Most footballers will get through their career without suffering a cruciate ligament injury. The unlucky will have one that keeps them out for a year or so. If a player has two, they may wonder what sins they committed in a previous life. Chris Cohen is on his way back from his third.

“Two of our physios were at my wedding,” says Cohen, who has just returned to full training with Nottingham Forest. “I think they’d have made it to the top table if I’d been getting married this year because I’ve spent so much time with them.”

Cohen joined Forest in 2007, quickly establishing himself as the sort of player managers and fans love, versatile (for long spells the team’s best man in two or three different positions) and absurdly committed. And yet that commitment and enthusiasm would turn out to be a contributing factor to his injuries.

Cohen first injured his right knee against Forest’s local rivals Derby County in September 2011, charging into a tackle but twisting his leg into an unnatural position before he got there. He returned a year later, made 57 appearances and did not miss a league game, before the left knee went in a tackle against Burnley in November 2013, and it should tell you plenty that he tried to play on. “I don’t know how many people have got a 100% pass completion rate when they’ve got a ruptured cruciate but I’m definitely one,” he says. “I did one pass, my leg wobbled in the wind and I thought: ‘You know what, I probably shouldn’t carry on.’”

Then finally, again against Derby in September 2014, Cohen got his boot caught in the City Ground turf, twisted his right knee and another 15 months of his career disappeared. Cohen limped off with tears in his eyes, and he may have been forgiven for giving up, deciding the same injury three times is too much for any person to cope with.

Cohen felt sorry for himself for an hour or so, then got back to the business of recovery … again. “In the changing rooms after I said to the physio about 10 times: ‘That’s got to be it, I can’t just keep doing it.’ And then I got in the car, and the first thing I think I did was ring my mum and just said: ‘I know what I’ve got to do.’”

Chris Cohen injures his knee back in 2011 against Derby. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

This has been the most problematic of the three periods of rehabilitation, not least because this was a rerupture in his right knee, complicating the surgery, during which the lateral side of his joint was tightened slightly to avoid it happening again. He also spent some time with Bill Knowles, an American specialist who has worked with Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning, with Cohen’s treatment paid for by the Forest chairman, Fawaz al-Hasawi.

But perhaps the most important part of this recovery has been prevention, rather than cure. Cohen has worked to slightly alter his play and temper the enthusiastic style that has contributed to his three injuries. Before, he had a habit of lunging into tackles, which meant he tended to overstretch and his knee over-rotated. The ligaments have to stretch only a few millimetres to rupture, so his knees were vulnerable.

Working with the Forest medical staff, Cohen has had to relearn certain parts of his game to make his knees more secure, in particular cutting out this habit of diving into challenges. Forming a big part of his rehabilitation have been drills in which he takes lots of smaller steps while decelerating rather than stopping suddenly, or pushing off his inside leg rather than the outside when changing direction, decreasing the amount of stress placed on the joints. It is about playing smart, or at least smarter.

“I probably wasn’t benefiting either myself or the team when I have got injured,” he says. “When I’ve watched them back I’ve been out of position, trying to go after someone else’s man to win the ball back, leaving my man free. It’s just enthusiasm and obviously the two times I’ve done it to myself it’s been against Derby as well, which can’t be coincidence. There is something that makes you try harder in those big games when there are 30,000 people there and everyone is desperate to win. I know how much it means to myself and everyone else.

“I can play the way that I used to. I just have to adapt the way I move and the mechanics of my movement. It’s hard, but I think I can do it. I have been unlucky but you’ve got to be proactive. You can’t just feel sorry for yourself and go: ‘You know what, hopefully I won’t get unlucky again,’ which I have done after the first two. The physios were warning me [during the previous recoveries], and I knew what they were telling me was right but I was kind of thinking: ‘It’ll be all right, I feel great.’”

For a 28-year-old who has been a professional for more than a decade, having to alter things that are instinctive is tough and it is clearly a mental issue rather than a physical one. Pinned up in his car and his locker is a picture of himself during that last Derby game, shortly before the injury, limbs splayed in wildly different directions so he resembled a football strip-clad starfish, to remind himself what not to do.

“Every day in training we try to do a couple of the drills – like decelerating – that I’ve practised before with the physios for the last couple of months. We’re just trying to make it almost subconscious, and it’s getting there. I’ve done it a couple of times and I’ve thought: ‘That’s exactly what I needed to do.’ The physios say: ‘You’ve done that exactly right there and then a couple of other times not quite as well,’ so it’s just getting that learnt. It’s a hard thing to do, but I definitely think it’s something that you can do.

“I’m almost in a lucky position where I know it’s not just freak bad luck. Two of the times I’ve done it to myself – obviously without any intention – so I know if I don’t put myself in those positions the chances of me doing it again [are slim] … There is always going to be another chance but I know I can adapt and change, and I can be better.”

Chris Cohen knows he has to adapt his playing style after suffering three major injuries. Photograph: David Sillitoe/The Guardian

Cohen was not injury-prone before his first absence. Between his debut in 2007 and first being struck down in 2011, Cohen missed only 11 games. Three were through suspension, for some he was rested and another came when he had mumps.

“In four years I was as lucky as you can get as a footballer, and then it’s just gone full circle and come right round the other side. I’m hoping that it will go back to how it was before.”

Another problem Cohen has faced is that every time he has been injured, Forest have changed manager during his recovery, so three times he has had to re-establish himself. But, perhaps showing the mentality that has allowed him to come back from three such serious injuries, Cohen takes a more positive approach.

“I look at it as being quite exciting, because I don’t think they really know how good I think I am – I’m not arrogant, but I’m confident in my own ability. I think that I probably surprise the managers when I come back. Hopefully I can show Dougie Freedman [the manager since February] that I can play well in a number of positions, and I know I can be an asset to the squad.”

Cohen came through 45 minutes for the under-21s this week and the aim is to play in the first team by the third round of the FA Cup, when Forest play QPR. His contract is up next summer but for the moment he is concentrating on returning to action.

“There’ll be no pressure from myself because obviously that’s the club’s decision,” he says, “but I’m really hopeful I can stay for many years to come, not just another couple.”

You will not find many who disagree.