Returning to the Sport You Love
Person sitting on bleachers with a basketball next to them. They are wearing a knee brace, tennis shoes, and black workout clothing.
Returning to the sport you love from a serious injury can be challenging, as there are many physical and psychological factors to consider. This post focuses on three psychological factors pulled from self-determination theory (SDT) that a sport and performance professional (SPP) and an athlete may want to address. These are not the only three. There are other psychological factors that may need to be addressed. This post is meant to just give everyone some ideas.
Athletes returning from injury can experience concerns about their sense of competence, autonomy, and relatedness, making SDT a useful framework for understanding athlete concerns (Podlog et al., 2011). SDT is an empirically derived theory of human motivation and personality in social contexts that strives to differentiate motivation as being autonomous and controlled (Deci & Ryan, 2012). In the context of SDT, there are potentially three psychological factors that an SPP must discuss prior to playing again after an injury.
Competency
Competency can be seen from the physical perspective, the psychological perspective and as related perspectives. Physically, athletes experience concerns about reaching pre-injury levels, achieving future goals, and the ability to fulfill personal or external expectations (Podlog & Eklaud, 2007). Psychologically, athletes may suffer a decrease in confidence and performance (Podlog & Eklaud, 2007). Stop for a minute after just reading about the different perspectives. What is your reaction? Do you agree or disagree with what is written? Can you relate?
Autonomy
Athletes may experience any combination of internal and external pressures to return from sport injury, which suggests that an athlete’s level of autonomy in returning to sport can hold a role in the outcomes (Podlog & Eklaud, 2007). Everyone experiences different levels of pressure that can come from different directions, including the internal pressure that we create for ourselves or that we internalize from the outside environment. Take a minute to think about what types of pressure you experience for yourself.
Relatedness
Given that injured athletes often may feel a sense of alienation and social isolation, the need for relatedness comes to the forefront (Podlog & Eklaud, 2007). It’s possible that many people will think about team sports when they read about this psychological factor. However, challenge yourself to evaluate how even people who do individual sports can feel a sense of alienation and social isolation. Humans are wired for connection and even if we do not physically have a person running next to us, for example, we still may be connected to the border running community in different ways.
What is striking about these psychological factors is how they are intertwined and impact each other. Take confidence and performance within competency as just one example. It also appears that specific interventions offered by the SPP can tackle at least two psychological factors if done well. These psychological factors can be viewed from another perspective, skill and needs of everyday life. For example, thinking about relatedness as social connection and how humans are social creatures. For instance, Porges (2009) Polyvagal Theory which looks at how humans are wired to need each other to survive. So in a way, these psychological factors may be looked at in the sport context but potentially have a far deeper reach which may be an excellent example of how sport is a place to learn life lessons.
take action today moment:
If you are an athlete returning from a serious injury, take some time to reflect for yourself about what you need to help you be successful returning to the sport you love. Do the ones discussed above resonate with you? Are there other ones you need to consider? If you are not an athlete returning from a serious injury, how can you benefit from thinking about these needs and/or support another athlete? From both perspectives, injury or not injured, what does thinking about these need to do to improve your sense of empathy?
Learn More About Returning to the sport you love:
Mentally Preparing Athletes to Return to Play Following Injury
References
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2012). Self-determination theory. In P. A. M. Van Lange, A. W. Kruglanski, & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of theories of social psychology (pp. 416–436). Sage Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446249215.n21
Podlog, L., Dimmock, J., & Miller, J. (2011). A review of return to sport concerns following injury rehabilitation: Practitioner strategies for enhancing recovery outcomes. Physical Therapy in Sport, 12(1), 36-42. doi:10.1016/j.ptsp.2010.07.005
Podlog, L., & Eklaud, R. C. (2007). Psychosocial considerations of the return to sport following injury. D. Pargman (Ed.), Psychological bases of sport injuries (3rd ed.) (pp. 109-130). Fitness Information Technology.
Porges, S. W. (2009). The polyvagal theory: New insights into adaptive reactions of the autonomic nervous system. Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, 76(Suppl 2), S86. https://doi.org/10.3949/ccjm.76.s2.17