FRIDAY FACEOFF - HOW DO YOU GET THROUGH AN INJURY?

0:00What's up, hotty thing tankers, welcome to another Friday, face offs episode sponsored by Titan Battle Gear. If you listen to our episode about a year ago with the Titan Battle Gear founder, you know why we love this guys. I hate neckards. I'll come right out and say it. Not a fan of me wearing it. I think now makes sense if everybody's got to wear at least wear one that you like, at least wear one that looks cool, at least wear one. That's actually protective. That's for you mom and dads out there. Titan Battle Gear has the highest cut resistance fabric on the market. The some of the big dogs, they're lined up. All right, some of them have like pieces of paper that they're calling neck guards and it's an absolute J.O.K.E joke. All right. With Titan Battle Gear, you can either customize your own, you can pick from one of

1:00their dope designs or you can create your own design for your entire team so that your whole team matches, which is really, really cool. And they do team discounts as well. But needless to say, you want to look cool, you want to actually be protected. And you don't want that stupid Velcro on the back of your neck. Titan Battle Gear is who you want to go to and all of our listeners get a discount if you go to TitanBattleGear.com slash GMBM, save money, look cool, protect your damn neck. Let's go, baby. Protect that neck. That's right. That's going on everybody. Happy Friday, face off. What's happening in the hockey world? Not going on in the hockey world. And we will tell you guys, we should say this right now because Friday, face off is typically a day where sometimes, vex and I, we take some controversial stuff that's going on in the hockey world. And we kind of bat it around. There's a development league from USA hockey. That was just announced. I shouldn't say just announced, but the teams were just selected from it. And we just did a full podcast with somebody from USA hockey to talk about it.

2:04But that is not a 10 minute episode. That is a full episode that we needed to do. So that is coming out on Monday. So today we're going to do a 10 minute episode on last week. We talked about if you're having a bad game or you had a bad game, how do you bounce back? Listener question from a hockey mom whose, whose son was going through it. And we talked about that last week. And this week we wanted to pivot but kind of stay in that same lane. How do you get through an injury? Like we're, you're seeing it now, even in the NHL has been a ton of injuries just over the past few weeks or so. And how do you best mentally? How do you best physically get through the injury while you're going through it? And then as you get as close to 100% and you're ready to go, what's your mindset need to be like mentally, right? When you get to that, I've got to get back to performing piece. So Vex, let's start with you. You are the strength coach. You are the guy who knows a lot about the body.

3:08Do us a little bit and give our listeners our kids or parents here a little bit of, um, of advice on how to best physically get through a grueling rehab and get through when you're hurt physically. Yeah, I mean, the first thing I would say, the first thing, you have to make sure that you go to the right people to evaluate you. Okay. For instance, 99% of people that I've spoken to that reach out to me about concussion problems. The doctor that they went and saw is like their pediatric doctor or their, their normal MD that they go to for the coffin squeeze and, and you know, like the, their wellness checks before they got to go to the elementary school or whatever. Listen, guys, those doctors know a little about a lot. They don't know a lot about a little. A concussion is a very specific injury. So I'm not saying all doctors that are, that are just general MDs are not the ones you want to go to a concussion, but I'm also saying that, okay, go to an actual concussion specialist. If you have something going on, concussion wise, if it's a knee, go to a knee, an orthopedic, go to a PT.

4:11If you have a friend that can, that is, you know, a good one that can help you diagnose, you know, more minor things, stuff like that. But you have to go to the right person to figure out the right course of action of how to get you back to playing. General MDs have no knowledge of return to play protocols. All right. They, they, they, again, you understand what I'm saying here. So number one, go to the right person. Okay. It's very, very important. Number two, if you get some type of injury, all right. And this is something I see with a lot of younger players. Let's say you injure your right leg. Well, guess what? Your left leg, your whole upper body, your hands, you, you, you can stick it. You can still train. You can still get better. You hurt your right arm. Your whole arm doesn't work. Well, guess what? You got a left arm. You got two legs. You got some cheeks. You got ankles. You got feet, you know, you, you could stick hand to one handed with your good hand. Doesn't matter if it's your bottom hand or your top hand, you can still practice it killing. You can still watch video. The biggest thing that I want to impose on you guys, if you get an injury,

5:11there are a million different ways that you can get better, no matter what the injury is. And I tell people this all the time, one of my clients actually just had, had his a, a clavicle break from a terrible slew foot over the weekend. No penalty either. Absolute joke. Got basically WWF body slammed like it was the 90s. Maybe he got Stone Cold Stunner to look like. But anyways, so, so like when you have an injury, it, what my, my talk with him was, guess what? The two things that propelled my career further than anything else when I look back at my whole hockey career, getting cut from my first triple A team at, you know, 10 years old, 11 years old, whatever it was, it was a summer team. That propelled me and getting injured my first year of juniors where I missed half the season. Those two things did more for my career than anything else that happened in my career. When I got that injury, it forced me to find ways to get better. It forced me to look in the mirror and be like, do I really want this? Am I going to put in the works that when I come back, not only am I ready, I'm going to be better. So you can use this adversity as a tool to help you level up and find ways

6:16where you don't, you don't usually have as much time to work out in season. You don't usually have as much time to, to study the game of hockey because you got school and practice and your girlfriend and family and blah, blah, blah, blah. When I, you don't got a bunch of that, all right. Your girlfriend left you because you got injured. No, I'm just kidding. Right. So you have more time on your hands. So it's up to you to decide a course of action, a plan of how to go from injured right now to your target date of coming back and do everything you can to come back better than when you left. All right. Like that's the mindset you must, must, must have. And obviously I know Tofe knows about this. You know, he's told the story on our podcast tons of times. He had so many Division one teams talking to him going into his last year, juniors and even at the start of it. And then he tore his knee and he had one to two teams calling and that was it. Everybody else left him, right. He used that as motivation throughout his recovery process to come back and score eight billion goals in next year.

7:17He went on to play at Cornell was the captain, all right, and had over a hundred points in the ECAC and they play like two games a year. So it's extremely impressive. So I'll let Tofe talk about how to get their injuries here. But like I said, go to the right doctor or person to evaluate you, create a plan, remind yourself that no matter what the injury is, there are always ways that you can be getting better and then stick to that plan, push yourself, come back even better. Yeah, I would just add to that. Vex like go to the right doctor and then listen to that doctor. Yeah, like how many coaches or parents they go, they get an evaluation. It's not what they want to hear. So they go to another one or they just flat out, don't listen and do something. That's the opposite of what they said because everybody and sometimes like kids want to play, right? Like kids want to play. You don't want them to not play. It's what they love to do. But with injuries, especially concussions, especially concussions, what's the point of rushing it? There's none in youth hockey.

8:18There's no point. If you're in the NHL and you're in the playoffs, play through that thing. We've all played through injuries. You know, but like in youth, especially because you're growing, you know, maybe that's why I'm five foot four. Maybe I had an injury when I was younger and I pushed it and then I didn't grow in my growth plates. I'm obviously being facetious, but there's that, you know, must have had a lot of injuries. Yeah. And the other thing, like when I tore my ACL man, the biggest thing that my parents talked to me about was like, dude, let's find a positive in this. And yes, I tore my right ECL. But my left leg was great. My upper body was great. And let's work the crap out of that while I rehab my knee. Again, surround yourself with good people that are going to be able to do that the best for you. And and and just take it slow. There's there's no rush. There's there's literally no rush. And then mentally, you know, become a student of the game. You can't play it. That doesn't mean you can't get better. Talk to your coaches about their practice planning. Like that's one of the things that I got really close with my coach.

9:22Because he allowed me in, you know, and was asking for my opinion, watching from up top during games and things like that in junior hockey, when I got hurt. And I was still getting better, even though I physically wasn't getting better that much from being on the ice. And then lastly, like when you want to touch on it real quick, I know we don't have a lot of time. But like when you get back, just give yourself some grace, man. You're not going to be the same player that you were before. You're really not. When I tore my ACL, like my coach, I still remember the conversation. He brought me into the office and he was like, this is going to take time. Like you're out there playing like you're like a bat on a hell. And it actually was good for my development because I wasn't as fast as I used to be when I first came back. So I had to think it a lot more. And I couldn't win battles on sheer I want it more. I had to learn how to think it even more because I wasn't, you know, my knee wasn't to the bad. I was wearing a brace and it was uncomfortable and, you know, I was fine to play. But it just, it's not the same when you come back for the first little bit. So just prepare yourself to give yourself some grace.

10:23You're not going to be the player you were right away. You got to work back up to it. There's hockey's a fast game. There's a lot's going. There's a lot going on. And, and, and just give yourself some grace. I have one more piece to add because this is something I wish that I would have done with a couple of like, you know, hyperaccent of my elbow a couple of times in college. Didn't miss games for it. You know, I shattered a pinky. I, I, I, I got a boxers fracture where I missed like a week of practice, but didn't miss games. Something that I wish I would have done if you have an upper body injury, other than a concussion, arms, wrist, shoulder, you know, you can still get on the ice and feel the ice and keep your, your feeling of the ice, your edge work. You don't need to go out there and practice. You don't need to go out there and be sprinting. But you guys know, like if you, if you're off the ice for three weeks, two weeks, four weeks, you start, you come back and you feel real goofy in the beginning. At least I was always that way. I wish somebody would have been like, Hey, just after practice through your skates on. If you got to have somebody else time, fine.

11:23You can't do anything that opens you up to falling on that elbow, hand, wrist, whatever you got shoulder, whatever you got going on. But just get out there and just kind of glide around and just push around and feel the ice. I think what, what that will do for your mental health, your mindset, smelling the ice, being out there, you feel like you're, you're a hockey player still, but also you're, you're feeling your edges. So when you come back, it's not going to be that goofy giraffe, baby giraffe type of sensation. Maybe your first couple of days. So I think that that's something that I would also say that when I look back with a couple of upper body injuries I have, right? I didn't miss games, but I'd missed the whole week of practice and then play on Friday. And my first time skating was Friday morning. I wish I would have went out there every day and just felt the ice for 10 minutes type of thing. So maybe, maybe keep that one in your back pocket to youngsters. Love it. Great stuff. All right, guys, hockey, it's like any sport, you're going to have injuries. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. And hopefully we've given you some stuff today to help you get through that physically,

12:24help you get through that mentally and come back even better than you were before. That's awesome. I'm a good at men. It's not a setback. Great to set up hell. Yeah.