FOR everyone concerned - Ryan Nelsen's latest injury worries have been a real pain in the backside.
But with the prospect of making a welcome return to the first-team fold against Reading today a very real one, the Rovers captain admits the long hours in the gym have been well worth it.
He said: "It has been a lot of hard work, a lot of work in the gym to get the area that has been annoying me strong and it has done wonders to tell the truth."
The 30-year-old has been suffering from a recurrence of a scar tissue problem close to his hamstring, which kept him out for the first five months of last season.
Ryan, who now accepts that the extent of the original injury was liable to cause future problems, admits his willingness to play through the pain barrier is the ultimate reason for an extended spell on the sidelines.
He added: "The initial injury was a big one, so I suppose there was always going to be niggles here and there. But I think my big mistake was when I pulled a bit of scar tissue I just wanted to come back too quickly.
"That's the problem, I'm my own worst enemy. I just want to get back playing, running on the grass and get back training. I did it far too early and it was very costly.
"I was just so weak and the tendon was taking all the tension. I was trying to do things when it couldn't handle it and now I've got those nice and strong again and the tendon doesn't hurt as much.
"When I look at that logic, it makes so much common sense, which is so annoying. Hindsight is a great thing, but I just wished I'd worked on that a lot more before I went out running in the first place."
Penalties, red cards and own goals contributed to a miserable couple of months for Ryan throughout November and December, and the New Zealand international is the first to admit that his form was well below par.
"I thought I was playing absolutely horrendously," he confesses. "I didn't have my explosiveness and the speed that I normally have - it just wasn't there.
"It was extremely frustrating. I wanted to put it right, I wanted to get out and train and to go and play, but that made it worse.
"Hindsight is a great thing. When I look back, I was my own worst enemy."
After a delayed diagnosis, Ryan eventually decided it was time to call it quits following the 1-1 draw at home to Middlesbrough in mid-January.
He has since missed the last eight Premier League games and feared that his season could be over.
But after returning to full fitness, Ryan is hoping for a rosey future on the injury front.
"I was feeling the injury for three or four games before the Middlesbrough match and nobody could really give me an answer as to what was wrong.
"It was just annoying. I wasn't playing well, but I kept training and I kept going.
"But in the Middlesbrough game, even when I was walking, it was hurting and that was the time to put my hand up and say this is getting ridiculous.
"In the end, we talked to a lot of people, talked to the surgeons about what was wrong, got the gist of what was happening and since I've been doing my work, everything seems to be good.
"In all honesty, after that Middlesbrough game and after I talked to the surgeon and properly had a look at how bad it was, I realised I could be out for the season.
"But I got my head down and just hit the weight room and got as strong as a could. And the stronger I got, the less pain I got, which seems so simple now looking back, but at the time I just wanted to make sure I was really comfortable with my strength and really happy that I could handle it before I got out running.
"The old lungs are spitting up a few cobwebs now, but at least the injury feels alright.
"The career of a footballer is a bit of a roller coaster - some awesome highs and some awesome lows. Hopefully I've got through this low and I'm going up through the highs now."
