up anti-inflammatory supplements and whole anti-inflammatory foods. 

Continue to train and seek Zone 2 - One of the hardest parts of the recovery process is replacing the heart rate zone 2 activities of biking, running and walking with activities that I can do that don't torque the recovering knee. I’m still working on this. The current experiments are resistance band surf paddling simulation (laying on bench and doing a swim-like motion with the bands) and basic weight routines (curl, press, pullup, crunch). 

Making it work for you
Athletes (and most humans) get injured at some point. What have you overcome? What works for you and what can I learn? 
Happy trails