The Pain of Injury

Many of us struggle with exercise related injuries and know how stressful and frustrating they can be. When injury occurs, many thoughts often stream through our heads: how will I stay in shape? How can I keep up with my training? Will I lose muscle? Will I get (gasp!) fat?! In our health conscious society we are taught over and over that if you want to stay in shape and fit in your jeans, you must exercise daily…..so what do you do when that is suddenly taken away?

In my own life, I have dealt with a fair share of exercise related injuries. Growing up, I was a dancer and danced every day for years and years. Until the day I popped my knee out. When you tell a high school girl who loved nothing more than being on stage in pointe shoes that she had to stop, its not pretty. Many knee braces and sets of crutches later, I finally came to the conclusion that I had to pick a new sport. Tennis worked for a few years and I loved it, but in college I struggled to keep up without daily high school practices and matches. Enter running.

I first started when I was trying to save some money and not join a gym; I thought running outside was the perfect option! And it was, for a little while. I ran and I ran and I ran…in very old Nike sneakers on very hard concrete. Sooner rather than later I had a pretty intense little shin splint problem on my hands. What did I do? Kept running of course. I ran through the pain, ran through the doctor’s appointments, through the MRI and bone scans…I refused to take a break because I was scared of a) losing endurance and b) not being able to eat everything in sight. Finally, after two years in a pretty destructive running cycle, I was forced to step back from the road and rest for a couple months.

In the interim, I struggled a little at first with negative thoughts concerning my activity level and possible weight gain. However, it was during that break when I really discovered a love for yoga! Yoga was everything running was not and I started to daily crave the bending, twisting and rinsing of my spine. After two months of solid yoga, I was amazed that my physical fitness did not wither; instead I became stronger than ever and when I was finally able to start running again post-injury, my endurance was still there.

I truly believe each of us are meant to do different things. I know I could never be an ultra marathoner, but I can stand on my head and do some pretty crazy things with my body in yoga class. I’m currently training for a half marathon to support The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and, again, am battling shin splints and blisters. Sadly, this probably will be my first and my last long distance race. The key is to listen to your body and honor it. It can be difficult at first (and it is still difficult for me!) but, like anything, gets easier with practice.