Latest / The Uplift- with Luke Pollock / #23 - Solo Pod - We Don't Have Much Time... Take It Seriously!
Transcript
- Luke Pollock: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the uplift. You're back with me, Luke, again, for another solo episode this week. I am just gonna go on a little bit of ⁓ tangent about injuries and what I have been going through recently and some of my thoughts on injuries as well. So yeah, there's gonna not be too much structure, but I hope if you're on a walk, a cycle, in the car, on your way to work, on your way home from work, wherever you might be, or even you're on a run or exercising. Whoever you might be listening to this or watching this, I hope that it provides some value for you. I'm gonna try and keep it on track, with my what I've got written down and with my thoughts from this morning. So this morning just been for a a coffee with Catherine, who is my fiance, and we yeah, we just went for a morning coffee and a walk. And I came back and just try to not put too much pressure on myself. When obviously I record my podcast on Wednesdays and I had to cancel my guest this week because I'm going to a physio appointment. which is ironic. I know as a physio myself, but I it's something I tend to prioritize is getting treated by getting treated by other people rather than trying to sort all my issues myself. just because I like to have a fresh pair of eyes on stuff and it also makes me feel a little bit more Yeah, like I'm gonna I'm gonna adhere to whatever someone tells me to do when I put all the pressure on myself so that it it just doesn't tend to go that well and hints why I'm in the position I'm in, which is having had osteitis pubis or athletic groin pain for about six over six months now. It's June. I've had it since about October, so about eight months, I would say. And it's it's ebbed and flow in terms of its severity, but today I have decided to go ⁓ And see a specialist down in Bristol, which is really cool. I'm excited to to see to see him and to see his opinion on things. And I'm feeling really positive about this time off I've got in the offseason to get it right. So that sort of leads me on to what I want to talk about today, is is just about injuries and how we can yeah, and maybe some of our psychology around injuries. So I've got some thoughts jotted down. ⁓ This is more I wanna feel like I'm talking to people, because I know I am. So if you've got any opinions on the back of this, please shoot me a message if you listen to the episode, let me know what you think about it. Okay. So first lad like rehab and injuries aren't easy. And I sometimes think that forget this in in practice. So it's well known that they aren't easy and that ⁓ injuries are one of the toughest parts of sport and If you're out with an ACL at the minute or you're out with another long-term injury, it can be really tough and really frustrating. But by knowing that it is tough and frustrating and actually accepting that, it kind of makes it more achievable. So I remember an Alex Ramosy quote and he was like, It it's really tough and it's really hard. But someone then said to him, But this is the tough and hard bit that you're gonna go through. And once you sort of accept it being like, ⁓ this is the hard thing that people talk about when they talk about injuries in sport. You realize okay, it's not that bad. I still can go on. It's not terrible. I just can't do my sport and I have to do other things which might be less enjoyable because it's less social, et cetera. But once you accept that this is the hard thing that people talk about and it doesn't get much worse than this if you're in the depths of injury, then that's that's the first edge, I would I would say. and it's often not hard. In the way we think it's hard. So we think it's just gonna be hard socially and the physical rehab's gonna be hard, but can be hard in terms ⁓ expense as well as timely. So yeah. By ignoring this and trying to the sorry, the expense and the timely aspect are often things that people forget. So we think, ⁓ it's just gonna be hard physically, it's gonna be hard because I won't be able to play my sport, but they don't account for the time aspect. So they don't account that actually some of these injuries could take up to a year to fully recover from. ⁓ And don't account for the expense aspect as well. So it should be hard financially because you should be investing back into yourself. And trust me, this is not a sales pitch, but this is for to remind myself as well. Because obviously my appointment today is quite expensive. I'm going down to Bristol. ⁓ It's away from work. So it is expensive for me to do this. But that is the reality of injuries. And if you want to be in a position where you get paid to play sport or you enjoy playing sport because you're playing at the highest level you can, then it costs money as well as just time and effort. Okay, so it doesn't just stop at time and effort. Money, unfortunately, is how our society flows and works. So if you want to invest into yourself, it's not just time. it's often money as well. And that's to ⁓ the information in a concise way which you can really follow. Because we're not short of information. I have all the information available on my injury. But if I want bespoke information for me from a specialist, ⁓ gonna cost me time and it's gonna cost me money. ⁓ Once I've accepted that that's an investment back into myself, completely fine. And that's something I would be happy to spend my money on. I think it it becomes a bit more of a problem when we expect these things to be free ⁓ easy. and they're never free or easy. And when we try and treat them like they should be free or easy, so like long-term injuries or yeah, chronic pain or whatever it is, if you try and ⁓ treat this I this should be free or this should be easy to get over. then then they build up to be a bigger thing that will have detriment to us in future. So Jordan said actually in his book, which I was rereading my summary of from twenty twenty, which is crazy because that's nearly six years ago that I read that book for the first time. ⁓ And I I this quote from him what we least want to encounter will make itself known when we are weakest and it is strongest. And think that's so true. ⁓ What what the injury you're ignoring or the thing you're ignoring or the you're trying to go the cheap way, that will work for so long in the short term. But then when you're weakest and the injury is most prevalent or dragging you down the most, that's when it's gonna make itself known and that's when it's gonna feel worst. So wanna address these things earlier to try and get on top of them. And I think a lot of people are obsessed with getting like feeling like they're getting a deal on their own body. And so am I. Ultimately, you wanna feel like you're getting a good Price for things, but when you spend money on yourself, feel guilty for it and we tend to think, ⁓ I could definitely have done this cheaper, or that's really expensive. But you're happy to spend money on others, on clothes, on that like don't directly your health. But then when there's something that directly impacts our health, we can be really hesitant to spend money on it. And this is deeper psychological thing. I think sometimes we don't prioritize ourselves as much. As we should, and we think that that should only be reserved for elite athletes because they make all their money playing their sports, so they have to take care of their body. But if you're into health and fitness at all, you also have to take care of your body. And you you should be like able to invest time into your body, so you should also be willing to invest your money into your as well. And there's study that showed that people were better. I don't know the study, I just have heard this loads of times. People were better at finishing. an antibiotic cour a course of antibiotics for their dog than for themselves. And that's just a like that's just living proof that we're better at caring for other things than we are ourselves often. And we're better at Yeah, considering others financially, it's a partner or a family member, you'd be happy to give them a present for a spade, but very unlikely to give that to yourself often. And ultimately I think your own body is your responsibility. like it is mine. So my my body's my responsibility. I can't wait for time my club physio or anyone else to take care of this injury or even my like even rely on myself when I know deep down that I'm I'm not equipped to fix this problem, otherwise I would have fixed it by now. So I shouldn't I can't keep saying, I should know what to do. And hide behind that excuse because I'm a physio. In my case, I've had to actually invest time, money, and resource to go to see a specialist. And hopefully it works out tonight. And I'm I'm filming really positive about it, like I said. But yeah, I think it's just important that we learn to look after ourselves, whether you're an athlete or or even not an athlete and you're just someone who likes health and fitness or self development, it's it's really important that you prioritize your own health because ultimately then you're prioritizing those around you. by default because you're trying to get the best version out of yourself. You know, my fiance, my family, they don't have a good time or an enjoyable time when I'm injured and I'm growing and complaining about it. No one likes to be around that person. So you actually owe it to those people that you love and care about to sort yourself out. Try and be in a really good physical point of view ⁓ position so they don't have to hear about it all the time as well. and you can bring your best version of yourself to those events, those family events and stuff. And of course ⁓ isn't to say that like I hope you haven't taken from this that injuries ⁓ don't happen and we just chuck money at them is to say that we should take injuries seriously. They are hard, they are tough, but you shouldn't just think that someone else will sort the problem for you. We need to invest in that financially, with our time and with our resource. And that is part of the difficulty that people talk about. And you might invest in it and it might not get any better. And that's part of the difficulty too. It might be frustrating. It might be a longer road than you first thought. But that is the tough that people talk about. And when you accept that You can sort of get through it. the next point I want to make is about curious about your body as well. athletes who are bought into the process often get the best results. So those who are just on the flip side, those who are just chucking money at it or relying on someone else's else's opinion and then not investing into what that process actually looks like, often they'll get good results. And they won't get the most for their money and for their for their resource. So although I'm paying money tonight, I plan to soak up absolutely everything that this practitioner tells me and also tech tech from okay, how am I gonna treat my patients in future? What is what does his assessment look like compared to my assessment? So I'm getting more from it than just a physical assessment and a bit of a plan from it. I dive dive deep into this this evening and I think people should dive deep into their own rehab process as well. So I love when my athletes ask me, Well why am I doing this? what does this have to do with getting back to play rugby or netball or football or Muay Thai? and why why have been doing this exercise for so many weeks? Or why am I still doing this? I don't I don't understand the ⁓ This principle of the rehab. I love when people ask me questions because at first it challenges me as a practitioner and I'm often like, ⁓ flip, why I'm why is he doing this? Am I just going through the motions or is there reason behind it? And I like to have reason behind what they're doing. I also find myself as an athlete asking those questions and not getting the answer really puts me off the process. So I worked with a coach last summer build some strength and power. I won't say how it ⁓ was, but I always ask the questions like, Why am I doing these exercises? Why am I doing these exercises? And Ultimately I finished working with him because I didn't get the answers I wanted. He wasn't very good at reasoning the answers. And I said, Well, I I would prefer to do it this way and he said, Well, I don't I don't do it that way. And then I left the coaching. So it it didn't end very well because wasn't an open dialogue, it wasn't free flowing, it wasn't natural curiosity. ⁓ Think about you're a child, when you're in the park and your dad maybe Come over here, what's the first thing that you're gonna say if you were a child? You'd be like, Why? Why am I doing this? And children always ask why. And I think that is the the childlike curiosity that we need to refine sometimes ⁓ when through what can seem like monotonous and tedious, whether that's in business, whether that's your own body, when you're you ask questions, you're naturally curious, and it opens up a natural conversation which will which will make the whole so much more enjoyable if you're childlike. And I love like I love the idea of being childlike both in your performance and your sport. And there's a profile on Instagram that I follow, ⁓ called Sip Dreck, which and he talks all the time about being childlike in your sport and and reigniting that childlike curiosity, playing without fear. And the Bible also tells us to be childlike. Like in Matthew it says, Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, will you enter the kingdom of heaven? And I think that's really like I think there's something in that as well. to to become like children again and to have that natural curiosity and to not take ourselves too seriously either. Yeah, as adults we become serious and would rather not ask questions. We have too much going on and we take ourselves too seriously. And I would rather just pay someone to take care of this and then I don't have to think about it. But that's so boring and it makes the process seem monotonous and tedious and it makes us feel like we have to do something. Like have conversations, be curious, be open to being wrong. Be open to learning as well. And this could become something that really sticks with you. You know, if you're injured at the minute and you're going through a rehab process and you really understand how to get better and you really understand the principles of rehab, then eventually you could teach other people how to do that. You can maybe get paid to do that. Maybe you want to go and do a physio masters. Like you just never know what will come from it. And often the best physios are those who have had injuries, that have gone through the thing, that have learned what it is to be injured and how to get better. Like this is just an example, obviously, because these are the athletes I work with and it's my daytime job. But in everything, I think we should be more childlike and and curious and take ourselves out a bit less a bit less seriously. And then we'll see sort of natural beauty and things. And I was actually just listening to an Olivia Dean jazz concert from four years ago on YouTube when I was like just preparing the notes for this. It was in the background. And two things. I'm actually tired and I'm really guilty of this when something is common and someone is like really big to pretend that like, ⁓ I shouldn't mention that. It's not like niche or it's not like original enough for me to mention. Like someone like Olivia Dean at the minute, who's probably one of the biggest pop stars in in the world, it's not cool to be like, I love that song anymore because everyone loves that song because it's played in the radio all the time and we're sick of it. But I think that's actually a really dead mentality, and I think we should have on a Shimid, yeah, like being a child again, you should be on a shimid No, I love that, that was sick. And she said, Ordinary things are very beautiful, ⁓ in between one of her songs. I actually really liked it. ⁓ so I'm gonna quote Olivia Dean on this podcast. But yeah, I I think that's so true. Ordinary things can be really beautiful ⁓ if appreciate them and we ask questions of them and we are naturally curious. Now, my third and final point, and I'm nearly finished with the with this random ⁓ with this runt. Sorry, it's not random. It's very intentional. But why? Why should you care so much? Why should you be curious? Why should you invest into your body like I'm saying? and it's because time goes quickly. So I'm 25, coming 26 now ⁓ and will have probably like four to five seasons left that imagine I'll I'll play for. Maybe I'll play a bit longer, but ⁓ realistically four or really good seasons left. one of those might be taken up with injury. Who knows? hopefully not, but it could be. And if it does, I welcome that challenge. ⁓ although that's easier to say than to do, of course. But I say this because it feels like yesterday that I was waking up 8 a.m. and had my school game at 10 30. And that was like seven or eight years ago now. And that was the biggest deal of my life then. And it felt like that period of time was gonna last forever and it didn't and it passed and now I'm like eight years on and I don't even know like the time just goes and before you know it your your window where you can play competitive contact sport is over because grow older, priorities change, time commitments change, our bodies change as well. The goes and we can't ignore that. And I think it's really important to enjoy that. And I'm reading a book called Destiny at the minute. ⁓ Which is talking about the finality of life, which sounds pretty heavy when we're talking about injuries, but it's actually a really, really nice thing to accept that this isn't forever and it won't last forever. So we can enjoy a bit more at the time. And also we can take it more seriously as well. So ⁓ When when I have an injury like mine, which is quite chronic and holding me back, I can't just be like, ⁓ yeah, hopefully it'll go by next season. No, this time's really, really valuable. I might only have four or five more proper seasons left. I wanna get this fixed. I wanna make sure I get it fixed now. So I have the best season ever next season. So it's not just like a an average season again, 'cause I only have four or five of them. So in some sense we have like lots of time, like four or five years is obviously loads of time and ⁓ obviously still really young or whatever. But in another sense we also don't have that much time. So we should t treat it more seriously and take our ourselves a little bit more seriously when we're thinking about our time we have to to play and to do the things we want to do. and I think that's why we should enjoy the journey as well, enjoy the process of getting better, rehabbing that injury. and enjoy ultimately enjoy playing as well and If we're not enjoying playing, we need to really ask ourselves ourselves serious questions because we've only got a few more a few more years to do it. So yeah, don't hide behind the injury. Don't hide behind the lack of effort as well. So final, final thoughts for you. It's like, are you hiding behind an injury? Are you hiding behind a lack of effort? And what I mean by that is are you scared that you might not perform that well even if you were better? So you blame the injury? Or are you scared that you might not perform that well if you try? So you blame a lack of effort. And this is something I've done before and I creep back into is like, ⁓ I could have probably done that better if I really tried, or ⁓ I could have played at the next level if I really, really wanted to, but I just don't want to. And I think that's also a really rubbish and dead mentality as well. Like if you're not growing in in that sense. And I said this last week, if you're not growing and dying, you're dying in a personal sense, which is which is true. And I think you hide behind those things, ultimately that's an insecurity speaking. And need to address that because yeah, you're you're not getting what you want from from our sport. Ultimately, whether you're getting paid, whether you're not getting whether it's for your health and wellbeing, you want to enjoy what you're doing. So ⁓ Try not to hide behind a lack of effort, hide behind an obstacle like an injury, because our time is too short and we should enjoy it and be really honest and open about, yeah, I'm trying really hard but I'm not playing well, or I'm trying really hard but I didn't make a team, or I tried really hard to play at that level, but I wasn't at that level at the time. And be really have those honest conversations and it's almost like taking the weight off your shoulders 'cause you don't have to hide behind this sort of fuzzy myriad of things. You can just be really honest with yourself and yeah. It makes the whole process a lot more enjoyable. This has felt like quite a serious podcast, but just something I was ⁓ thinking about when I was thinking about ⁓ why ⁓ is it hard for me to pay for physio and why is it hard for me to invest time into this? And then I started writing down a few thoughts and ⁓ is all something that I've been dealing with. So it's not ⁓ that I'm just trying to preach to ⁓ These are all things that I've been struggling with over my playing career and every day really that I I want to address and make known. And this has be become like a really good place, the podcast, for my thoughts to just become fluid and for me to just speak how I want to speak and for like a little project for me to to focus on every Wednesday and I've I've absolutely loved it. And having over twenty podcasts I've realized has taken me into the top one percent of podcasts. So if you're here listening to this, you're actually listening to the top one percent of podcasts. something crazy, like ninety of podcasts don't make it past episode eight. And then ninety percent of them don't make it past episode twenty. So we're now in episode like twenty two and I've got no plans to stop. I've got plans to grow this and yeah, I've got plans to keep doing it for a long, long time. until I get bored, until I don't find it fun. ⁓ And I'm excited by that and that excites me. So let me know if you want any guests, ⁓ any particular guests on in future. ⁓ I'm get Alex Morel on next week now, 'cause I've got this appointment ⁓ today. So I will keep you up to date with how it goes. If you're listening to this and you are injured and you do want rehab, please do get in contact. I'm taking on two more athletes before August because I'm away for a period of July. So if want to get on, get on now and we can work together before, during, and after I'm away as well. So yeah, thank you for listening. I've enjoyed recording this. I've enjoyed brain dumping on you all and I hope you enjoy the quotes and stuff. These are things that I just collect throughout my week and jot down for the podcast and just let make little little notes throughout my week. And even if you don't make something like a podcast, I I would urge you to do the same. Just jot things down that you find helpful, you find enjoyable, and then you can revisit them at a time where you feel necessary or where you're maybe not in yeah, maybe not enjoying enjoying the time you're in or you're just doom scrolling, it's so much better to revisit old good thoughts. yeah, have a really good week. Have a good day. If you're listening to this, in the morning, have a great day. If you're listening to this in the evening, rest well ⁓ and will catch you on the ne next episode. Thanks for listening.