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Sunday, April 18, 2010

Are you an Athletic Personality??




There are many ways to analyze personalities. Are you extroverted or introverted, etc? But one way to group people that I find very fascinating categorizes people into 4 personality types. They are:




Social People
Emotional People
Intellectual People
Athletic People

Based on this classification you have one primary focus/life force that comes easy to you, you are a natural at it, and you need to work hard at the other 3 areas to develop them. If you think of your friends or family members, you should be able with a little thought to know what type they are. I am an Athletic Personality, my wife a Social Personality, my boss at work an Intellectual Personality, and my sister-in-law Kathy an Athletic Personality. We all therefore have to work real hard at being well-rounded, developing the sides of us that do not come easy. It is easy for me to go to the gym due to my personality, but I have to work harder at studying/learning, being social, and expressing my emotions. See how this works. What is your basic personality type?

Why am I discussing this in a blog on podiatry? Each of my patients is coming into the office with a different perspective on their injuries. I have to get a feel for their attitude on their injury, based on their personality, and work with them from their center, not mine. If I approach all patients with my Athletic focus, I may not totally meet their needs.

I try to approach an injury from all 4 aspects at least until I know the patient well. When you approach an injury from these 4 personality types, you can achieve more success, since the patients will work with you. What is the social environment of their injury and rehabilitation? What emotions do they have caused by their injury? What is their intellectual approach to this injury? What is their athletic approach to this injury? Here are more questions to help you assess the patient.

Social
• Does their injury affect them socially due to the pain?
• Do they work out alone or with groups they like?
• Does the workout affect them socially because of their physical benefits?

Emotional
• What emotional stresses does the injury produce?
• What is their emotional reserve to handle the injury?
• How do emotions play in the view of the injury?
• How do emotions play in their attempt to get better?

Intellectual
• How much research are they doing to help themselves get better?
• How much are they analyzing what is working and what is not helping?
• How well are they logically progressing in their rehabilitation, or are they letting their emotions get in the way and ignoring pain?

Athletic
• How well do they understand good versus bad pain?
• Are they cross-training well when one activity is prohibited due to their injury?
• Are they allowing their knowledge base of their body to help in their rehabilitation?


I hope that this post touches a few chords with each reader. Health care practitioners and patients need to look at injuries from different angles to speed rehabilitation. With many injuries, patients develop a team, each working from these different angles. A commonly seen team approach is when the physician takes the intellectual side, the physical therapist/personal trainer takes the athletic side, the patient takes the emotional side, and the patients friends, spouses,and teammates all take the social side. Success is on its way!!!

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Thank you very much for leaving a comment. Due to my time restraints, some comments may not be answered.I will answer questions that I feel will help the community as a whole.. I can only answer medical questions in a general form. No specific answers can be given. Please consult a podiatrist, therapist, orthopedist, or sports medicine physician in your area for specific questions.