The stress of the athlete after an injury

The anxiety caused by a breakage causes performance to decline if no intervention is taken.

Sport psychology is not only concerned with the performance of an athlete while he/she is active; it is also present during the sports injury. In recent years, due to the professionalization of some sports, the number of studies on this field that have been published has increased.

This has focused attention on both the prevention of injuries and their treatment and readaptation to sport once these ruptures have occurred. Specifically, stress management is very important to help keep performance from declining..

Psychological intervention in cases of sports injury

We found two moments in the sports injuryThe first one is before the injury and corresponds to a prevention phase, and the second one is after the injury, when rehabilitation takes place. It is important to keep this in mind because the objectives to be addressed are different in terms of intervention.

In the first phase, the sports psychologist is in charge of training psychological resources, seeking an optimal level of muscular tension, a decrease in stress, correct attentional control and the improvement of coping resources in order to avoid the feared injury.

In the post-injury or rehabilitation phase, the objectives vary according to whether the injury is more or less recent.In the immobilization phase, the objective will be to provide the athlete with strategies for anxiety control and acceptance of reality. For this purpose, it is common for the sports psychologist to train communication skills and relaxation techniques, in addition to ensuring a therapeutic commitment.

In the mobilization phase the objective will be to make a correct recovery, readaptation and return to competition, working on communication skills, relaxation techniques and imagery.In the mobilization phase the objective will be to achieve a correct recovery, readaptation and return to competition, working on communication skills, relaxation techniques and mental imagery and anxiety control, with social support being of vital importance.

The causes

Numerous studies agree on the existence of two categories to which two categories to which an injury may be due.

Extrinsic factors would be those of an environmental nature. They refer to the equipment, the environment where the activity is practiced, the duration of training and failures in physical preparation. The second are the intrinsic factors that have their nature in personal characteristics of the athlete. They include age, sex, physical constitution, previous medical history, physical condition, ability and psychological state.

As for the latter, unfortunately, it is common for it to worsen depending on the severity of the injury and the estimated recovery time, it is common for it to worsen depending on the severity of the injury and the estimated time for recovery.. For this reason, when the athlete has fully recovered, when he/she returns to normal activity, he/she often finds that what once seemed an ambitious challenge now causes him/her stress.

Injuries and stress in sport

If we review the literature we find that Andersen and Williams (1988) devised a model in which it was proposed that the stress response was the result of a bidirectional relationship between the athlete's cognitive appraisals of a potentially stressful external situation (environmental factors) and the physiological and attentional aspects of stress (intrinsic factors), where both these cognitive appraisals and the physiological and attentional responses to stress are constantly changing.

With this model we have also tried to explain the relationship between psychological factors and vulnerability to injury, including their sporting history, but also the emotional reactions of the injured athlete. Thanks to this, it has been possible to carry out psychological intervention programs for the prevention of injuries. psychological intervention for the prevention of injuries or the rehabilitation and sports readaptation of the injured athlete. of the injured athlete.

The role of anxiety in sports performance

In this interaction between psychology-injury-psychology some of the relevant variables in the competitive environment are the anxiety and the mood of the athlete. Numerous studies have been carried out in almost all sports modalities about pre-competitive anxiety and the state of mind in which athletes find themselves before competing. It has been shown that this does not affect all athletes equally..

Factors that influence stress

There are a series of conditioning factors in which stress and fear of failure are aggravated. The age of the athletes influences the appearance of stress, with the youngest (from 10 to 19 years of age) and the oldest (from 40 years of age) being more prone to stress.

It should also be noted that this stressful condition does not affect equally those who practice physical activity for leisure and those who are engaged in competition..

Psychological interventions after an injury improve the well-being of the athlete during rehabilitation. The control of their emotional responses in this unfavorable situation will allow a better and faster recovery whose main objective is the effective sport readaptation.

Podlog et al. (2011) found that the most frequent variables that act against the athlete areAnxiety about a relapse, fear of not returning to previous performance, feelings of isolation, lack of identification with their sports practice, insufficient social support from outside or within the sports environment and excessive pressure that causes negative feelings such as fear, anger, sadness.

Therefore, in order to work on the psychological preparation behind an injury, it is important to assess:

• The situations outside the sports environment that can cause stress to the athlete.
• The demands of training.
• The demands of competition.
• Previous history of injury.
• Influence of the public or media on the athlete (if applicable).

Intervening on anxiety

Psychological interventions such as relaxation, mental imagery, a correct accompaniment by the technical team (coach and teammates), setting goals (clear, evaluable and progressive), favoring the social support of family directly or indirectly, partner and friends, are fundamental toand friends, are fundamental to carry out the training in stress management.

Nor should we forget important aspects such as reinforcing belonging to the sport being practiced, reducing pressure and improving self-confidence. (Palmi, 2001; Podlog et al., 2011).

It is possible that the intervention should also focus on the modification of beliefs and attitudes to prevent future injuries. It is not uncommon that during training the athlete's own self-perception has been altered and this has generated distorted beliefs about his or her new physical condition.

Thoughts such as "as soon as they touch me a little, I'll get injured again" leave a bad feeling in the athlete and this can have consequences in the execution of a subsequent training or competition.

Support and reinforcement program

As mentioned above, family support, together with a good reinforcement program, can contribute to improve can contribute to improve the injured athlete's self-esteem and help him/her feel capable of resuming his/her sporting life.

These are those moments that one does not question when an athletic and sporting life lies ahead. But when it happens, you have to accept it and take it as a new challenge. One more training session.