A positive mindset: we hear about it, we want it, but how do we achieve it?
A sport like gymnastics is as much mental as it is physical, and learning how to be as strong mentally as you are on the competition floor is one of the more difficult parts of the sport. Add in the additional challenge of a season or even career-ending injury, and you get some of the toughest athletes you will ever meet.
Since 2022, there have been 476 injuries across all divisions submitted to our injury update tracker that have kept athletes out for a majority or the entirety of the season. Remarkably, many of these athletes have come back even stronger to finish out their collegiate careers. Of these 476, there have been stories filled with gratitude and joy when athletes return to the sport they have always loved, as well as a new and improved mindset for the opportunity they have been given for a second time around.
Chloe Negrete, current sixth year at N.C. State, is just one of the many athletes who has come back to the sport with a newfound love and appreciation for her final years as a collegiate gymnast. While training on floor only a handful of days before the first meet of her junior season, Negrete sustained a devastating Achilles rupture. “I had no Achilles problems leading up to the rupture,” shared Negrete. “The week leading up to it, it just felt tight like I should have stretched it more,” said Negrete. “Right before that turn, someone asked how my Achilles had been feeling that week, and that was the double tuck I tore it on.” Before her junior season could even start, she was out for that season and had to shift into a completely new role.
For any athlete, not having the ability to be out on the competition floor is extremely challenging. For someone who worked her way into the lineups over the first two years of her collegiate career and was out on the floor for every meet up until the injury, this change was even more difficult. “The first home meet when we were watching our intro video, that was the first time it really hit me,” said Negrete. “I was fine for most of the meet, but at the end of the competition, I broke down in our training room, and the reality hit that I wouldn’t be out there all year.”
Each time there is an injury, there is a period of grieving over what could have been as well as the struggles that are tied to working your way back. Although mourning the injury and what surrounds it is healthy in order to heal, there comes a time when the mentality has to shift.
“At some point, I had to move on because, unfortunately, I couldn’t change it,” said Negrete as she reflected on how unexpected her injury was. While the adjustment was hard, she knew she had a lot of goals to work towards over her remaining years of competition. With this injury coming in her third year, Negrete already knew she would be taking any extra years she had left at N.C. State; but first, the wait.
“There was nothing I could do to reverse it or speed up the process of healing. I had the luxury of time on my hands. I had an entire season to recover, so all my energy went into recovery, into the team, and just getting better and getting healthy to be able to compete again.”
Tapping into this mentality and having the goal of returning to the sport was just the first step in her ability to return better than ever. While this time allowed her to fully rehab her body, it also gave her the opportunity to retrain her brain and focus on the parts of the sport that made her uneasy throughout her career. “One of the biggest challenges I had when I was coming back was thinking about ‘Am I going to come back from this injury and still be the same?’ I didn’t want to be someone that had all these expectations on them and then didn’t meet any of them because of an Achilles injury.” Having the fear of not performing as you had and the pressure of coming back from an injury is something all too common for athletes, especially in a sport where the stakes are always high and perfection is the goal. Negrete realized that as much as she wanted to come back as the same athlete she had been over the two years before this injury, that would never be the case; and it didn’t have to be a bad thing. “My coaches told me in the beginning of my recovery to have patience with myself; my body wasn’t going to be the same because of this,” she shared. “I had to learn to give myself grace in order to get back to where I had been and learn how to do everything again.”
Giving yourself the time to heal and allowing your body to get to some newer version of itself in order to be ready to not only do gymnastics but to compete again is a long process. While the wait to be able to run towards the vault or land a pass on the hard floor may feel overwhelming, there is a great deal to be learned in this new role. “I was able to take an entire year to enjoy and just watch gymnastics while I was getting stronger, and not be worried about how I did in competition. Having that year, it took away a lot of my superstitions, and it rebooted my brain in a way, to be a little bit calmer and less tense when I competed,” shareds Negrete. “I look so stoic on the outside, but, internally, I was always very nervous. Having this time away and focusing on my love for gymnastics has made me much calmer when I go into competition and realize the opportunity I have.”
Since her comeback, Negrete has once again been a staple in N.C. State lineups. She’s been both an EAGL and ACC individual and team champion, but most significantly, she has come back to the sport with even more gratitude, resilience, and understanding than before.
“There was a reason it was put in my path. God wouldn’t have put it in my path if I wasn’t able to handle it. He makes the toughest soldiers out of life’s hardest battles, and that was something I clung to during my healing process. … [As hard as having this injury was], it served a purpose. When you go through this, you might not understand why it had to happen, but I can say my life was better for it. It has made me a better gymnast but also a stronger person. It provided me more perspective on what this sport is and how I view it, but it’s also made me enjoy the person I am outside the sport.”
The biggest piece of advice Negrete has for other athletes returning from serious injury is to be in the moment and appreciate the season you are in. Although an injury may be one of the hardest things an athlete has to overcome, there is so much to be learned through the recovery and comeback process that can help create the ending you have always wanted.
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Article by Julianna Roland
