Tips on Handling A Sports Injury With Your Student Athlete
No matter what type of athlete you are, an injury can be extremely disruptive. For most athletes, daily exercise, routine practice, and gamedays or exhibitions are core pillars of their life. Taking a break from that to recover from an injury can be extremely difficult. But it can be even harder for teenagers. High school and college athletes often have both a physical and mental component to recovering from an athletic injury. Read below to learn more.
Understanding The Mental & Physical Elements of Recovery
For a student athlete, an injury can feel extremely disruptive. Students are aware of the limited amount of time they have as student athletes. Knowing that they will miss a game, multiple games, or even a season are all hard pills to swallow. Many high school and college athletes have reported that the hardest part of recovery is not the physical limitation caused by their injury but the mental fight to stay on top of their mindset throughout the recovery process. It is important that coaches, parents, and other students are aware of the mental element of the recovery process. While it is easy to conceive of step-by-step processes for physical recovery including physical therapy, it is difficult and sometimes overlooked that there need to be steps put in place for mental health as well.
Helping Your Student Handle Their Injury
On both the physical and mental fronts it is important to be encouraging. For many students, one of the fears of getting injured is that they will suddenly be isolated from not only their favorite sport but from their team. This is why it is highly encouraged that students continue to attend practices and especially games to encourage their teammates throughout the span of time they are unable to play. Sitting at home or in the dorm room can create feelings of isolation that are harder to overcome. Additionally, some students do stretches or physical therapy exercises while their team does practice to maintain that sense of comradery with their team mates. Spending time with the team can help students stay invested in the season whether they are missing a single game or the rest of the season.
That said, it is also important to give students space to process. A season-ending injury is especially difficult to process especially for juniors and seniors that are worried they just lost their entire future in their sport. It is important to understand that everyone processes things differently, and to give students the space they need to process.
For many student-athletes, the structure is extremely important to how they live their lives. Re-establishing a structure with physical therapy or routines is often an important step for students both physically and mentally.
Learn More About Student Teams From SportsGrub
Here at SportsGrub, we provide meals and catering for student athletes in Massachusetts. We were founded by parents of athletes for parents and coaches because we understood how difficult it was to source food for home and away games. If you are interested in learning more about SportsGrub, give us a call.