Athletes preserver despite injuries
When getting involved in a field of work, one must look at the pros and cons before indulging themselves fully into the duties required. Each profession may come with pros, such as salaries, health benefits, and vacation time; however, each person can be faced with a nightmare situation at some point in their work. Bankers may be faced with robberies, storeowners may be faced with thieves, and publishers with copy errors. The nightmares that athletes face in their profession are injuries of all types, as it sets them back from playing time, stat records and perfecting their talents.
All sports involve some form of movement of the body; therefore, an athlete’s physical well being needs to be sufficient enough in order to participate in their sport. Due to the competitive nature and willingness to succeed by all means, athletes are always at risk of injuries. There is so much changing of directions, jumping, running, and tackling, the body takes a beating. The most common injury for all sports is located in the knee, called the Anterior Collateral Ligament injury or ACL for short.
The difference between men and women that may lead to ACL injuries is a wider pelvis in women than men. This difference results in a wider angle at which the upper leg bone meets the lower leg bone. This increased angle places more stress on a woman’s knee joint, which makes it less stable than a man’s knee joint.
Apolonia Calleja, junior of San Diego, Calif., has been a CSC Cheerleader in college for four years. During the Fall 2012 season, she suffered an ACL tear that ended her season.
“I tore my ACL when I was practicing my tumbling. I did a tumbling pass on a mat, and when I landed my backflip, the mat slid and my knee popped out. Recovery was the worst part because my body rejected all my medication. I could barely eat a grape for almost a full week. It took me almost two months to finally walk decent and four and a half months to finally run. Gaining back the muscle on my left leg is a struggle because I have so much muscle to build back up. But I just have to keep focusing on one legged exercises and gain the muscle,” Calleja said.
The medial collateral ligament or MCL is one of four ligaments that are important to the stability of the knee joint. A ligament is made of tough fibrous material and functions to control excessive motion by limiting joint mobility. Freshman Jamie McLain, a Chadron native, also had knee problems during her high school career.
“I tore my ACL and MCL the end of my junior year basketball season. I was going up for a layup when a player from the other team ran up behind me and I fell out of the court and as I was turning to come back in I heard a distinct pop in my knee and I went down instantly. In that week I got it checked out by an orthopedic surgeon and he could tell right away it was my ACL,” McLain said. “I got an MRI done and they discovered it was both my MCL and ACL. Luckily I didn’t need surgery on my MCL because it would heal itself while I was sitting out for my ACL. My ACL injury kept me out of sports for six months.”
One sport that gives athletes a beating is football because it is a very physical sport that requires athletes to build endurance, build mental toughness, and gain muscle. Contrary to the belief that football games are won only during practices, lifting weights during season and before season is just as important. Football players are required to set time for recovery as well as weight lifting to build muscle and strength. If a player suffers an injury, they are put behind schedule to excel.
“My injury was a torn labrum in my shoulder, along with my cuff torn all the way around 360 degrees and bone chipped off my shoulder. The injury happened my senior year of high school in the 2008 football season. While running the ball, I was tackled by multiple defensive players and placed my hand out to brace myself to stay up and the weight of me and the other players dislocated my shoulder and caused the injuries stated previously,” junior safety Joseph Phillips, 21, of San Diego, Calif., said. “I was out for only a week before beginning to play again. It was not until a year and a half later in college I had surgery. After my surgery I was out for about five to six months. Rehab consisted of multiple shoulder exercises with no weight at first, and then vary lightweight later. It was also stretched out very carefully in order to gain flexibility back in the joint. After the five to six months passed my injured shoulder was still nowhere near as strong as my healthy one but today, two years later, I feel it is either as strong or stronger then my non injured one and I have gained even more strength then I had before surgery.”
There is no doubt that athletes’ bodies go through a great deal of training and performing, but there is nothing more frightening than season ending injuries. Even with injuries, the athletes’ love for the sport they are in drives them to dominate recovery exercises and return to their sport brand new.