By Murad Abbed, MS, CSCS, Orthopedic & Sports Enhancement Center
June 22, 2010. A week before my 21st birthday, I began going through one of the greatest physical and mental challenges of my life. Dribbling a basketball up the court during a YMCA summer league game, ironically being guarded by my college roommate/teammate, I planted my right leg looking to drive towards the hoop, but my knee gave out and I ended up tearing my ACL. I remember the moment vividly. Having played team sports since the age of five, this experience affected not only my personal physical well-being, but I felt lost in my social world as well. I have always been identified as a highly motivated, hard-working athlete. However, I felt that identification was taken away from me in a split second.
During the weeks leading up to and following my surgery, I went through a constant inner battle on what my next step should be. As a non-scholarship, Division III student-athlete at Eureka College, I was torn between giving up athletics, or trying to battle back from injury and continue to compete on the football field and basketball court. However, I soon realized that I couldn’t imagine not completing my student-athlete career at Eureka College. The physical therapists at the Orthopedic and Sports Enhancement Center encouraged me to go for it, so I made the decision to do everything possible to not just recover from my injury, but to withstand the demands of competing in football and basketball.
The surgery involved reconstructing my ACL, after which the rehabilitation phase began. At the time, I didn’t know that my rehabilitation was the beginning of a journey that would help shape the path of my future career. My physical therapists not only challenged me, but they also taught me a lot. We began with initial balancing and stabilization exercises, along with a focus on regaining the range of motion in my knee. Soon after I was able to begin focusing on gaining strength in the major muscles surrounding my knee with minimal pain. Within three to four months after surgery, I was able to squat, jump, and run on the treadmills. During this time, I found out how much more difficult physical therapy was then I initially imagined. There were many days I thought the workout was so difficult I wouldn’t be able to make the drive back to Eureka. While there were days when I didn’t want to go through the therapy, I had a great support system from the OSEC staff, my coaches, teammates, and athletic trainers at Eureka, and, most importantly, my family.
Once the physical therapy phase was over, I transitioned to the sports performance phase, where I was able to continue working with the same people. This transition was one that came with great challenges both mentally and physically. While the physical therapy phase focused on regaining the strength and integrity of my knee prior to injury, the sports performance phase challenged me to further grow and develop my entire body to reach the next level. With a focus on technique, the demanding programs I went through helped develop strength, power, and speed, while maintaining and enhancing my flexibility. Although many would believe the physical demands of the strength programs would be the most difficult, it was overcoming the mental obstacles that were the most challenging. Trusting myself and my body was the biggest key to overcoming those battles. I had to reassure myself that I had once done these particular movements and could execute them again with great focus and determination. The hard work I had done for nearly a year helped me prepare physically and trust my instincts mentally in such a way that I was able to compete again without the fear of injury.
My personal injury and rehab experience caused me to develop a passion for the field of strength and conditioning, which led me to major in exercise science. I was able to finish my career as a student-athlete, injury free, and go on to complete a Master’s program at Eastern Illinois University.
Murad Abbed is employed as the assistant director of sports performance at Orthopedic & Sports Enhancement Center. For more information about their physical therapy and sports performance programs, you may contact them at 309-663-9300 or visit them online at sportsenhancement.net.
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