There’s a specific kind of hard that comes with being injured.
It’s not just the pain, or the missed training, or watching your fitness quietly slip. It’s the identity piece. The part where you’re not sure who you are when the thing you’ve built your life around is suddenly off the table.
I’ve worked with cyclists, runners, climbers, and weekend hockey players who all describe something similar when they’re sidelined… a restlessness that has nothing to do with fitness. A loss that’s harder to explain than a torn ligament or a stress fracture.
Being benched doesn’t just affect your body. It messes with how you see yourself.
And here’s the thing… research backs this up. Studies show that sports injuries often lead to a diminished sense of self due to physical limitations, withdrawal from competition, and emotional distress. Models of injury recovery suggest that loss of identity, uncertainty, and fear can contribute to anxiety and depression during this time, and that the athletes who feel this most acutely are often the ones who care the most. The ones for whom sport isn’t just something they do, it’s who they are.
So if you’re in that place right now… you’re not being dramatic. You’re being an athlete.
What Actually Helps
Stay involved in your sport. Just in a different way.
Show up to your running group and walk the route. Watch a race. Sit in on a practice. Research shows that athletes who rebuild their sense of self by engaging in alternative roles, like coaching, volunteering, or observing, are often better able to reconstruct their athletic identity during injury. You don’t have to be performing to still be part of it. Added bonus – watching from the outside can teach you things you’d never notice while you’re in it.
Do what physical activities you can, even if they’re not your thing.
A long walk with a friend. A swim. Tracking your physio exercises (and actually logging your progress). These things keep you moving and keep the sense of capability alive. Injury has a way of flattening everything, so deliberately doing things you’re able to matters more than it sounds.
Train your brain when you can’t train your body.
There’s actually a lot of research behind this one. Motor imagery, the mental rehearsal of physical movement without any actual physical movement, is widely used in sports training and neurological rehabilitation. Research shows that in some athletic contexts, mental rehearsal can be just as effective as physical practice – how cool is that?
Functional MRI research shows similar brain activity in the premotor cortex, supplementary motor area (SMA), and primary motor cortex (M1) for actual and imagined motor repetitions. Don’t believe me? Check out the research for yourself!
In other words, your brain doesn’t fully distinguish between doing something and vividly imagining doing it.
When I was sidelined with a dance injury, I spent weeks sitting with my eyes closed, visualizing movement. I thought through which muscles fired for which steps. I made micro-movements (actual mini muscle contractions), barely perceptible, just enough to activate the neural pathways. I showed up to every class with a notebook and watched from a completely different perspective.
When I came back… my instructors were amazed that I had actually improved.
That’s not magic. That’s motor imagery. And it’s available to you right now, wherever you are in your recovery.
Talk to someone about it.
Not just anyone, someone who gets it. A teammate, a training partner, a coach. Or a therapist if what you’re carrying feels heavier. Research shows that athletes undergoing rehabilitation often experience high stress, and that having support can help maintain self-confidence and motivation throughout recovery. Naming what’s hard takes more power away from it than pretending it isn’t there.
The Mindset Shift That Changes Things
Being injured doesn’t make you less of an athlete. It makes you an athlete in a different phase of training.
That reframe sounds simple… and it kind of is. But it really changes what recovery feels like. Instead of waiting to get back to being yourself, you’re still being yourself, just navigating a harder stretch.
The athletes who come back strongest aren’t usually the ones who rested perfectly or followed the plan exactly. They’re the ones who stayed mentally in the game while their body caught up.
This is your sport. Your outlet. The thing that makes you feel like you. That doesn’t disappear because you’re injured, it just needs a different container for a while.
I help athletes find that container… figure out what to do with the restlessness, the frustration, the “what do I do with myself now?” If you’re in it right now and it’s harder than you expected… you can get back to what you love. I’ve helped other athletes find their way through it, and I can help you too.
👉 Book a Clarity + Direction Session here
Further Reading & References
Athletic identity and sport injury: a systematic review and meta-aggregation. BMC Psychology, 2025. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40359-025-03902-7
The Use of Imagery by Athletes during Injury Rehabilitation. ResearchGate, 2000. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283442096
Motor Imagery and Sport Performance: A Systematic Review on the PETTLEP Model. Applied Sciences, 2022. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/19/9753
Psychological Reactions to Exercise and Athletic Injuries. Human Kinetics. https://us.humankinetics.com/blogs/excerpt/psychological-reactions-to-exercise-and-athletic-injuries
Related reading: The Recovery Identity Shift: When Injury Changes How You See Yourself | Five Signs You’re Rushing Your Return to Running
