I am highkey hella injured and it sucks. As you may know, I love jumping around, spinning, throwing crazy kicks and such, but unfortunately my body has hit its limit. I think it all started last November, before Thanksgiving. I was at gymnastics practice, flipping around as per usual. I got inspired by an Instagram reel to try a new technique to help spin faster for my 900 degree kick, and so I tried it. Unfortunately, mid-air I got my feet stuck together. I remember vividly thinking “Oh my goodness I’m screwed” as my right foot landed on the floor. I definitely got the technique somewhat down though as all the rotational energy I got from my takeoff transferred through my landing leg, causing my foot to go into severe ankle eversion. It was bad, I heard a very audible crack. I was so scared that I had just ended my career. I hobbled around for the rest of the night after arriving back to campus, grabbing ice from the marketplace and running to the library to study for exams. After that, I took a break for a week to recover and ice, shifting most of my weight to the left leg. Unfortunately, my ankle never fully healed, and it still affects me today. When I came back to campus after Thanksgiving break, I immediately went to gymnastics practice, flipping yet again but putting tons of pressure on the left leg. I thought I was doing ok, but all that impact did tons of wear-and-tear damage to my joints, causing my knee pain to flare up again. I had felt pain near my LCL for so long though, so I never thought much of it.
That is, until February came. Oh my goodness my month of doom and despair. February I pushed my body to the limit, training every single day either lifting in the gym, preparing for competitions, training my demo team for performances or flipping at gymnastics. There wasn’t a day of rest, and I definitely overdid it. Come the last week of February, I’m in Canada preparing for the biggest event of my life so far, the 2026 Canada Open, my first international tournament. After rough training in Canada and a surprisingly close loss to Hong Kong, I went and sent every trick I had been holding off on doing. After a long restless night sleeping on a plane back to New York, I woke up extremely sore.
This was such a stressful time for me, I had just learned that the microbiology test I had to make up was terribly unfair, and I was missing an entire week of school to catch my flights and compete. On top of that, I was busy managing my team remotely so that we could have a good performance for the day I come back to campus. After focusing solely on my competition, I came back to a rude awakening of how much work I had to catch up on. The next day, when I arrived back to campus, I felt my body starting to give up. But I had to push through, and we had arguably our best performance to date at the TASC banquet. And after a long night and very little sleep, I woke up bright and early at 5 a.m. for yet another competition, this time at Cornell.
This was when my injuries took a turn for the worst. My back had been killing me all week, but this pain was different. I started jogging over to meet my friends, but I couldn’t. There was this sharp pain near my sacroiliac joint, stabbing me with every stride my left side took. My knee pain doubled, and I was so scared I had a left lateral meniscus tear. But I saw so many friends at Cornell, so I competed and ran and flipped and tricked around regardless. I woke up the next day really scared, realizing that this pain wasn’t going away easily. What’s even worse is that the whole posterior chain started hurting. Over the course of the month, I developed patellar tendonitis and plantar fasciitis, limiting my movements more and more. I can’t walk for even five minutes anymore without pain and irritation. And living in Hillside certainly does not help, especially when Campus Shuttle decides to not stick to their schedule. Now I feel a ton of hip pain, which I think to be a labral tear, but really it could be anything.
Throughout the month I’ve been trying to do my own rehab exercises to varying effectiveness. Shoutout my future roomie Preston for helping push me with single leg pause rep leg extensions and shoutout my goat Dean (LeBron) Michael Atticus Joseph Peduto da Castilla San Lorenzo for always being willing to do full body day, as well as being willing to do my favorite rehab exercise, the heel elevated band resistance split squats with me.
Alrighty kiddos it’s time for you guys to guess the injury in the picture!! If you guessed patellar tendonitis, you’d be correct! Congratulations, you now owe me money to pay for my physical therapy, thank you very much.
Donovan Lai
Media Producer
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