Manage Your Body

I have heard athletes use the phrase manage your body.  It means knowing when to play through an injury and when to step back and allow the injury to heal. Sore muscles or ligaments are one thing, but a concussion can be a career ending injury if not properly addressed.  Egos sometime drive us to push farther than we should only to end up with bigger injuries.  I know from experience.  I separated my shoulder in a karate tournament many years ago.  Rather than stop, I reset my shoulder and kept fighting, only to separate it again a few minutes later.  Yes, I ended up in the hospital many years later having shoulder surgery, and it is still not 100% right.  Listening to my body rather than my ego may have saved me the surgery and 16-week rehab.  Yet again, the importance of listening crops up. Fortunately, I now listen and am much better at managing my body.  Well most of the time anyway.