Mitchell Gunn with permission

The U.S. ski racing community was saddened to hear that Mikaela Shiffrin had injured her knee while free skiing before the World Cup in Are, Sweden and that the injury, a torn MCL of her right knee, might keep her out for the entire season.

With this injury, and the many others that have sidelined racers on the World Cup on down in the early stages of this race season, it thought it timely to return to a topic that is near and dear to me, namely, the role of the mind in responding to an injury and its impact on a quality rehabilitation and a timely and effective return to snow.

Though I don’t know the statistics on knee injuries in ski racing, I’m going to figure that a substantial portion of ski racers sustain a serious injury at some point in their careers. Also, as the author of two books on the psychology of injury, I regularly work with athletes of all sorts, including ski racers, helping them recover and return to their sport better than ever. Finally, having avoided serious injury during my own career (just a partially torn ACL and two broken wrists), I tore up and had surgery on my shoulder a few years ago while working with a group of racers in Chile and finally learned first hand how difficult recovering from a serious injury is.

The sad reality of ski racing is that many young racers either have so far or will this winter hurt themselves so seriously that it will end their seasons. The good news is that surgical and rehabilitative technology has become so advanced that a full physical recovery from an injury that a few decades ago might have been career-ending is now commonplace.

But another reality of physical injuries is that the mind gets damaged too, but little attention is paid to how the absence of “mental rehab” can prevent racers from returning to or improving on their pre-injury level of performance. As a result, I thought I would share some ideas I have about how injured athletes can ensure that their minds recover as fully as do their bodies.

Keep Perspective

Accept that getting hurt sucks and you will feel bad at times, especially early in your recovery when you’re more disabled than recovering. You will not be able to do the normal things to which you are accustomed. You will be in pain. You’ll feel frustrated, angry, and depressed. You’ll want to curl up in a ball and withdraw from life. These reactions are normal and, to some degree, healthy, as you have to allow yourself to grieve for your loss.

At the same time, if you allow yourself to stay in that funk for too long, you will surely slow your recovery. So, after a short time, get over your “pity party” and get your mind on your recovery; keep focused on the present (“What can I do now to get healthy?”) and the future (“I will heal and get back better than ever!”).

Another part of keeping perspective is that your injury seems like a big deal now, but, when you look back on it in a few years, it will probably be just a blip in your ski racing career and life. I’m working with a European racer who missed two years with a back injury, but he never gave up his dream and is now healthier and faster than ever.

Stick with Your Rehab Program

A simple reality I learned in recovering from my shoulder injury was that if you follow your rehab program, you will get better (and if you don’t you won’t). The problem is that rehab hurts (a lot!), is boring, tiring, monotonous, in other words, it gets old fast. That’s why so many injured athletes end up either shortening or skipping rehab sessions, or not putting in their best effort. The result: slowed or incomplete recovery.

There is also a subset of injured athletes who have the belief that more is better, so they do more sets and reps on more days than recommended by their rehab team. Unfortunately, this “more is better” mentality often results in overuse injuries and other complications, and a slowed rather than accelerated recovery. My recommendation here is very straightforward: Do exactly what your rehab people tell you to do, no more and no less.

Become a Better Athlete

I have seen careers saved by serious injuries. How’s that possible, you might ask. Getting injured can teach you to be tough, endure hardship, and really find your motivation for ski racing. Injuries can also enable you to focus on areas of our sport that have been weaknesses, but you simply haven’t had time to work on them. Yes, a knee injury, for example, can prevent you from doing a lot. But it’s also an opportunity to figure out ways you can improve as an athlete working around your knee, for instance, strengthen your core and upper body, improve your flexibility, and increase your stamina. The goal is for you to return to skiing a physically better athlete than you were before.

Redirect Your Energies

One of the most difficult aspects of an injury is that you can’t do what you normally do and are often at a loss how to expend that energy that builds up in you every day. Another downside is that you have lost something that has been a source of self-esteem, validation, meaning, satisfaction, and joy in your life.

Your best path is to find something toward which you can direct your energy and that will provide you with what ski racing used to for you. It can be anything, for example, learning a musical instrument, cooking, reading, school, whatever. The important thing is to find something you can care about and throw yourself into it just the way you threw yourself into your ski racing. Not only will it bolster how you feel about yourself, but it will also take your mind off of the disappointment of your injury and the difficulty of the recovery.

Stay Involved in Ski Racing

The chances are that much of your life revolves around ski racing and, being injured can cause you to feel isolated and at a distance from the sport you love. This separation from ski racing can also hurt your motivation because you aren’t experiencing many of the good things that you get from ski racing.

So, look for ways to stay connected with ski racing. For example, become an apprentice coach (this will help you learn more about technique) or help out at training and races. I realize that this might be difficult because you may be “jonesing” to be out there and you may not like seeing your competitors moving ahead of you. At the same time, both the connection and seeing others having fun and getting results will further motivate you to rehab and get back on snow.

Watch Ski-racing Video

Imagine if, while sidelined with an injury, you just sat on the sofa all day. Obviously, your muscles would atrophy and you’d get really out of shape. The same applies to your mind. If you don’t keep it sharp, it too will get soft and out of shape.

One way to keep your mind in shape is to watch video of World Cuppers and yourself. You can use video to “rehab” your mind and keep it focused and “in the game” during your recovery. Watch video of World Cuppers you admire three time a week for 10 minutes. You will learn about technique and feel inspired watching them (while recognizing that many of them have had serious injuries as well).

Develop a Mental Imagery Program

There is nothing more important to your mental recovery than mental imagery. Imagery is not just something that goes on in your head. In fact, it connects your mind and your body and, amazingly, activates muscles in the same way as when you are actually skiing (though not with the same intensity). Mental imagery, in a way, fools your body into thinking that you are really skiing.

Imagery has huge benefits to recovery from injury. Research has shown that you can improve your skills without actual training by engaging in regular mental imagery. So, by doing imagery regularly, you can maintain or maybe even better your skiing skills. Seeing and feeling yourself continuing to train and race (in your mind’s eye) will keep your motivation up (because you’ll be inspired to get back on snow and actually ski), your confidence high (because you’ll regularly see and feel yourself skiing fast), and your mind focused (because you’ll be exercising your mental muscles and, as a result, they will stay in shape for your return to snow). Importantly, imagery will make you feel like you’re still progressing as a ski racer.

Here is an article I wrote about mental imagery that will help you create your own mental imagery program.

Bottom Line

When you get seriously injured, it is a real bummer. But what is an even bigger bummer is not returning fully or as quickly as possible to ski racing. For you to return to snow as good or better than you were before your injury, you need to do everything possible to facilitate your recovery. That means, of course, following your physical rehab program to the letter. But it also means developing and following a mental rehab program as well, so that your body and your mind are fully recovered and prepared for the rigors of ski racing from the very first turn you make when you get back on snow.