Competitive Athletes’ Return to Sport Following Serious Injury
Injury is one of the most devastating parts of an athlete’s career. The abrupt rupture in training, competition, and daily life leaves lasting physical and mental anguish. During the rehabilitation process, what if there was a way to reduce the risk of reinjury and bolster an athlete’s level of play upon returning to competition following a serious injury?
Podlog & Eklund (2006) take a look into the psychological components of an athletes return to sport.
The purpose of this article was to investigate the experiences of competitive athletes’ returning to sport following a serious injury. Emerging themes from this article were broken down into two phases, the Pre-Competition Phase and the Competitive Phase. The Pre-Competition Phase involved a period of reflection on behalf of the athlete. During this phase, athletes described their motives to return to sport, their positive and negative emotions and appraisals, as well as their decision-making processes in the return to competition. In the Competitive Phase athletes described dealing with return to competition fears and concerns, encounters with adversity, enjoyable aspects of the return to competition, and positive consequences of the injury.
The research revealed the presence of three major underlying struggles that a majority of the athletes faced throughout their return to sport protocol. These three internal battles were: competence (proficiency), relatedness (connectedness or belonging), and autonomy (personal control over one’s circumstances) in regards to the athletes’ return to competition. The article asserts that there are psychological issues that must be addressed, in addition to physical rehabilitation, in order to assure the most effective return to sport for athletes. In other words, physical rehabilitation alone may be insufficient to enable the highest level of return to sport. The authors contend that Self-Determination Theory (SDT) offers a valuable framework for understanding and assisting athletes with the return to sport process.
Implications of these findings are that structuring programs for returning athletes which meet their needs of competence, relatedness, and autonomy can be pivotal in assisting athletes back to competition. For example, structuring the rehabilitation process with progressive physical challenges, athletic role models, or goal-setting interventions can help athletes meet their competence needs. Alternatively, ensuring athletes are returning in a manner of their choosing while having structured opportunities for non-injured peers will meet their needs for autonomy and relatedness. Ultimately, augmenting the physical rehab process with the psychological needs of athletes’ may reduce the risk of re-injury and enable a high level of return to play.
TLDR - What does this mean for you? If you’re concerned with the most effective return-to-sport following injury, it is essential to consider the psychological part of the equation by using the SDT to create a structure which meets your needs of competence, relatedness, and autonomy in the rehab process.
Podlog, L., & Eklund, R. C. (2006). A Longitudinal Investigation of Competitive Athletes’ Return to Sport Following Serious Injury. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 18(1), 44–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200500471319