By PowerPlay Athlete, Jessica Meyers
Most cyclists have heard the expression that there are two types of riders; the ones who have crashed and the ones who are waiting to crash. I thought about how true this is and how you can take it a step further for endurance athletes; the ones who have been injured and the ones who are an injury waiting to happen. The fact is when you get in a sport with constant repetition; it becomes evident that injury is a fact of life. Now that I’ve been in this sport for awhile, I am constantly trying to stay one step ahead of injury. But how many of us have been there? You wake up in the morning with a little niggle and you think, “No big deal, it doesn’t hurt that much.” And then you wake up the next day, “Not too bad.” And pretty soon these days stretch to weeks even months until you wake up and realize you might not be able to walk to the toilet to relieve yourself. Yeah, you know who I’m talking about. I’m talking about you—the person who knows what they aren’t supposed to do but they do it anyways.
Trust me, there is no judgment passed from where I sit. The fact is the beginning of this year I was “that gal.” I finished the year without injury and entered the off season eager to make my body more injury proof. I did a core exercise class and in the next few days realized my hip and bootie were sore. I thought, “Yes! I really worked that well. It’s sore, it must be working!” And then I proceeded to go do my long run as scheduled, only to feel debilitating knee pain half way through. The fact is I should have been thinking, “Wow, I’m really sore. Probably a day or two off is needed to make sure I don’t make this worse.” Yes, so I spent the next 4 months unable to run with a diagnosis of IT Band Syndrome, when really a few days or even a week of taking it easy probably could have avoided the whole situation.
Luckily during this time I was approached by Power Play. I have always been a huge fan of compression, but the cold compression was an added bonus to further reduce the inflammation. I also hired a trainer to address my weakness and finally kicked this ITBS. But if there is one moral of this story it’s that an ounce of prevention is key. Now I sit in my Power Play gear no matter how I feel, good or bad. Oh, and when I feel a niggle coming on, I go
