Injury Prevention in Beaufort, MO. Whether you’re an athlete trying to get an opportunity at the next level, or a recent retiree who wants to spend more time bike riding, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our certified Beaufort, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to recover from injury, we are experts in the entire musculoskeletal system who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to guide you through exercises that are proven to reduce the risk of injury by preparing your body for the stressors of your desired activity. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location nearest you.

Being physically active is an essential part of many Beaufort, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in active endeavors like playing sports, swimming, and more. Additionally, keeping an active lifestyle helps prevent chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, depression, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Beaufort, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention experts can help you reduce the risk of further injury by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our treatment plans, for both recovery and injury prevention, have been prove to work and are customized for each client and the level of activity they want to reach.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a lingering injury that won’t heal on its own, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Beaufort, MO for a free injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can keep up with your active lifestyle, keep reading or inquire about an appointment today.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Beaufort, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Overuse injuries are injuries that occur when a part of the body repeats the same motion time and time again. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes such as softball or shotput and pole-vaulters and typically reveal themselves with joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or a sudden impact by an object or another person. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, such as rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, like ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, with an immediate impact to or twisting of the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Beaufort, MO

While injuries can happen in a variety of circumstances, and are sometimes unpreventable, they generally happen because your muscles, ligaments, tendons, bones, and joints cannot hold up under the force, torque, or stretching that they are subjected to in a given movement or collision. There are three chief causes of why your body cannot handle an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to maintaining healthy joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can cause an overreliance on one set of muscles, which may cause your body to use it in a way it shouldn’t. It also causes posture dysfunction, and the weaker set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher likelihood of injury. Muscle imbalance can refer to poor muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong hamstring and weak quadriceps, or in the same muscle group, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Muscle imbalance can lead to:

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

Personalized injury prevention with our professional physical therapists in Beaufort, MO will ensure that different muscles and muscle groups are equally strong.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, causing injury. It can be caused by a variety of musculoskeletal issues. Symptoms include:

• Joint mobility restrictions
• Muscle imbalance
• Poor coordination
• Reduced balance

When you first see our injury prevention specialists in Beaufort, MO, we’ll discuss your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, in concert with with your physician or any additional providers involved in your treatment, we’ll design a customized treatment plan based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your body moving as it should.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people who spend a lot of time doing the same activity. Athletes and other physically active people can suffer from postural dysfunction when at lest, driving, or in certain poses related to their sport. Good posture means proper positioning of your body from your head to your toes in a way that does not remove the spine from its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the vertebrae closer together, which has a negative affect on our body’s ability to communicate with itself and reach optimal motion health. It causes injuries through:

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

Good posture is an important part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, flexibility, and that your spine is in its natural position.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Beaufort, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything possible to prevent one. No one precaution is guaranteed to be effective in injury prevention. However, there are several steps you can take to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• Take a rest — Injuries are more common in overworked bodies. If you have a very high activity level, one or two rest days a week will allow your body to engage in its natural healing processes. If you have a more modest activity level, take it easy after 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 can help prevent injuries like cuts or brain injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Beaufort, MO doctor or injury prevention specialist may fit you for braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the injured area. Other methods like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further stabilization.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the rigors your body is put through in sports and other activities. In your customized injury prevention program with our knowledgeable Beaufort, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to build up your body to be able to stay healthy in the activities you love.
• Improve flexibility — Stretching contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It enhances your range of motion, which lets for your tendons and ligaments to adjust to more pronounced movements.
  2. It boosts blood flow, which carries nourishing blood to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and reinvigorating the muscles.
  3. It encourages good posture, which, as you read earlier, is is one of the most important factors of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like football that necessitate sudden twists and movements require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. Also, it’s important to stretch and warm up before any physical activity to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use accepted technique — In every sport, there are accepted techniques to use. These techniques not only help you perform better but help prevent injuries. Football players learn to tackle a certain way to avoid a head injury, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and educate you on how to improve it.
• Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, that means that body part is telling your brain that something isn’t right. If you feel sudden pain, immediately stop all physical activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t feeling up to a particularly rigorous workout, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — While teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that guts it out through pain, forcing your body to perform with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could make that injury worse and put you out of commission for longer than it originally would have. Depending on what caused your injury and how severe it is, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, visiting your doctor, and a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure your body heals properly and can handle a return to physical activity.
• Follow the rules — Many sports have special rules at different levels to reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for helmet to helmet hits in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the existence of bike lanes are examples of rules that leagues enacted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that there are penalties for them.
• Speak a professional physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to see a doctor before starting another season or starting up a new activity or training regimen. During your visit, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Beaufort, MO is a good idea for you. All of our techniques have been proven to prevent injury, 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 The Elderly in Beaufort, MO

Falls in adults over 65 were responsible for over 3 million emergency room admissions and more than 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates that being physical active is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions that limit mobility like arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be more bearable and take longer to progress with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints active. While seniors typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, healthy strength, balance, flexibility, and optimal posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Beaufort, 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

Beaufort, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in in an activity you prepare and train for and love can create a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same exhilaration. The knowledgeable Beaufort, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to develop your personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body prepared for the rigors of physical activity, and your mind confident that you can safely return to the activities you love doing most. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits that you do not want to lose. Schedule an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to see what our Beaufort, MO injury prevention specialists can do for you.