I’m back to training this week, so I thought I’ll start this blog on a high. The 5 weeks I’ve been out have gone quite quickly although some days felt as if they were dragging with all the rehab and running I had to do.
It’s difficult to regain your fitness while you’re out injured. Certainly to be out at this point in the season is more frustrating in terms of say having a 4-5 week lay-off in February/March because at that point you’ve built up a real core fitness which aids your recovery no end. Match fitness is another issue – if this happens later in the season it’s less of an issue but earlier is a bit of a nightmare you feel you’ve undone all the good work of pre-season and the start of the season.
That said I’d like to think that in 2-3 games you can start to get back your sharpness and match fitness to a level that is more in line with where you would normally expect to be at.
During my recovery period I’ve been a little bit of a hermit apart from going in to the club that is.
I’ve hardly left my house otherwise though and I’ve just chilled at home and bought a few dvds to keep me busy – all I’ve been concentrating on is getting fit again and pick up where I left from if not raise my game and push for the reserves.
I was training on Thursday, and it felt great going out with the lads and getting out on the training pitch. I was buzzing. Only slight annoyance was still feeling the stiffness in my groin but that’s to be expected at this stage. I tried to put the pain to the back of my mind – very much mind over matter style and get back in to the pace of the game.
I felt fit as I have done quite a number of fitness circuits during my time in rehab but you can never replicate the fitness that you get on a football pitch. Very few players can turn up and just carry on as they left off.
I was only allowed to train during the afternoon session because the lads had an 11 v 11 in house game mixed with the reserve team prior to that.
I wasn’t allowed to play a part in that one as I need to work on building myself up again first to ensure I don’t suffer any other problems.
I trained on Friday, and had a recovery day in the gym on Saturday morning, and watched the lads put a good perfomance in the afternoon against Middlesbrough as they came out victorious in a very entertaining match, winning 4-3.
