I just had hip surgery yesterday. It was a looong day at the hospital. Got up at 5am to get to the hospital for 6:15. Checked in. Got to put on one of those wonderful little hospital gowns that showed my butt to the world. Surgery at 7:40.
Surgery went really well. They went in to clean up a torn labrum and then they notched out the head of my femur to help me with range of motion. Oh, and I’ve got a little arthritis in there too so they did some micro-fractures to help promote healing. I’m on crutches for a month.
Did I mention I’m only 38 years old? But I can trace the beginnings of this injury way back to eighth grade lacrosse. I was in the middle school but I was playing lacrosse for the upper school because I was the best goalie. I developed a tear in my left quad that I kept tearing and tearing and tearing. The trainer just kept telling me to ice it. And because I had a pretty high pain tolerance, I kept playing. But what happened because of that was I developed a hole in my quad that never healed. I played around it. I compensated. Stepping to the ball was a non issue because stepping to the ball killed.
But I played. Took one for the team. But didn’t realy think about the long-term effect on my play. What I really needed back then was a back up goalie. And a trainer that could say, “If you keep playing on this you’re going to really hurt yourself later.” Because now, after 24 years of compensating I just had to have hip surgery.
Why am I telling you all this? Because too often I see young goalies making short term decisions that can really hurt them long term. Here are a couple quick thoughts to help you with your injuries and what to do about them:
1) First ask yourself, does playing through this injury help me or hurt me? For little injuries like bruises there is a bit of “tough it out” attitude that you can adopt. While I never advocate that as a major approach to goaltending, there will be a little bit of toughening up that you will adjust to as you play.
2) Is this “little” injury really a “big” injury waiting to happen? For me it was, but I had no one in my immediate circle who could tell me that it was going to be a big injury. I look back on that trainer and really wished he said, “Listen, this is eighth grade. You’ve got a ton of time to play and what you really need to do right now is heal. You will come back better if you rest now and heal rather than play yourself through an injury that is going to effect everything you do for the rest of your athletic career.” I needed someone to tell me that.
3) Every goalie, at some point, gets over a certain “pain threshold.” I got to this point where a shooter couldn’t hit me with a ball hard enough. Balls no longer hurt. I don’t mean to say that they didn’t hurt, but I was able to deal with that pain. Looking back on that now it was a bit silly to take that attitude but id did help. I never compromised on equipment over pain. If I got hit in the shoulder and it hurt the next practice, I would put on a shoulder pad so that I didn’t get hurt again. I would take the shoulder pads off for the game, but back they would go for practice until I healed. Now equipment is so light you can wear equipment in games as well and not feel bogged down.
4) Does your injury effect your technique? If your injury effects your technique you need to step back and think about whether to continue because playing with bad technique can be creating bad habits that will take you a while to relearn once your healthy. But sometimes playing while injured, and knowing you are playing with bad technique, is easily remedied once you are healthy. But if you are a young goalie this time playing may not be worth it, for the injury, and the bad technique.
Some quick thoughts about injuries:
You’re a varsity starter and it’s the state championship. Play.
You’re an eighthgrader and you’re the only goalie and you have an injury that causes you to limp or wince when you move: Tell your coach to find someone else to play in the cage that week. It’s not worth it.
You’re injured and you’re playing in a scouting tournament in front of a coach you really need to impress for a scholarship: I’d play. But if it was going to really hurt my career I might not.
As I write these it occurs to me that there is never a black or white “easy”, go or no-go, choice. You have to play them all by ear. How you feel at the time.
I just look back on that eighth grade spring when I was playing and wish I hadn’t. Because at the time, it wasn’t do or die even though it felt like it. I didn’t need to play. I WANTED to play for my team. I felt that pressure because I was the only goalie. But really, I didn’t need to play. And had I rested, instead of reinjuring my self every practice and every game, I would have been a better athlete later.
So I hope this helps you in some way. It’s not an easy answer. Playing with an injury can really hurt you. Not just physically, but mentally. Keep that in mind.
Jonathan – The Goalie Guru
This post came at the best time for me considering I just got back from an injury as well. About a month ago I broke my hand (4th metacarpal to be exact) and it was midway into the second quarter, so I finished off the half. Lucky for me I have a back up who took over in the second half, but being a competitior I really wanted to keep playing.
We ended up winning the game and needless to say it is probably a good thing I sat out because I need my hand for the future. This was the second time I injured a finger on that hand (broken thumb freshman year of hs) and I relaized that playing would probably be more detrimental to my future than playing through the pain.
My dad told me yesterday after I got hit on my healing hand in practice, I was cleared to play, that I should man up and finish out the season since we only have one game left and let it heal in the off season. So I agree that young goalies should take the time to heal because it usually isn’t worth the risk of losing full movement of a body part or future surgeries or pain in the future.
Great comment Mark. What kind of gloves are you using? Hate to hear about broken hands. Those are some of the toughest injuries.
This article really clears up a lot of thoughts about my future, that I’ve been having lately. I recently received knee surgery for a problem that I’ve been trying to deal with now for two years. I’m sixteen and my physio told me that if I kept playing the way I was, I would be crippled by my late twenties. I had to give up playing on 3 teams, but now I can see that I made the right decision, dealing with it right away.
Thankyou.
Cant believe this post. Monday night I was shot on by a teammate after practice. He was 10 yards away, he shot full force. Right Thumb broken….also some complications with tissue underneath the bone. Minor surgery on the thumb tomorrow. There goes my 8th grade middle school and travel season. Hope to be back by summer tournament team.
The gloves I use are Warrior Super Freak II, and I told him not to shoot. How can I keep sharp for my summer season.
great post jonathan. the other goalie on my team broke her fourth knuckle on the second day of tryouts. so instead or giving it the tlc it needed she went to the the dad of one of the better girls on the team who is an orthopedic and he gave her a tiny cast so she could still play? i thought she was crazy because if she did get hit again with the cast on hard enough she would really injure it and be out for the whole season. long behold she played up until now and the cast came off today. although she didnt get hurt it was still way too risky for me.
My son is a 7th grader who just broke the 5th metacarpal on his right hand for the 2nd time from a hard, point blank shot. He wears Superfreak II’s. Are there other gloves on the market that are more protective of knuckle injuries? Should he consider moving to box goalie gloves? Will this affect mobility/passing?
Chris I would say that is a very unlucky break. The SuperFreaks are the gloves I recommend as being the most protective. If you want to put a hockey glove on him temporarily you can but I find they are not the best for cradling and throwing. I experimented with some hockey gloves a couple of years ago when I had a bruised hand (not lacrosse related). Ultimately I went to the Superfreaks but I do have an older generation that look more like a hockey glove. I still think Warrior makes the best lacrosse goalie glove out there and would recommend that again. I just think that your son got unlucky on that one. Good news is that it’s 5th metacarpal and not 1st or 2nd. But it’s still not good I know. I’m surprised it broke actually with him being so young. Usually those bones are a little more flexible at that age.
Here is a suggestion, you are in Seattle so you may be able to find a hockey repair store in Seattle or even up in Vancouver. A repair place that can deal with hockey goalie equipment would be able to sew an additional piece of leather over that area on the glove where the break occured. This may be just the extra layer of protection your son would need. And seeing that it would be over the fourth or fifth knuckle it shouldn’t be a problem. These repair companies also have a black glue that hardens that they can paint on to that area to give it an extra layer of protection.
Good luck Chris. Let me know if you need any clarification.
Jonathan – Lacrosse Goalie Tips.com