The Athlete Development Journal🥇

Train your mind. Build your body. Fuel your soul.

Mind. If he can make it through Auschwitz…

Maybe you were really hitting your stride and performing well. Maybe it’s right before the season and you were competing for a starting spot.

Maybe you did everything right.

You trained your tail off. You ate high quality food. You were intentional about your recovery.

Yet, you still got hurt. Forces outside of your control took away what you worked so hard for.

It sucks, but in times like this I like to look at the extremes.

Victor Frankl was a Jewish prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. Here’s his biggest takeaway from that experience:

"Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you." - Viktor E. Frankl

If he can make it through Auschwitz, you can make it through this injury.

Give yourself 24 hours to feel the suck. Sulk, cry, be angry.

Once those 24 hours are over, though, redirect your focus on only things that are under your control. Attack the process with a level of consistency and intensity the world has never seen before.

Body. The phases of healing.

If you just hurt yourself, your body’s starting a 4-part process to heal itself.

Hemostasis
Inflammation
Proliferation
Remodeling

Hemostasis

You can think of this phase as the emergency first-responders.

The body’s main goal here is to stop the bleeding.

This applies just as much to internal injuries (like pulled muscles and torn ACLs) as it does wounds to the outside of the body. When you pull a muscle, the small blood vessels in that area rupture and pour blood inside the body (this is what a bruise is).

The blood vessels that are ruptured constrict to reduce the amount of blood that flows out of them. Platelets and clotting factors work together to plug the wound.

Inflammation

You can think of this phase as the clean-up crew.

The goal here is to prevent infection and prepare the wound for new tissue growth.

Now that bleeding is controlled, the blood vessels dilate to allow specialized cells to come in, clean out the bacteria and debris, and release growth factors to start the next phase.

Inflammation gets a bad rap, but it’s clearly important. With no inflammation, you’d have no way to clean out the wound and no way to start growing new tissue.

Inflammation is good, but too much inflammation is no bueno.

Proliferation

You can think of this phase as the construction crew.

The goal here is to create new tissue to fill the injured area.

Collagen is dumped into the worksite to create the frame that fills the void left by the injury. Initially this collagen is weak and disorganized.
New blood vessels are formed to bring a fresh supply of oxygen and nutrients to the construction site.
Specialized cells come in to grab the edges of the wound and pull them closer together, which limits the area that needs to be filled with the new collagen frame.

Remodeling

I’ve run out of analogies (whoops), but the goal of this phase is to reorganize and strengthen the frame built last phase.

The initially laid-down weak (type III) collagen is gradually replaced by a stronger (type I) collagen. The collagen fibers are reoriented along the lines of tension, increasing the strength of the healed tissue.
The density of blood vessels in the healed area decreases as the metabolic demands of the tissue lessen.

The final result of this process is the formation of a scar. The strength of the scar tissue depends heavily on how you go about your rehab.

That’s all happening internally, with no input from you whatsoever.

Isn’t that wild? Our bodies are incredible. Shout-out to God on this one.

Next week, I’ll dive into the steps that you can actively take to make your healing process as efficient as possible.

Soul. Who are you without your sport?

While you’re hurt, one of the best things you can do is explore and find out what lights you up outside of playing your sport.

Not sure what to do? I’ve got some options for you.

Read books (try both fiction and non-fiction).
Build something out of wood.
Tinker with some electronics. (Maybe build an RC car or mess around with microcontrollers?)
Go fishing.
Dive into your Bible (highly recommend this one).
Learn how to code or become an AI expert.
Bake something.
Play some chess.
Start writing a book.
Volunteer at a soup kitchen or pet rescue.
Learn how to play the guitar.
Train your dog to do a new trick.

You have the choice to use this time to grow and discover yourself… or just pass the time by scrolling TikTok and playing Fortnite. What will it be?

Last week’s podcast AMA ⬇️

Finding Your Superpower, Beating Burnout, and Overcoming Injury

You can also listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

IN THIS EPISODE:

02:52 – Will lifting weights make me bulky and slow?

05:21 – How do I get stronger without getting bigger? Should I focus on strength or speed?

05:38 – Superpowers vs. Kryptonite

13:37 – Exercises for a golfer with low back pain

24:15 – How do I tell my coach and dad I’m burned out and need a break?

29:25 – How do I overcome the fear of re-injury after ACL surgery?

We’re recording another “Ask Me Anything” episode this week. If you have any athlete development, sports performance, rehab, or life questions for me, send them here! (Or just email me back if you find that easier.)

A couple important things…

This newsletter is completely free. I spend many hours each week researching, writing, and illustrating. The best way you can support it and allow it to continue is to share it with people you know. You can just send them togtperformance.co/newsletter and they can subscribe there!
Everything in these newsletters and on our website is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as medical advice for you or your athlete. Consult directly with a healthcare professional.

Thanks so much for your help in spreading the word about athlete development!

Be >,

Zach

Dr. Zach Guiser, PT, DPT, CSCSFor the injured athlete… (save this email for when your athlete gets hurt)