Mindfulness intervention of rehabilitation of an injured athlete: Case in professional soccer

Abstract

The big number of sport injuries, especially in soccer, is becoming an important problem for the professionals who work with sportists. The study of sport’s injuries epidemiology and the complexity of the variables that are present in the sportist’s recuperation process make us incorporate new intervention techniques. In this study a mindfulness-based intervention is proposed as a complement to rehabilitation of an injured soccer player. Through eight sessions theorical and practical aspects are worked and psychological and physiological variables are evaluated during and after the intervention. With the limitations of a study like this, we can suggest that this kind of interventions can be useful in rehabilitation of injured sportists. There is an improvement in the state’s perception and in the cardiac coherence among other variables. The follow-up evaluation showed the importance of the back to competition phase because of the emotional load we were able to record; so it is recommended to increase the research in this field.