Amber Igiede Needs a Comeback. Good Thing She’s Built For It

3 min readAmber Igiede was at the top of her game. The 25-year-old professional volleyball player had an illustrious college career at the University of Hawaii where she was a two-time All-American. After college, she signed a contract with League One Volleyball, where the middle blocker became one the faces of her team, LOVB Houston.Now, winning games and breaking records have taken a back seat. Igiede’s focus is recovery.This spring, Igiede suffered an intense ACL injury that will keep her off the court for the rest of the year. Healing her body—and staging an epic comeback—are her number one priorities.Women’s Health can exclusively reveal that Igiede and her journey back to volleyball will be featured in Built for the Comeback, a LOVB-original series. The first episode is available now, and it features the athlete through the preliminary, intimate moments of recovery.“I got really emotional watching it for the first time,” she tells WH. “It’s one of those things I’m savoring.”Among the multitude of lessons Igiede has learned throughout this process, a principal one has been how to view herself as a person, not just an athlete.“Anyone that really, truly goes through this knows how misleading the persona of an athlete can be when we’re going through something like this,” she says. “We are taught to ‘fake it until you make it’ and grind through everything.”It takes Igiede back to when the COVID-19 pandemic hit while she was playing at Hawaii, and the wake-up call that came from a forced break from the sport. Now, she’s relying on the lessons she learned then to get her through this stage of her life and career.“Every athlete knows that you dedicated so many years to this sport, so it’s a part of you,” she says. “When that part is taken away, there is sort of a grief process, and it’s very much magnified in the beginning.”With her schedule considerably more open, Igiede says she has been able to explore new hobbies and find new outlets for joy. She says she has rediscovered her love for cooking and has been able to invest more time in her family and loved ones.One of the best pieces of advice she received throughout her recovery process is to accept what happened to her, feel bad for herself a little, and then move on.“You can’t spend too much time wallowing in what has happened, because you still need to look forward,” she says.Her main focus right now is feeling strong. As a middle blocker, leg strength is crucial for Igiede to have the vertical she needs for the position. The main way she stays locked in on her goals to get her strength back is to physically write them down. She says this is how she beats her biggest competitor—herself.LOVBFor her specific injury, the recovery process is long. Because it was a complex, multi-ligament tear, the standard recuperation time is around 9-12 months. Igiede’s plan has been extremely methodical, relying on benchmarks to indicate when is the right time to incorporate something new to her regime.Above all, she still remains grateful for the support from the league and her loved ones.“It’s always such a privilege to play in the United States,” she says. “I played for the inaugural season [of LOVB], and I’ve always been super grateful that I’m able to play in this league. The opportunities they’ve given me, especially since this injury, they’ve helped so much.”Looking ahead, Igiede isn’t just hoping to return to the player she was. She wants to come back even better, she says. “Every day is really an opportunity to get better and get back to where you were, or get back to where I can be even better than I was.”Alyssa Cruz is the social media editor at Women’s Health, where she drives social strategy and helps shape the brand’s voice across platforms. Prior to WH, she worked at CBS News and palabra. Originally from Toledo, she is a proud alumna of Ohio University, where she received two bachelor’s degrees in journalism and Spanish. When she is not creating social content, you can find her trying different restaurants in New York City or planning her next trip.