Author: The Injured Athletes Club

One of the biggest challenges of injury is seeing the goals and timelines you once had for your season or your career slip through your fingers. You may know, objectively, that these plans no longer make sense given your new situation.  Still, your brain often holds onto these previous targets. Each time you realize you’re…

After three years of racing Ironman triathlons as a pro, British athlete Fiona Ford was having the season of her life—she’d finished fourth in Ironman France and felt poised to push through to the next level, all the while building a thriving coaching business. Everything changed in an instant during a training ride on June…

You might think of yoga as primarily a way to prevent and perhaps recover from other sports injuries. However, it can also be an intense physical endeavor in its own right—one which, instructor Adam Whiting told us on this week’s Injured Athletes Club podcast, is going through a transformation in terms of how its practitioners…

From a torn meniscus weeks before his Pro Day to a broken hand shortly before we recorded this podcast, Brandon Copeland—a linebacker for the New York Jets—has had his share of injury-related setbacks.  Brandon considers himself much more than a football player; he’s an entrepreneur, philanthropist, father, professor teaching financial literacy, and more. However, being…

Anyone who’s met Carrie Tollefson, seen her covering running events on national broadcasts, or listened to her podcast C Tolle Run would likely describe her as a positive person. She’s known for both her Minnesota kindness and her optimistic tagline, “Get after it.”   But her athletic career was, as she puts it, “not all…

When hockey forward Meghan Duggan broke her wrist in the semifinals of the World Championships a few years ago, she could clearly see the fractured bone on an MRI. The path forward was clear, if a bit painful: She’d wear a cast to play in the finals (where the team won gold), have surgery, then…

Injuries affect essentially every athlete. The experience is as much mental as physical. But typically, the support athletes receive during this time has focused mostly on healing joints, bones, and tendons—not thoughts, emotions, and experiences.   As a mental skills coach and a journalist writing about sports and fitness, this discrepancy stood out to us…

On some level, we all know what stress feels like—a sense of panic, a pounding heart and quicker breath, a notion that we’re overwhelmed and just can’t handle it all.   But injured athletes might not realize the degree to which stress infiltrates deep within our bodies. The cascade of hormones that triggers our flight-or-fight…

When you’re on top of the world after a major victory—say, an Olympic gold medal (or two)—it’s relatively easy to think positively. But David Wise has had his fair share of challenges surrounding his greatest achievements. Through his work on mental skills, though, he’s learned to view each setback as a chance to soar higher. …

Your doctor’s appointment doesn’t go the way you planned. Your healing is taking longer than you thought. Your first competition back ends in a poor performance—or, worse yet, a re-injury. Even the strongest, most resilient athletes might explode in anger or sink into despair in the face of these unanticipated setbacks. You can’t always control…