Recovering from Injury
In 2004 surfing world champ Mick Fanning did the splits while landing a floater and tore the hamstring clean off his pelvic bone. A surgeon attached a metal hook to his pelvis and sewed the hamstring around it.
This is what Mick's trainer had to say about his recovery, from his biography "Surf for you Life"
Jan says teaching Mick's body that the hamstring muscle was reattached, and helping him let go of the injury emotionally were major challenges. 'There's a lot that has to happen on the emotional side with injury,' she says. 'Most people that have had something significant don't realise that they are still looking for it. What happens if my hamstring goes again? They don't realise they do it, and you have to emotionally make them aware of letting go of it too. And I think he got halfway through the year and that same thing came up. He said,"I realised what I'm doing. I'm surfing safe. I'm surfing in case I hurt my hamstring." I said, "Mick I will guarantee you that hamstring is there to stay. From my point of view and the area I work in, you don't have an issue with your hamstring." Even in the early days, after testing it and it was all okay, we said, "Mick, we're not going to talk about the hamstring. It's as good as the other one." We consider the injury, make sure we do all the right steps, but we don't baby the injury.'
Posted On: February 09th, 2010 By: Dan Humphries
