After a routine tennis practice early in May, I wandered home and rested on the couch. Later that night, I noticed a nagging pain in my lower back. I took a couple of Advil and ignored it. In two days, I was back out on the courts again...but every time I hit my backhand a sharp pain shot through my leg and back. Still, I played through the pain, after all it was a USTA match--I couldn't let my team down. The next day I could barely walk. I took Sunday off but came back for more on Monday. I couldn't miss my tennis drills. During Tuesday's singles match, I had to retire because of pain. When I visited the doctor in intense pain, he said that I aggravated my piriformis and should take a month off. I lasted two weeks.
Last month, I watched my stepsister Alex in her first basketball scrimmage of the season. Fearlessly, Alex stepped in the lane, drawing a charge. She went down with a thud, knocking her head against the court. More than a minute later, she slowly pulled herself up off the ground, rubbing the back of her head. In the absence of a certified athletic trainer, Alex wandered back to the sideline as the final seconds of the first half dwindled away. In the second half, Alex was back in full action as if nothing had happened. After the game, Alex complained of a headache and her parents watched for symptoms of concussion. When I spoke to her later, she admitted that she probably shouldn't have played the second half. "I just hated not to," she said. "I'm tough."
Both of these stories illustrate the influence of sports no-pain, no-gain culture. From an early age, children learn to sacrifice their bodies, to play through pain and to be tough in sports. After all, "there's no crying in baseball" (or any sport for that matter). We learn these cues from every aspect of our culture, even from our parents.
In June, HBO Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel aired a provocative piece on "boomeritis." According to the sources in the piece, American baby boomers, unwilling to kick their daily sports habit, are pushing their bodies to the edge. Instead of slowing down, these weekend warriors with overuse sports injuries fill doctor offices and hospitals looking for an easy cure--a quick pill. What the weekend warriors fail to consider is the message that they are sending to their children and grandchildren.
We need to look in the mirror and consider if we are sacrificing our health for the love of the game?
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5 comments:
This is soooo true. I sometimes think I'm invincible when I get out there on the soccer field (even though I haven't played in three months because of--you guessed it, a chronic knee injury! I am a gladiator and legends in my own mind.
Your coverage of sports injuries has gotten me thinking more about the pains I occasionally feel when exercising. I am trying to decide whether the pain in my right shin area when running is just a sore muscle or the beginning of a shin splint. But I know that whenever my shin hurts or my knee joints from doing squats, I can stop doing that particular exercise for a little while and hopefully it will work itself out.
I think we definitely do sacrifice our health for the love of the game. I have played through pain and minor injuries for as long as I can remember, and I agree with Grey as well. I am more likely to ignore something than ask about it or take better care of myself. I do think it has a lot to do with culture and how we are taught a lot of times, "no pain, no gain".
I've avoided commenting about this for a while because I avoid thinking about it. I was a serious endurance athlete from the age of 13 to 16. I competed in triathlons and marathons regularly. So I spend a lot of time ignoring my knee pain now.
But, on the other hand there it is very hard to know what is an acceptable level of pain. Everyone who's ever tried running knows that occasionally you have to push yourself through some discomfort to keep going. So how can a coach know when they are pushing children too far?
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