How to prevent injuries in figure skating?

Hey everyone!👋

I don’t even dare to ask how many of you have dealt with injuries in figure skating, because I know it’s probably most of you! From small injuries and bruises from falls, to serious injuries that lead to surgeries and heavy painkillers.

It’s a tough topic

It’s really a topic you can’t get around when talking about figure skating. But a topic that gets little to no attention. Except for when some big name gets injured and talks about it. And what makes this topic controversial is that a lot of the time injuries are met with judgment and many times figure skaters who have injuries are kind of left aside, because there’s always a new name and a face to focus on.

Why do figure skaters get injured?

Number one reason is overtraining or training when tired. Injuries can also happen from accidents (crashing into other skaters), bad falls on and off the ice. Lastly injuries can occur when there’s an underlying problem that hasn’t been treated or even bad or wrong equipment can make way for an injury. If you look at it, there’s dangers everywhere for a figure skater to get injured. But there are also ways to prevent those injuries and this is what I want to focus on.

Prevention is your own decision

To prevent injuries you have to know yourself and your limits. As an athlete you’re coded to push your limits. And it’s true. In order to progress and get better you have to work hard and more than others. But don’t forget, you have to work smart. It’s not always about quantity, as much as it is about quality. Doing 10 rounds of bad triples is not better than focusing on landing 3 attempts and moving on. Preventing an injury goes on constantly and it’s the sign of a great athlete. Understandably we cannot plan our future and accidents, but by being smart about the decisions you take as an athlete can have the biggest effect on how your body feels. This is where it’s important to listen to yourself and not others. Nobody can tell you how you’re feeling except you. But be honest. Are you tired, because you went to bed too late last night or are you tired because you just skated back to back runthroughs? Being honest with yourself is the core relationship you will have in sports and trust me coaches see through it. When your coach knows that you’ve been working extremely hard while being disciplined and exemplary, they will understand you asking for a little extra time to recover. When your coach sees you posting selfies from the mall or having fun at the water park and then failing to be fresh at training, they will act accordingly. I’m not saying you shouldn’t spend time with your friends, but everything needs to be balanced and harmonious. On more difficult training periods, you should limit extra activities while during slow season, you should definitely do as many normal-life things as possible, to make sure you’re ready to switch your focus.

The most important parts of injury prevention

Sleep, eat, repeat. I can’t stress this enough, but having a good night sleep and eating highly nutritious foods that your body and physique need in order to handle heavy trainings is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. And it’s really the easiest thing to do. But this is not the magic formula. When training 6 days a week, you must have regular visits to the sports masseuse to relax muscles. You must do recovery after training (stretching). Another good recovery option is taking a salt bath at home or going swimming. Visiting the sauna once a week can have a great effect of your mental state as well.

Before training warm up is mandatory to make sure your body is ready. And lastly plan your trainings according to what you did the previous days. Don’t go jumping 100 jumps every day for 6 days in a row, that’s the recipe for injuries.

Give yourself time to train skating skills and spins to give a break for your legs. Main reason for injuries come from too much jumping, because our legs get so much pressure. We warm up with jogging, jump rope etc and continue jumps on the ice. It’s a lot of pressure to put on just two legs. So alternate trainings. This doesn’t mean, it will be easier trainings. You can train your cardio and choreo while not jumping.

How did I prevent injuries?

For the most part, I admit I was extremely lucky with injuries. I had a big knee and foot injury, but I never had to have surgery or injections and therefore I consider myself lucky. But I had a full routine in order to recover after heavy trainings and I want to share something I used to do, that worked wonders for me.

Back when I was training I had a bit of a routine. Every 3 weeks of heavy training I needed a 3-day weekend. Which is a bit controversial, but actually worked. I know many skaters that have no days off and knowing myself it just wasn’t possible for me. And why I trusted myself to do this, was because the 3 weeks I trained hard, I focused fully on skating. I trained all day, came home in the evening, stretched and went to sleep. All there was, was skating. After the three week I took off Fri-Sun and completely shut off figure skating. This was time to do anything I want. I went to the movies, had a massage, saw my friends or went shopping. I didn’t do anything crazy, but I made sure skating is not on my mind.

And guess what, Monday after the long weekend, I went back on the ice feeling lighter, happier and more motivated and ALWAYS had some small improvement in my skating that I had been training for.

Why three weeks was because that before I started doing long weekends I realised that if I didn’t give myself time off. Then at the three week mark I would normally feel slight tension or stretch in my muscles that had me slow down at trainings for a few days. Which ultimately took more time off from my training plans, than just having an extra full day off. So after consideration and testing different ways, 3-day weekend every three weeks was what worked for me. And this allowed my body to have a full reset and gave me a great restart.

During competition weeks I would normally have a half day the day before heading to competition, just so I could clear my head a bit.

I hope this blog post finds all the people that have been struggling with recovery and injuries😊

See you next time!