Resilience in Motion: Navigating the Athlete Path Back from Injury
By Bryce Trail
Hello everyone and welcome to Life After the Jersey: Navigating the Athlete Transition blog series. My name is Bryce Trail, the owner of Trail of Potential Mental Performance Consulting (TOPMPC), and I have partnered with Resilience Rally to provide tools to navigate the challenges of being a collegiate athlete. This blog will tackle one of the biggest challenges athletes face in their careers: experiencing sudden injury and going through rehabilitation. We will take a deeper dive into some of the challenges athletes face, which include: loss of identity, understanding the rehabilitation process, rebuilding structure, and future visioning. There will also be skill-building along the way that will prompt you to reflect on and implement some of the strategies I use when working with athletes experiencing injuries and rehabilitation. This will include mindfulness minutes, self-talk segments, rest and recovery, and goal setting.
I want to give a little background on who I am and what I do. I am Bryce Trail, owner of Trail of Potential Mental Performance Consulting. I have been around athletics for as long as I can remember. Growing up, it was rare to see me not participating in some sort of athletic activity, no matter the time of year. I was introduced to mental performance consulting at 13, which set me on the path to helping athletes. Throughout my time as an athlete, I knew the importance of the mental side of the game. I truly found my passion after sustaining an injury when trying to continue my baseball career in graduate school. I would say that was a blessing in disguise because I was thrown straight into mental performance consulting. Throughout my time in graduate school and in the professional field, I have realized the importance of understanding how to help athletes become the best versions of themselves, at any stage of their careers, whether just starting or transitioning into a new chapter in their lives.
Mental Skills
Mental Skills can be multifaceted. Take time for yourself to better understand what you need in the moment, especially how you are feeling. Cognitive skills are not just beneficial for healthy athletes; injured athletes see greater impact over time when it comes to developing these skills. It is about understanding how I can maximize my abilities in the present moment no matter what is happening around me.
Building Mental Skills during the recovery phase from the time of the injury to the return to training, you may experience various feelings, from the initial shock and anxiety to the fear of reinjury. You may go through periods of worry and grief for lost goals to outright denial of any problem. Confused and unhappy feelings are a normal response to an abnormal situation (being injured is not a "normal" situation for a motivated athlete!). So, there's no need to hide or suppress your feelings. The sooner you let them out, the sooner you can leave them behind and get on with the vital work of healing and recovery.
This blog series will give you a chance to develop your mental skills to navigate the natural ups and downs of a recovery process. The skills in this blog series range from thought logs to imagery scripts that you can use at any time. Logs allow you to express your emotions on paper, and encourage reflection in the moment. Understanding that these are normal emotions to feel in those moments of uncertainty, and that this is a process and not just a moment.
Rest and Recovery
Understanding that rest and recovery are integral to training, especially on the road to recovery. Rest can be multifaceted. Taking time away from rehabilitation can be extremely helpful, as can proper nutrition, hydration, quality sleep, and mental and physical relaxation. Recovery can also involve interacting with supportive people in your life. Inadequate recovery in the return-to-play process can cause setbacks to the healing and return to play process.
Understanding the power of the breath is essential to relaxation when experiencing the injury process. Breathing properly is relaxing and facilitates performance by increasing the amount of oxygen in the blood and carrying more energy to the muscles. High-pressure performance can cause an athlete to hold their breath or take shallow, short breaths, creating tension. Deep, slow, complete breaths contract that tension. Diaphragmatic breathing can be broken down into 3 parts: The Setup, The Inhale, and The Exhale.
The Set Up: Get into a comfortable position. Put one hand on your abdomen and the other on your upper chest. Exhale all the air out of your lungs.
The Inhale: Imagine your lungs are divided into three different parts: the lower, middle, and top. When you inhale deeply, focus on breathing so the hand on your abdomen moves up and down while your top hand remains as still as possible. This fills all parts of your lungs. Inhale through the nose, expanding your hand on your stomach, and emphasizing taking a long, slow, deep inhalation through the nose, inhaling as much air as possible.
The Exhale: As you exhale through your mouth, focus on the feeling of air draining out the three parts of the lung, forcing the last bit of air to pull the stomach in further. This causes tension to leave the body, causing you to become calm in the moment.
Repeat this cycle at least 4-6 times and notice how you feel.
Understanding that the energy that is used during the day can be beneficial in the recovery process, the energy you have everyday is correlational to a bank account. The more in your account the more energy you have as your account goes down you may feel depleted.
Awareness: The Bank Account; you have a balance of energy that you wake up with every day. Balances can look different from day to day depending on how much energy you put in (bank) or take out (withdraw). Notice where your energy is at at a given time, and determine where your capacity is at. You can do things that maintain the optimal amount of energy needed on the road to recovery.
Banking Energy: When it comes to activities that add to your balance in the bank account, these would be activities that add to your rehabilitation process, like getting the right amount of sleep, proper hydration, getting all of your rehabilitation exercises done, relaxing, eating the balanced foods, and not overexerting yourself at the wrong time.
Draining Energy: When it comes to activities that take away from your account balance this would include not getting the proper amount of sleep, not drinking enough water, poor fueling or under fueling, over exerting yourself at the wrong time in your rehabilitation process, and only doing your rehabilitation exercise when you want to do them. (Disclaimer) a hard workout would be considered an energy drain, but it also does not mean the athlete did not do something right by engaging in it.
Self-Talk and Mindfulness
Understanding what you say to yourself will enhance self-worth and performance over time. Why is Identifying Self-Talk Important: Awareness of what you say to yourself is essential for any athlete. Most athletes are unaware of the power that thoughts can have on their feelings and behavior. Developing this ability can help aid the athlete in the long run when it comes to coping with the rehabilitation process. Athletes create a better understanding of their thought processes in and out of competition.
Journaling has shown the ability to give insight into what you are thinking in the present because thoughts can become distorted over time when looked back at the past. Keeping a journal throughout the rehabilitation process will help you better understand what you are thinking in the moment and at each stage of your road to recovery creating a sense of awareness when it comes to your thoughts. Labeling your thoughts has been shown to create a heightened awareness of the effects of unproductive thoughts during the rehabilitation process. Taking the thoughts you have listed in the Self-Talk Journal, break them down into two categories. Unproductive thoughts are more negative in nature, causing you to question your abilities as an athlete. Productive thoughts are the flip side of that, where they boost your confidence and motivation on your road to recovery.
Having the understanding that staying in the moment is integral to training, especially on the road to injury recovery. Mindfulness can be multifaceted. Taking time to recenter yourself is necessary, no matter what stage in your rehabilitation process. Mindfulness can also involve accepting yourself in the moment no matter what is happening or being where your feet are at the moment. Inadequate thinking in the return-to-play process can cause setbacks to an athlete's ability to step back onto the field in their respective sport.
A big part of mindfulness is being in the present moment. Keeping a log of your thoughts throughout the rehabilitation process will allow you to see where your mind is at in the present moment. Creating awareness of where your thoughts are is extremely important in the rehabilitation process to understand what your mindset is at a certain stage on the road to return to play. The Neff Self-Compassion Mantras are an essential part of the rehabilitation process. How you speak to yourself during the rehabilitation process is highly essential in the long run. How you speak to yourself throughout the day can help in your process or cause you to spiral into an overwhelming state of stress. Mantras are daily reminders of acceptance.
Mindfulness
“This is hard, but only temporary.”
This is described as the ability to be aware of what’s happening without emphasizing it too much or ignoring it. Stress gets stored in the body, and if ignored, it can become a problem. But stressing about the stress causes you to be even more stressed out. The statements below are ones you can try if you are not feeling stressed.
“This is a moment of difficulty.”
“It’s hard to feel this.”
“Stress hurts.”
“Stress is difficult.”
Self-Kindness
“I’m here for you. What do you need right now?”
Self-kindness is supporting yourself and giving yourself warmth in a challenging time. This helps make stress less daunting in the rehabilitation process. If it’s hard to say something kind to yourself, try picturing what you would say to a close friend who is going through the same situation. Then say that to yourself.
“Let me be kind to myself in the moment.”
“Let me give myself the compassion I need.“
“I am going to get through this.”
“What do I need to be well.”
Common Humanity
“I’m not alone.”
Sometimes, stress can feel like an isolating experience. There is nothing wrong with being stressed; it’s a part of being a human being. This feeling is very common among athletes in rehabilitation. If you feel alone, try connecting with a sense of common humanity.
“Stress is a part of life.”
“It’s part of being a human.”
“I’m not the only one.”
“There is nothing wrong with me
for feeling this way.”
Goal Setting
Why is Goal-Setting Important: Understanding that setting goals is integral to training, especially on the road to injury recovery. Goal-setting can be multifaceted. Taking time to know how you want to come back from injury is necessary, no matter what stage in your rehabilitation process. Goal-setting can also involve accepting yourself in the moment no matter what is happening so that you can create goals to get back to playing. Without goal-setting in the return-to-play process, it can cause setbacks to an athlete's ability to step back onto the field in their respective sport.
A big part of goal-setting is being able to formulate goals that stretch over a multitude of aspects. S.M.A.R.T. goals accomplish this by expanding on goals by looking at specifics, how they are measurable, their attainability, how realistic they are, and how time-based. Keeping a log of your goals throughout the rehabilitation process will allow you to see where your mind is at in the present moment—creating awareness of the progress throughout the rehabilitation process.
Process Goals, Performance Goals, and Outcome Goals are essential parts of the goal-setting process. The type of goals that you set for yourself during the rehabilitation process is highly critical in the long run—having the understanding that there are subsections of goals that are process-driven, performance-driven, and outcome-driven. Also, certain types of goals are more useful in changing behavior than other types of goals in the rehabilitation process. Process goals involve the act of the athlete during the rehabilitation process. This is underpinning the performance in the moment on the road to recovery. Focusing on improving strategy, form, and other aspects needed to perform a skill more successfully, for example, focusing on doing your rehabilitation exercises with perfect form.
Performance goals involve the act of focusing on improvements relative to one’s past performance in the rehabilitation process. These goals specify the end products of performance but are usually expressed in terms of personal achievement and often involve a numerical value. These goals are frequently more flexible and within your control.
Although these goals are unaffected by the performance of others, they are still influenced by external factors. Outcome goals involve focusing on the performance that focuses on the end result. This should be considered with a grain of salt in the rehabilitation process. Having an end goal in the rehabilitation process is great, but this isn’t a goal to live by because it can change over time. Outside factors out of your control in the rehabilitation process can affect this type of goal. You have more tools than you realize.
If you are an athlete who is interested in learning more about the process of mental performance work, feel free to reach out.
Trail of Potential Mental Performance Consulting
Unlock your best performance with athlete-centered mental skills training built on real experience and evidence-based practice. Trail of Potential helps athletes and teams strengthen focus, confidence, resilience, and overall well‑being through a personalized blend of humanistic, mindfulness, self-compassion, attentional control, and holistic approaches.
Whether you're navigating injury, building consistency, or striving for peak performance, each session is tailored to your needs with tools such as mindfulness training, attentional control work, and identity‑driven development.
Empower your performance. Elevate your potential.
Contact: btrailtopmpc@gmail.com
