How To Recover From An Injury?
In our podcast with Dr. Jerry Lynch, we have touched a quite sensitive subject for an athlete: injuries and how to recover from them.
Dr. Jerry Lynch is a coach, mentor, and teacher who guides and coaches athletes and parents to explore the meaning and purpose of sport. He has been recognized as one of the top five in his profession nationwide. He is the author of 13 books and amongst them is “Thinking Body, Dancing Mind”. Here is his website: https://www.wayofchampions.com/
In this article, you will discover some of the wisdom of Dr. Jerry Lynch shared with us in our podcast regarding how to recover from an injury.
Situation no 1: You just got injured
At some point in their career, dancers do get injured and some injuries are more serious than the others.
Injury equals an inability to execute the movements in a correct manner or even at all (depending on how serious the injury is). When we cannot dance we get frustrated and disappointed, even angry or depressed. You get worried that maybe you will never recover or it will take too much time.
Dr. Jerry Lynch’s first advice is to quiet your mind of the negative thoughts. When you fill your mind with worries, your body becomes tense and it blocks the arterial pathway, thus the blood cannot get to the area that needs to be healed.
He also tells us that in order to achieve muscular relaxation, he puts the athlete on a program: meditation, visualization, and affirmation.
Meditation allows you to clear your mind of all the negative thoughts.
Visualization happens during the process of meditation. During this stage, you can start to visualize the healing process. Feel how your muscle, now deep red becomes step by step pink – its normal color. From here, imagine how the muscle feels how it supposed to feel and that you are up and running again.
Affirmation is the last stage. You fill your mind with positive thoughts and encouragement. Those affirmations create chemical reactions in your brain allow that part of the body to recuperate.
Situation no 2: You are scared not to get injured
After you get recovered, there is another problem that you have to deal with: you keep thinking that this could happen again. This makes you nervous, tight and tense, which will set you up for injury again. The very process of holding back is setting your body up for another injury.
In this case, Dr. Jerry Lynch advises you to visualize all your favorite performances. Think of your favorite show, competition or even practice and feel that performance. Then, when you go out on the dance floor, have an affirmation. For example, say to yourself: “I am going all out” or “I am stronger than I have ever been”.
Why are affirmations so important you might ask yourself? Well, there is a simple equation for that:
Using positive words to describe yourself and your dancing will create positive thoughts. These positive thoughts will give you good energy, a great feeling. It is from this good energy that your performance will come.
If you are interested to read about another topic discussed in the podcast, you can check our other article: “How To Measure and Control Perfectionism?”
If you are interested in this subject and you are looking for protecting yourself from injures, Costin Glavan – sports conditioning specialist – online course is for you. Learn more about the course here.
Bianca Gavrila
I've started dancing when I was 9 years old and it has been a part of me ever since. I love to surround myself with everything dancesport related. Now I get to experience the world of dancing through a writer's lens.