Hannah hurt her knee playing hockey. She carried on playing, but she was understandably wary any time she felt a twinge of pain. And at the back of her mind was the lingering thought that carrying on playing might make it worse. Or just make her hockey injury recovery slower than it needed to be.
She didn’t want to avoid playing if possible. But she also didn’t want to speed-run through a recovery programme that left her worse than she already was. She just wanted to continue playing one of her favourite sports without issue.
“Initially, I was a little bit hesitant to keep playing because I was a bit worried about the implications of what that would be. Before I joined, if I’d had a back spasm, I would have just completely stopped exercise because I would have been too scared to continue.”
Finding the right hockey injury recovery programme wasn’t simple. Hannah had a history of back pain which also came up during training. And when it did, Hannah stopped training completely. Stopping felt like the safe option at the time. But the knock on effect was that the knee then stayed where it was.
She needed a strength and conditioning programme that loaded the knee properly. She needed somewhere she could train at her own pace. And she needed a bit of help from qualified strength coaches who could tell her what a flare-up actually meant.
Enter G2G Coaching
Hannah came to G2G Coaching for the hockey injury recovery work specifically. She trained with strength coach Oliver Jessop and the rest of the team. What stood out to her was how they handled it when something did hurt.
“G2G seemed the best place for me because they are experts in that field of long-term recovery from any sports injuries. The coaches and the team were really supportive in helping me through it, and helping me frame it in a way that it wasn’t as scary as I initially thought it was, and that we could work through it.”
After that, a flare-up became something to train around for a couple of weeks instead of a reason to stop.
The gym itself was also a huge part of Hannah’s successful hockey injury recovery. G2G is a private gym in Edinburgh with a cap on how many people train at once, so Hannah was never waiting on equipment or rushing a set.
She also got hands-on coaching without having to book a personal trainer in Edinburgh for every session. There is a coach on the floor throughout. This means that with G2G Coaching, the cost of hockey injury recovery is far less than it would working with a PT.
“It’s very different from your normal gym. It’s quite intimate, it’s friendly, it’s comfortable, you have space. There’s a limit to the number of people that can go into the gym, so there’s no competing for equipment. You’ve got your workout zone, and you’ve got one-to-one assistance whenever you need it. It almost keeps you accountable. It does help having someone around who’s got half an eye on you at times.”
A Strength and Conditioning Programme for Hockey Sports Injury Recovery
Hannah’s plan followed the same principles as any of our strength training in Edinburgh programmes. We build every programme around what our members need at the time to achieve their goals.
The knee was loaded progressively rather than avoided. Sessions were adjusted when her back flared rather than cancelled. This meant she could continue training carried on through the weeks that were not perfect.
“After a few months, I was back playing a full game of hockey with no knee pain. I’m just more confident now, and I know that my recovery will be a lot better than it used to be.”
Within a few months Hannah was playing full matches again. She now knows how to keep training when something flares up, and she won’t need to pay through the nose for a Personal Trainer. Because she’s already done it once with a coach next to her and she knows what she needs to do.
