Sports are so much a part of some people's lives that even when serious sports-related injuries occur, many athletes can't wait to recover and resume their favorite activities.
It's true with youngsters, who tend to heal quicker and have visions of high school or college sports glory. Even older, recreational athletes who participate for fun are reluctant to give up a sport after suffering a significant injury, even one that may recur.
Rebekah Kline, nee Chrisman, ran track and cross country for Daviess County High School, and for Murray State and Arkansas State universities. In college, she suffered plantar fasciitis and a stress fracture and missed part of the 1997 season. The next year, she had iliotibial band syndrome, or a severe tightening in the thigh, that cost her the full track season, but she never thought about quitting.
After college, Kline had hip surgery to counteract the wear and tear of running so many miles. After surgery sidelined her from cardiovascular exercise for about a year, she considered quitting running but never found a suitable substitute. Back to the roads she went.
"I was out of college and competing recreationally, but I'm still competitive," Kline said. "I wanted to continue to run.
"I'm not trying to break any records or win anything now. It's just pleasurable."
Kline, a 31-year-old personal trainer, has two children, and kept running throughout both pregnancies."Nothing quite takes the edge off like running does," she said.Don Gallucci, a personal trainer at Owensboro Medical Health System's HealthPark, said people want to continue their favorite sport or activity after healing, even when it may not always be in a person's best interest."When people have a passion for it, they want to pursue it, regardless," he said. "But a lot of times with corrective strengthening, those problems can be resolved."After getting clearance from a physician and receiving physical therapy, an athlete can get a range of motion and movement assessment to locate weaknesses in the body. If, for example, a stress fracture occurs in the same place, there's probably a muscle imbalance contributing to it."As you make contact with the ground, that force acts upon the body, and if you're not absorbing it through the whole body in a mechanically correct way, then it can cause stress to be focused in one area," Gallucci said. "With range-of-motion and movement assessments, we can identify these muscle imbalances and go after that weak part and strengthen core muscles."Vince Frey, 73, was a competitive basketball and softball player all his life and still played hoops at age 65. But he began experiencing pain in his left ankle until it got so bad that his foot dragged when he walked. Frey was examined by a physician and found he needed the ankle replaced.
"I'd had so many ankle sprains in basketball, I'd worn out the cartilage," Frey said. "Eventually, it got to be bone on bone, and I couldn't (play basketball) anymore."Also, I didn't realize it, but I'd had a broken bone in my ankle for no telling how long," according to X-rays, Frey said.Frey had ankle replacement surgery in January 2004 and was playing sports again that May."The doctor told me there would be no more basketball, but said I could do pretty much anything else, just no high-impact stuff, like jumping," Frey said. "I knew I had no business being out there with a lot of the younger people I was playing against. But I'd be out there playing today if I could."Frey put away his basketball shoes and turned to golf, and now plays 18 holes a day, sometimes five times a week.Bill King, 55, played a variety of sports until 1973 when he suffered a broken neck in a sandlot football game and was told by a physician not to play contact sports anymore. The next year, he returned to playing basketball and softball, and took up tennis.In 1981, King tore the meniscus in one knee, but didn't undergo surgery until 1985 and continued to play all three sports in the intervening years by "doctoring myself," he said. In 2007, King felt a pop in the same knee, went to a doctor and was told he could use a knee replacement.
"The doctor said he'd replaced better knees than mine," King said.King quit softball, but continues to play golf and a high level of USTA state tennis, taking occasional cortisone shots to relieve the pain in his knee after deciding against knee replacement."I still do it because I love playing sports," he said. "I never played college sports. I'm not a superstar or anything, just a decent tennis player, so this is an achievement for me."I feel very fortunate still being able to compete at 55. I'm not as fast as I used to be, and I can't play every day, but I'll play two or three times a week."King only plays doubles, but his knee still hurts with the constant running."Sometimes I have to pull up and let the pain go away," he said. "Everybody tells me I should quit, but what else would I do?"I'll play as long as I can play."
