Injury Prevention in Augusta, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or a recent retiree who wants to dedicate your time to hiking, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you desire. While our certified Augusta, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others recover from injury, we are experts in the entire musculoskeletal system who can evaluate your movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to show you measures that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location nearest you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Augusta, MO residents. Many of us participate in activities such as playing sports, kayaking, or other physical activities. Furthermore, committing to an active lifestyle helps stave off chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, eurodegenerative disease, depression, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Augusta, MO physical therapists help you return to action even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention experts can help you reduce the risk of further injury by improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. All of our methods, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, are proven to be effective and are customized for each client and the lifestyle they desire.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a lingering injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Augusta, MO for a free injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can continue with your active lifestyle, read on below or inquire about an appointment today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Augusta, MO

Most injuries fall into two categories:

1. Wear-and-tear injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. They are common in overhead athletes such as water polo or quarterbacks, with joint pain usually being the first indicator.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, such as rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, for example ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Augusta, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally happen because your soft tissue, bones, and joints cannot handle the force, torque, or stretching that they are subjected to in a given movement or collision. There are three main causes of why your body cannot adjust to an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is key to supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can lead to dependency on one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It can also lead to poor posture, and one set of muscles becoming fatigued more quickly, increasing the risk of injury. Injuries can be caused by insufficient muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong chest and weak back, or within muscle groups, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Muscle imbalance can cause injury through:

• Muscle weakness
• Muscle inflexibility
• Poor muscle recruitment
• Coordination deficiency

Customized injury prevention with our knowledgeable physical therapists in Augusta, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, increasing your risk of injury. Neurological issues, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can cause injury through:

• Joint mobility limitations
• Muscle imbalance
• Coordination deficiency
• Lessened balance

When you initially visit our injury prevention professionals in Augusta, MO, we’ll go over your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, alongside with your physician or any other medical professionals involved in your care, we’ll come up with a customized treatment plan been proven to work through research and studies to get your body moving as it should.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people with slouched shoulders. Athletes and other physically active people can suffer from postural dysfunction when at lest, using the computer, or in specific body positions necessary for a given activity. Good posture means proper alignments when both static and moving in a way that keeps the spine within its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the joints in the spine closer together, which has a negative affect on our body’s ability to communicate with itself and attain the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It causes injuries through:

• Muscle weakness
• Muscle imbalance
• Poor positioning
• Joint mobility limitations
• Poor muscle recruitment

Good posture is a vital part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, flexibility, and that your vertebrae remain in place.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Augusta, MO

All sports and physical activities can potentially lead to an injury. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are several steps you can take to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• Take breaks — Injuries are more common in overworked bodies. If you’re heavily active, make sure to take one or two days off per week to allow your body to engage in its natural healing processes. If you have a more modest activity level, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
• Use the appropriate equipment — Helmets, chest guards, protective eyewear, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries like rashes or brain injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Augusta, MO physician or injury prevention specialist may advise stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other techniques like tying your athletic footwear tightly offers further stabilization.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the rigors of heavy activity. Our Augusta, MO injury prevention professionals will work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to be able to avoid injury in the activities you love.
• Increase flexibility — Stretching contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It increases your range of motion, which lets for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adjust to more pronounced movements.
  2. It improves blood flow, which allows for nourishing blood to flow to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and reinvigorating the muscles.
  3. It enhances your posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is is one of the most important factors of injury prevention.

  According to studies, sports like football that require sudden twists and movements require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to incorporate and exert the high levels of energy required. Stretching and warm up exercises before games or training further helps prevent injuries.

• Use accepted technique — Through the years, each sport and physical activity develops a consensus of the best techniques to use. These techniques not only help you get be the best athlete you can be but help prevent injuries by not forcing your body into unnatural positions and movements. Football players are taught to tackle with the shoulder in order to avoid brain damage, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and educate you on how to both improve your performance and reduce your risk of injury.
• Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If a part of your body is bothering you, that’s your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. If you feel sudden pain, immediately withdraw from the activity and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body does not feel well enough for a particularly rigorous training session, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — While gritting through pain is often seen as a valiant act among competitors, forcing your body to perform with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could aggravate an existing injury and put you out of commission for much longer than you would have been sitting out. Depending on what caused your injury and how severe it is, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, seeing your doctor, and a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure your body heals naturally and can withstand a return to physical activity.
• Follow the rules — Most sports have special rules at different levels to reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for leading with the helmet in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the presence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are all rules that were adopted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. Those were enacted for a reason, and there’s a reason that there are penalties for them.
• Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s a good idea to get a physical before starting another season or starting up a new activity or training regimen. While there, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a expert physical therapist in Augusta, MO is something you should consider. Every treatment plan we employ has been proven to help athletes remain healthy, and you plan will be completely unique to you and catered to your age, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention for Older Augusta, MO Adults

Falls in the elderly accounted for over 3 million urgent care admissions and more than 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that being physical active can go a long way in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions like arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints healthy. While older adults typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, appropriate strength, stability, flexibility, and proper posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Augusta, MO include:

• Neck Pain Treatment
• Physical Therapy Clinic
• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Treatment
• Sciatica Treatment
• Sports Medicine
• Hand Pain Physical Therapy
• Foot & Ankle Pain Treatment
• Hip Pain Treatment
• Plantar Fasciitis Treatment
• Stroke Rehabilitation

Augusta, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in one of your favorite activities can lead to a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same exultation. The experienced Augusta, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to design for you a personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body strong and flexible, and your mind confident that you do not have to fear going back to what you love. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Make an appointment online or call the location nearest you to find out more about what our Augusta, MO injury prevention experts can do for you.