 I've got some bad news. I've pulled my quad muscle on my right leg and hopefully I'm not out for too long But I thought hey, let's make a video on how to heal a muscle tear or a muscle pull and this applies to any injury whether you Pulled your quad or your hamstring or you sprained your ankle These same principles will help you recover quicker and I've broken the healing process down into three phases So the first phase is the immediate phase. What do you do right when that injury happens? The second phase is the first 72 hours because those are so important and the final phase The third phase is the rehabilitation phase what you do until you're back until full fitness So let me start by telling you the story. It was a tournament this today this morning It was the very first game of the tournament I was late getting there I showed up about kickoff right at kickoff and they were like hey, can you start so obviously I wanted to start so I said Yes, I'll start I went on without proper warm-up and one of the first plays I hit a cross to the back post and I just felt My muscle tear in my right quad and I knew right away. That was pretty bad So this is the immediate phase. What do you do right away? Well first? Let me say I played try to play a bit and usually when that happens We all want to keep playing so we try to play through it But what you need to do if you know it's a pull you need to stop right away Now there is a difference between a muscle tweak and a muscle pull. How do you know the difference? Well, sometimes you might kick a ball or like early in the game You get a little tweak and you kind of notice it, but you keep playing and it doesn't hurt You're aware of it, but it doesn't hurt a muscle pull or a tear Let's say every time you try to kick the ball after that happens Well, there's pain if that's the fact if that's the case in your scenario you need to stop right away So don't worry about being tough. Don't worry about playing through the pain. I know you want to play I know you want to help your team We have to realize the more you play the worse you make this injury and the harder It's going to be to recover the longer it's going to take you so swallow your pride right away stop playing now you do not Want to stretch it out. You don't want to try to stretch it out You don't want to massage it You don't want to put heat on it because right now it's swelling and if you are Stretching the muscle if you are massaging the muscle you're actually breaking more blood cells and you're going to make it worse So what you want to do instead is get compression on it right away You want to get compression right away? So you want to wrap it up and you want to get ice right away And you want to get off your feet as soon as possible And I also wrote here in the immediate phase but throughout all these phases you need to stay positive Yes, it sucks But if you're just going to sit there and cry and complain and feel sorry for yourself You're only going to make this process worse And you're probably not going to have the right state of mind to get through this Instead of focusing on your training and becoming a better player You need to focus on your recovery treat it the same because if you have that same focus You'll get through this quicker and in the end it's going to make you stronger It's also going to make you mentally stronger. Okay, so that's the first phase Compression ice rest as soon as possible to swallow your pride Get off your feet as soon as possible So in the second phase the first 72 hours with three days This is kind of immediate the first day, but the next two days as well I want you to do this and all you should be doing is focusing on Resting as much as possible, but also reducing the swelling as much as possible So how are you going to do this? You're going to first you need to Find the point of damage Okay, so you need to feel need to feel it out. You need to feel Where the actual pull is it might be here? It might be here You kind of have an idea, but I want you to find like where is the full pull Is it just right here or is it right my my own right now? It's pretty long It's like starting and I can just feel it by pushing and you can feel a sore again You don't want to massage it, but you want to know where it is Okay, so it's kind of right here. I can feel it's all the way up there So it's like here, okay So find the point of damage because you want to work on that point of damage, okay? So first things we said ice so in here I just have a Blanket that wraps some ice and you never want to put ice straight on your skin because you can actually get ice burn and you're Gonna have like a scar and a scab on your legs. So that's not nice So always try to wrap in something whether that's a plastic bag I use this blanket because I think I can feel the ice a bit more and I can mold it to my leg Okay, I can mold it however I want and I'll just use this for a bit and then I'll put it back in the freezer Okay, so your best friend for the next couple days is going to be this compression Wrap so you do not and during that immediate phase as well You do not want to wrap extremely tight because although you want to reduce swelling You do not want to stop the blood flow into your injury. Hey, you still need blood to go there So if this is super tight, you're not going to get any blood traveling there You just want to keep a light wrap on it And I've got a little clip here if you got some tape, but the clips better if you're taking it on and off So just like that. Okay, I'm gonna wrap it up and I'm gonna do this For the whole day if you really want to recover quicker You're gonna focus on this all day if you can if you have that luxury so for every hour I'm gonna put this on for 20 minutes Then I'm gonna take it off for about 40 minutes and at the next hour I'm gonna put it back on for 20 minutes. I'm just gonna keep doing that. Okay. I'm also going to Elevate okay, so you want to elevate because this is going to help reduce swelling It's going to have more blood getting out of your leg and How do you reduce swelling you want to get your Want to get your injured part below your heart? Okay, because the blood's coming from your heart So ideally I would be something like this laying back down here Okay, I'm trying to get this as high as possible and just rest and relax I've got a couple tools here and one of the tools I have Is this TV remote because honestly like I said you want to reduce swelling and you want to rest as much as possible Just get off this leg. So you just want to be chillin watching soccer analyzing But resting and reducing swelling Okay, so the other thing is I'm gonna have this on for 20 minutes. Like I said every hour for 20 minutes Then I'm gonna take it off now between times what I'm doing also So I just throw that back in the freezer got ice pack as well Whatever you guys have use the tools that you have. Okay, so when I take that off I'm still I'm going to keep this compressed and what I have here is just some oils and these oils are anti-inflammatory anti-inflammatory oils, so they're gonna help reduce the swelling as well now you can take like ibuprofen you can take Pills personally, I like to stay away from Medication like that and pills and I'd rather do the natural stuff So it's up to you do the research and do what you think is best But if you want to take ibuprofen and stuff like that to reduce the swelling you can do that as well But what I have in here is some olive oil some peppermint oil and some clove oil And these have just all been shown to reduce swelling and reduce muscle pain as well Okay, so I'm just gonna put on a bit of that oil and then I'm going to wrap this leg up again and like I said It's About reducing the swelling, but you don't want it so tight that no blood at all is pumping to your leg You're just walking off blood flow. Okay, so I'm just gonna have a light compression around that point of damage that you discovered And then you're gonna elevate again. You're just gonna chill out Okay, this first 72 days is all you're going to do Rest and reduce swelling. Okay, so that's the second phase and also I wrote here That you do not want to test it out. Okay, just accept the fact Yes, it sucks Just accept the fact though that you've had this muscle pull and that in order to get through it You do not want to put it through more pain So you don't want to be testing it out like oh, is it better already? Is it better now? No those first three days Just accept the fact that you've got this injury now. Do not test it out. I'm not gonna like flex my leg I'm not gonna try kicking or try running and stretching and stuff I'm saving that for the third phase, which we'll go into right now Okay, so the third phase is the rehabilitation phase so that second phase. I'm trying to reduce the swelling I'm trying to rest as much as possible and reduce the swelling After those first three days, we're going to assume that most of the swelling That happened like let's say you had a bruise or you had a trial and worse after those first three days That's one all that swelling all that damage and your muck your body's repairing itself. That's when most that stops Okay, so after that the next three days, I'm going to go into the rehabilitation phase This is where I'm going to use heat This is where I'm going to start stretching and massaging and doing some light exercise Okay, so in this rehabilitation phase now We think that the muscle has or the injury has healed itself and now it's just really tight So now we want to focus on loosening up this tight muscle So I have a few tools here and the first one here. I have is a heat pad. Okay, so Like I said in the beginning you do not want to use heat now Muscle has swollen. It's kind of healed itself. It's really tight now. We have to loosen it up So now I want to start using heat and again I'll just put this heat wrap or this heat pad on like that if you want to use a heat wrap or heat rub Something like that whatever you have use the tools that you have But I'm just gonna put this on and then I'm gonna wrap it up again with the tensor bandage like that Okay, so I'll do a bit of heat and then I might do a bit of massage So I have a couple tools here you can do a foam roller. So like rolling on the ground using a foam roller It's going to hurt. We want to slowly build it up in the beginning and start small Okay, don't go and do the most painful thing possible in the very beginning You want to build up to it and you want to listen to your body like okay? Is it getting better is it getting a little better or do I need to rest more? Okay, so you can do foam rolling on the ground. You can use a La Crosse ball like a hard ball and just give yourself a self massage again I'm not gonna do that right now because I've just injured myself and also here I have a what is called a thumper and this is basically just like vibration. So you plug this in and this thing goes It's just gonna loosen up my leg and Vibrate all through the muscle and really loosen everything up. Okay, and on top of that. I'm gonna be doing some Light exercise, so I'm gonna start stretching a little bit. I'm gonna start jogging a little bit I'm just gonna start feeling out the muscle and Eventually, I'm gonna go to the field and I'm gonna start trying things out. I'm gonna start jogging slowly Maybe I'll try some light passing or dribbling then I'll try some long passing Then I'll try shooting and I'll just listen to my body Okay, do I need to do more rehabilitation as far as heat and stretching and Loosen up the muscle or am I ready to go? Okay? So those are three phases and three things I want you to think about the immediate The first 72 hours are so important especially for Things like this like a muscle pulls so important and then the third phase actually doing the proactive Rest okay, so what most people do they get an injury they get a pull and then they just chill They just sit there and they eat bad food and they feel sorry for themselves And they say all this sucks, but they're not really doing anything to speed this recovery. Okay? You can't train that sucks, but get over it be positive and focus on this. Okay. I need to do proactive rest I'm not just chilling here waiting and then getting back out there and then going again because you're just gonna injure yourself Again, okay, so focus on the recovery of the muscle go through those phases Put all your attention and focus and effort into the recovery and you're going to come back even faster Okay, so I know I'm gonna get through this quickly and I'll be back to playing in no time I hope this advice has helped you. I know it's a lot of information So maybe watch this video a few times if you're going through this problem And I know it's gonna help you you're gonna be back playing in no time