Performance Rehab

01/12/24

Athletes rehabbing their bodies to recover from physical pain or injury is common. What is less common is athletes engaging in the rehabbing of their mind. If an athlete has something that physically hurts most will get evaluated because it will overtly impact their performance. However, if an athlete’s performance hits a plateau, they are less likely to get evaluated because the mental “injury” is often covert.

One of the biggest mistakes in addressing athlete performance issues is bypassing the foundational problem that’s driving the greater problem and jump straight into providing sports performance techniques. In my experience, athletes might achieve temporary success using solely performance enhancing tactics, but it generally won’t be sustainable without addressing the underlying problem. Performance issues are often the symptom of the problem, where a wellness imbalance is typically the root.

I often use an injured athlete to help outline my framework for assessing performance issues. When an athlete gets injured the first step is to accurately diagnosis the problem. The initial diagnosis happens by doing an MRI, Xray, or a Physical evaluation, but before the doctor can properly treat the problem, they need to know exactly what the problem is (or isn’t). An injured athlete is not going to go to the athletic trainer first to give them rehab exercises prior to diagnosing the injury.

In a similar vein, attacking athletes’ performance issues only through mental performance techniques is not ineffective, but an incomplete assessment and treatment of athletes’ performance issues.

A comprehensive performance assessment includes addressing both the holistic health AND performance enhancing techniques component. Both are necessary, however; oftentimes most athletes are more apt to get support in a sports performance capacity because it’s more available, accessible and accepted.

An athlete rehabbing from an injury takes a team of professionals to recover, and so does an athlete rehabbing from performance issues. Just like an orthopedic surgeon, physical therapist, and athletic trainer all offer something unique to help an athlete physically recover, the same rings true for sports psychologist and mental health professionals who specialize in sport in supporting athletes journey to mentally recover.

Whether sport professionals are helping athletes physical or mental recovery, the overarching goal is to maximize athletes’ well-being and performance.

However, not all rehab programs are created equal. Having sustained an injury as a former athlete, I learned quick that rehabbing to get my shoulder back to baseline versus rehabbing it to compete at a high level again are two vastly different programs.

Similarly, sport professionals helping athletes rehab their mind to get back to a peak mental state to succeed requires collaboration among professionals and commitment by the athlete. You can achieve average success doing one, but exponential success if tapped into both.