It seems that pro athletes recover from injuries, even catastrophic ones, much more quickly than we mere mortals do.
While it can take many weeks for us to heal from a simple ligament sprain or muscle strain, pro athletes will recover in half or a third the time-frame.
Olympic and professional athletes, no matter what sport, are in peak physical condition because that is their job. And even though they are more resistant to injury than we are, they compete at a higher level and the chances for an accident to happen is still present and the resulting level of damage can be great.
But because their bodies are always training and in recovery mode, when they get injured, the healing process is already running at peak efficiency and begins right away. All the muscles that surround the injured area are also strong and can give optimal support to that area during the athlete’s rehabilitation program.
Since the elite athlete considers their sport as their job, that means that they can spend up to eight hours a day doing what it takes to rehabilitate an injury. If the protocol calls for the athlete to do a range of exercises many times a day, they can easily fit this into their schedule. That means that they can supply their bodies with optimal consistency of training methods. One of the biggest concerns I hear with non-athletes is that they can’t find the time during the day to fit in exercises. They may be too tired by the end of a work day or sometimes they just forget. But often the non-athlete doesn’t realize how important the exercises are to recovery and that with a little ingenuity and planning you can fit some of the simpler exercises in many times a day. This can be as simple as setting a timer or your watch to beep every hour and this is the time to do one or two important exercises or stretches.
A big part of injury recovery is maintenance of fitness. While resting an injured area may be prescribed by the physician, athletes will often keep the other parts of their body moving. Some will still go to the gym and lift weights for uninjured areas, they may ride a bike instead of run, or go into a pool where the buoyancy of the water assists them to do exercises that they can’t do on land. You can even use a floatation belt in the deep end of the pool and do ‘water running,’ which can be a great help for lower body injuries. But even doing walking in the pool can help those non-athletes with arthritis in the hips or knees. Staying moving can also increase the level of circulating endorphins, which are the bodies natural pain-killers.
Other ingredients to a quicker recovery include eating well and getting enough sleep. In general, one or two nights of poor or little sleep won’t have much impact on performance, but consistently getting inadequate sleep can result in subtle changes in hormone levels, particularly those related to stress, muscle recovery and mood. Some research indicates that sleep deprivation can lead to increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol, decreased activity of human growth hormone, which is active during tissue repair, and decreased energy storage, resulting in less carbohydrate availability from the muscles and liver.
The lesson here is that we can learn a little from pro athletes about how to optimize our recovery if we are beset by an injury or condition. Working people can think of themselves as occupational athletes. We have jobs that may be sedentary or very physical, but we can prevent or rehabilitate injuries by observing the same principles of staying active and fit, getting enough sleep and eating well, as athletes do.
Kerry Senchyna holds a bachelor of science degree in kinesiology and is owner of West Coast Kinesiology in Maple Ridge.