Episode #36: Siana Sylvester, M.Ed., CMPC | Mental Performance Coach Weighs in on Overcoming Injuries in Barbell Training

Episode #36: Siana Sylvester, M.Ed., CMPC | Mental Performance Coach Weighs in on Overcoming Injuries in Barbell Training 

EVEN THOUGH WE CAN DO EVERYTHING IN OUR POWER TO AVOID INJURIES, THEY DO OCCUR IN BARBELL AND STRENGTH SPORTS. WE CAN ONLY REDUCE THE RISK OF INJURIES HAPPENING BUT WE CAN’T PREVENT THEM. WE ALSO CAN’T COMPLETELY PREPARE FOR ALL OF THE “WHAT IFS” THAT COME ALONG WITH A POTENTIAL FUTURE INJURY BUT THERE ARE SOME WAYS THAT WE CAN MAKE SURE WE’RE IN A GOOD POSITION TO FACE INJURIES HEAD ON IF THEY DO OCCUR. 

In this episode of the PRS Podcast we talk with Siana Sylvester, a mental performance coach who works with athletes and professionals to help them navigate various situations in a wide range of settings. 

During this interview, Siana shares some valuable insight on how to navigate injuries and setbacks as well as prepare for them ahead of time by developing healthy habits, a strong support system, and a well-rounded identity within and outside of your sport. 

Whether you’re struggling to get through an injury, find motivation to continue training, fear potential training setbacks in the future, or don’t worry about those things at all, this is the PRS Podcast episode for you! This interview isn’t only about what to do if you are injured or fear you might get injured, but it’s also about developing a healthy identity that isn’t solely defined by your sport. 

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GET IN TOUCH WITH THE SHOW!


Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC : [00:00:25] Welcome back to the Progressive Rehab & Strength podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Rori Alter, clinical coach here at Progressive Rehab & Strength, and my lovely co-host, Dr. Alyssa Haveson, also a clinical coach here. Progressive Rehab & Strength. And in today's episode, we are joined by Siana Sylvester. She is a mental performance coach of My Mental Flex. So we're excited to meet with Siana today to discuss the mental and emotional aspects of reconciling with injury and sport and dealing with the psychological components of overcoming an injury and going through rehab. So, Siana, thank you so much for joining us today. Why don't you tell us a little about yourself, what mental performance coaching is, and what you do?


Siana Sylvester, M.ED., CMPC: [00:01:17] Sure. I'll. Rori and Alyssa, thank you so much for having me on. I'm honored to be a guest here today. My name is Siana Sylvester. My background is in sports and performance psychology. I have worked with youth through professional athletes on their mental games since 2013. I went to the University of Hartford and got my undergrad in psychology with a minor in sociology. And while I was there, I studied psychological readiness to return to sports after an injury, and I interned with the Cape Cod Baseball League. As I started my undergrad degree, I quickly learned that recovery from injury is as much mental as physical. That sparked my interest in sports and performance psychology. And I looked back on my high school experience when I got injured and decided, Oh, if I had a sports psychology consultant or coach along the way, I might have reached more of my potential and had many more opportunities in sports. So I went to Springfield College and got my master's in athletic counseling there, where I studied under a very big leader in sports injury and psychological readiness. Dr. Brett Brewer and Dr. Judy Vendrell specialized in self-talk, so I worked closely under their watch. I worked with many different teams, never powerlifters, but in the rehab clinic, I worked side by side with strength and conditioning coaches and athletic trainers. And we found that athletes working with athletic counselors in training had a higher psychological readiness to return to sport and less fear of re-injury.


Siana Sylvester, M.ED., CMPC: [00:03:02] And so that was exciting for me to see that firsthand. After Springfield College, I worked for the NFL for a short time in their player engagement department, and what we did was there are three stages in the NFL in the player engagement department. It's prep, life, and next. The prep portion of the NFL is like players and development, trying to foster athletes and getting into football and assisting with getting them into high-level play and hopefully on to the NFL. We know getting to that level is difficult once they're there. We call that life. So how do we help athletes recruited to play or drafted to play and didn't finish their degree? How do we assist them with getting their degree requirements? How do we assist them with being a rookie and transitioning into a professional career where they suddenly have access to a lot more money and opportunities? So how do you manage that? How do you navigate that? And then we do. We did a lot of the next stuff. So how do you transition out of the game? A lot of athletic identity stuff with their spouses, a lot of spouses identified as NFL wives. How do we provide them with the support they need to transition into other areas of life? And so I got the opportunity to work there for a little bit for a season. After that, I worked at Queens College in their student life department.


Siana Sylvester, M.ED., CMPC: [00:04:36] That was a short period. I worked over at Saint Anthony's High School, a big high school here on Long Island. There are about 2500 kids there, a very big athletic program. I was leading their international department. Then I got this awesome opportunity to work for Higher Echelon, my day job. It's a consulting firm where we provide leadership and executive coaching to elite military professionals, CEOs, mid-level managers, and that kind of thing. And we approach leadership a little bit differently. We treat leadership as a performance. We give leaders the mental skills that are needed to kind of manage the day to day, manage stress and anxiety. How do you influence the group and build a culture that helps you get the results you want within your organization? And then, I started my consulting firm, Mental Flex, which I love. It's got me back into the work that I am passionate about with athletes, and I mainly work with high school and college players. I've had some elite athletes like some professional equestrians have found me, but my sweet spot is really with baseball and team sports. So it's been interesting to kind of reflect on the individual sport. And as I prep for this interview to get ready for you guys and think about how the emotional response and mental response to injury can be a little bit different for an individual athlete than it is for a team athlete. And so that's how we got here today.


Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC : [00:06:15] Awesome. I mean. I didn't know all of that about you. And obviously, we've been friends for a little while, but, you know, very new friends. So, that was very interesting and exciting to hear. So I have two questions because you did mention your injury. So we always like to ask some kind of relatable question. So I think that, when we're dealing with a sensitive topic such as injury and identity shifts, I think it's important for us to relate as much as we can on the level of the athlete. So you did mention that you had an injury in high school, so can you just share a little bit about that? What sport did you play, what was your injury, and why do you feel mental performance coaching would have been helpful then?


Siana Sylvester, M.ED., CMPC: [00:06:58] Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I was a competitive cheerleader my whole life. I started at the age of five, went on to high school, was on the varsity team as a freshman, and competed at the varsity level. Four years was a two-season captain at my high school and something I'm proud of. But my freshman year, during the basketball season, I was learning a new tumbling skill. There is gymnastics, stunting, cheer, dance, and many different aspects of the competitive cheer world. So many things can be fatal and pretty serious injuries if you make a mistake. And so I was learning a new gymnastics skill, and I hyperextended my elbow during a backward motion, which was pretty severe. My entire team was present to see that. And it was pretty traumatic for them to witness an injury like that, where your arm is going in the wrong direction. And so I was out for the rest of the season, and my arm was stuck in a very awkward position for a long period. And once I was cleared to didn't have to have surgery, which was very, very lucky. But I did have some pretty extensive physical therapy that went along with that, like prying the arm back open, which was horrible. And I know many people like stim, and they like that, it was horrible. I hated it. It was very, very painful. And I found during my rehabbing of that injury that it was very difficult not to focus on the pain.


Siana Sylvester, M.ED., CMPC: [00:08:39] It was really difficult not to move past what was happening in that current moment and be focused on what I was getting back to. But I eventually figured that out and got cleared to return to sport. But I never got back that backward motion again. And so the fear of re-injury was really strong for me, and I was very nervous that it would happen again. I didn't trust that my body could execute that skill, which was a mental block. There was no physical issue that was preventing me from being able to do that skill. It wasn't a mobility thing or range of motion thing or anything like that. It was a mental block. And if I had worked with a sport and performance psychologist or a mental performance consultant or coach, there are a lot of different names for us in the field. But if I had worked with a mental performance coach, I would have had this opportunity to explore that fear of re-injury, and get with the reality, that it's pretty unlikely that that would happen again. And I would have been able to get in some mental reps with the use of visualization, some other mental tools, and some pre-performance routines. I would be able to build that confidence back up if I had that opportunity and had that exposure. But I'll tell you, as a high school kid, I didn't even know there was a whole industry for this.


Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC : [00:10:07] Yeah, to be honest, neither did I until I met you. So yeah, I mean, I think that's why this podcast is so important. I mean, Alyssa, I don't know if you knew that knew about this field. But if I didn't know that as a physical therapist, elite powerlifter, if I didn't know that. Then I can imagine that everybody else there doesn't know that either.


Siana Sylvester, M.ED., CMPC: [00:10:35] Yeah, the average high school kid for sure does not know it. No.