After almost a year away from football, Emil Mygind has slowly started to return to the training ground. In March 2023, Mygind underwent surgery after sustaining a serious knee injury in a training match.
Mygind, who has been out since his surgery last year, shared his thoughts on the rehabilitation process and the mental aspect of returning to the sport after such a long time.
Back on the training pitch
“It’s been mega cool,” Mygind said about his return to training with the team. “Now it’s been a long time where I’ve been watching from the outside, so after New Year’s I started to be more and more involved and feel like a football player again, and that’s really cool.”
The rehabilitation process has been a challenging journey for Mygind, who shares how he has gradually taken small steps over the past 12 months.
“It has been a long period with many steps. In the beginning, it was very small steps, where I started by bending the knee 30 degrees and 60 degrees.
“After the summer holidays, I was able to start running again, and during this period I think it took off. I could suddenly start looking forward and working on it, and not be sorry I got the injury. I think it has been a good process, and I am happy to have had Andreas to control the course of the battle.”
Focus on more than football
It can be difficult to maintain a positive outlook through a long rehabilitation process.
“When I couldn’t play football, I focused on finding joy in other things,” he says.
Therefore, it has been important for Mygind to keep himself busy during the period when he has been away from the field.
“I have studied and prioritized it a lot both academically and socially over the past year. It has been important for me to spend my time on that part of my life. Then I have also tried to do what I could to help the team off the pitch.”
Although the rehabilitation process has had its challenges, Mygind has been happy to be back on the field with the team.
“It’s generally much more fun to be involved and get to play,” he says.
Minor relapse
Unfortunately, Mygind has encountered some setbacks in his rehabilitation process, including declines in muscle strength, which has required additional focus and a return to strength training.
“I can still feel it in my knee both physically, but also a little mentally. I was a little more careful, especially in the beginning,” he says.
“I managed to train fully for two weeks in a row at the beginning of March. It was really cool, but also hard. We did some tests once a week where we measured the strength of the thigh muscle and the hamstring muscle, because it is very important that they are equally strong and there is not too much difference between the right and left or the front thigh and hamstring.”
“We could see from the measurements that my strength, especially in the left thigh, started to decrease, which is normal when you start running and not strength training as much. But it fell too much compared to what is justifiable, and there was a risk of a new injury. We chose to take a step back and focus on getting the strength up in the left front thigh, so that it hits the same as in the right front thigh, and then continue to build on the back thighs, which right now are really good and equal to each other.”, he elaborates.
Despite the setbacks, Mygind is determined to return stronger to the pitch.
“It was a professional assessment with my doctor that I should focus on it before there is a prospect of a fight. It’s mega cool that we can do these tests, because otherwise I would have just continued to train and play, and then it might have gone wrong,” he concludes.
