Listen to Your Body

This was not my next intended topic, but considering that I'm currently out with whiplash, I thought it would be a good to cover injuries as my next topic while I work on recovery. Injuries suck. They are a part of life. Minimize the time spent recovering, so you can get back to quality training as quickly as possible. It's easy for athletes to want to train through the pain because of the mentality of not wanting to get behind. This can cause the injury to last longer! As coach always says, "Listen to your body." You know yourself better than anyone else. If any particular activity or exercise is worsening an injury, don't do it!

If you are hurt, remember RICE- Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate. The goal is to reduce inflammation as quickly as possible. Resting is absolutely key in this. It's better to miss a few training sessions and come back ready for training strong. Pushing through the pain not only leads to mediocre training sessions, but can also exacerbate the injury or extend the length of recovery time. Ice, compression and elevation are especially important in the first 48 hours to reduce inflammation.

Once the injury has had some time to heal, rehabilitation is the next step. If you have access to a physical therapist or athletic trainer, they can help teach you how to properly stretch and strengthen the affected area safely while monitoring your progress. If you're on your own, again, listen to your body. Increase the intensity as your body and pain levels allow.

Stay positive! This is one of the hardest parts, but definitely one of the most important. You will get through this. You will come back. You will be stronger for it. Use the time to visualize how you are going to race. Think about how it's going to feel when you are back in the gym, back on the bike, back on the track and crossing the finish line. Be smart about injuries and you will be training again in no time.