Sports Injuries May Have a Non-Sport Cause

An elite high school distance runner, he'd stopped running completely, had conducted all his workouts in the swimming pool, and had performed every rehab activity he'd been asked to do. Yet he was still waking up with the tendons in both legs aching. When asking about his other activities, all he said was, "I'm real careful, the only other thing I'm doing is my part-time job at the grocery store. And I'm wearing good shoes when I'm at work."

I'm no Sherlock Holmes, so it took a while, but I finally wised up and probed more deeply into his work duties. And Eureka! I found out that his job entailed shopping cart duty- pushing as many as eight shopping carts into the store from the parking lot-for several hours at a time. The hunched-over, toe-pushoff position was guaranteed to stretch and strain his achilles tendons.

Two weeks later, with a reassignment from an understanding boss, he was able to start light jogging. He recovered in time to run fast at our provincial high championships and eventually earn an athletic scholarship. The moral of the story-sometimes you have to dig a little deeper into your athletes' private lives if you want to find out what's really going on.

Here's another example. One of my runners arrived at practice complaining of sore shins. She'd been fine at our practice earlier in the week and hadn't even run the day before because she'd gone to her graduation party.
The problem quickly went away, but two weeks later, the sore shins returned. After some more questions I found that she'd gone to another party the night before.

My Columbo-senses tingling and sensing a pattern, I asked more questions and found the culprit. Both parties had involved three to four hours of dancing. And she'd worn high heels at both functions. Next party, she wore soft-soled loafers. Problem fixed!

It's not just physical activity that can cause problems. Stress also affects performance and you can sometimes chart an athlete's slumps according to the stresses in their private lives.

I once had a runner who hit three performance slumps in one year, followed by a month or two of better running. I later found out that his parents had gone through a divorce, his father had moved out of the house, and then he and his mother had moved out. His slumps had followed each emotional upheaval.

To be an effective coach or teacher we sometimes have to play detective. There are all sorts of influences acting on our athletes-everything from family problems, to pressure from friends to bad grades to dancing in high heels- and our only knowledge of them comes from a description from our athletes, friends or parents. Unfortunately, athletes often don't realize the implications of such situations, so they fail to mention them

The moral-it pays to ask questions and to dig a little deeper. Most athletes appreciate the interest, and if you can refrain from making judgements, they'll usually answer you honestly. You'll get to know your athletes better, and you might save many weeks of frustrating injury time.

Sports Injuries May Have a Non-Sport Cause