Life> Health

After an injury, it's hard to give up a sport

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-05 10:03

When Dr. Michael Joyner, an exercise researcher at the Mayo Clinic, heard I'd gotten a stress fracture in my leg, less than two years after recovering from my first one, he sent me some advice.

"I would urge you to take a year off of running," he e-mailed. "Take some swimming lessons." He added that he had taken 10 years off from running.

He's got to be kidding. I am one of those people who lurch from injury to injury but keep coming back to my sport.

What is the difference between Mike Joyner and athletes like me? Or between us and the legions of others in the Joyner camp - people like Dr. Jason Karlawish, an associate professor of medicine and medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. He reluctantly abandoned running after he tore some cartilage in his knee.

"I was frankly demoralized that I'd be one of those people who used to run,'" Jason said. It took time and effort to learn a new sport, he added. But now he loves swimming, especially, he says, the meditative aspect. "For 45 minutes, I can see little, hear only my thoughts, and talk to no one."

At least one expert would say we stubbornathletes have a psychological problem.

Our behavior, said Dr. Jon L. Schriner, an osteopath at the Michigan Center for Athletic Medicine, is "compulsive": we let our egos get in the way, persisting beyond all reason.

But David B. Coppel, a clinical and sports psychologist at the University of Washington, has another perspective. Often, athletes' friends do that sport, too; it is how these people identify themselves, part of their social life. And there is a more elusive factor.

"There is something about the experience that really produces a pleasurable experience," Dr. Coppel said. "That connection is probably not only at a psychological level but probably also something physiological that potentially makes it harder for these people to transition to other sports."

Jennifer Davis, my cycling, running and weight-lifting partner, adds another reason. Often we stubborn athletes have found that we do well, win at least our age group in races.That makes it hard to stop.

My doctor, Joseph H. Feinberg at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, says it's not always necessary to give up a sport because of injuries.

"Often correcting faulty mechanics, the right exercises or rehab, or just changes in training techniques are all that is needed." I am starting to run again. I also did so much bicycling when I could not run that I am considering entering my first bike race.But running is still my passion.

And Mike Joyner? He began swimming and is now doing triathlons. "Whenever I have switched sports it has been energizing because it is a new set of experiences and challenges," he said. "Now that I am doing more running again it feels fresh, too."

But he will never convince people like Jennifer and me. "I could give up cycling," Jen said. "But I could never give up running."

The New York Times