Injury Prevention in Bella Villa, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or a recent retiree who wants to spend more time bike riding, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you desire. While our professional Bella Villa, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others heal after an injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to teach out methods 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 contact the location nearest you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Bella Villa, MO residents. Many of us participate in activities such as playing sports, hiking, or other physical activities. Furthermore, committing to an active lifestyle reduces the risk of serious health problems including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, mental health issues, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Bella Villa, 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 improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. All of our treatment plans, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, are proven to be effective and are developed uniquely for each client and the lifestyle they desire.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a persistent injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Bella Villa, MO for a free injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your active lifestyle, read on below or inquire about an appointment at your earliest convenience.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Bella Villa, MO

Injuries generally fall into two categories:

1. Overuse injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes such as water polo or lacrosse players and typically reveal themselves with joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen suddenly. Examples include landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, like 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.

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Bella Villa, MO

While injuries occur for many different reasons, and some are unpreventable, they generally happen because of dysfunction or imbalance and your body and between body parts. There are three common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is key to maintaining healthy joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can cause overemphasis for one set of muscles, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also prevents you from having good posture, and one set of muscles becoming tired faster, increasing the risk of injury. Muscle imbalance can refer to inadequate muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong hamstring and weak quadriceps, or in the same muscle group, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff having different levels of strength. Symptoms include:

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

Customized injury prevention with our professional physical therapists in Bella Villa, 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. It can be caused by many different musculoskeletal issues. It can lead to:

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

At our initial injury prevention appointment in Bella Villa, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, together with your physician or any other providers involved in your care, we’ll come up with a personalized game plan been proven to work by research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people with slouched shoulders. People who play sports and other physically active people can have postural dysfunction when lying down, driving, or in certain stances necessary for a given activity. Optimal posture means proper alignments of the neck, torso, pelvis, and extremities in a way that does not remove the spine from its natural curves. Poor posture can compress the joints in the spine, which interferes with our body’s ability to communicate with itself and reach ideal movement health. Symptoms include:

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

By helping you understand correct posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring muscle balance, flexibility, and that your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Bella Villa, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. No one technique is guaranteed to be effective in injury prevention. However, there are several steps you can take to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your intended activity:

• 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 signal to your body to engage in its natural healing processes. If you’re moderately active, rest for the rest of the day after an activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
• Wear protective equipment — Helmets, chest guards, protective eyewear, and other required equipment in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries such as contusions or concussions. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Bella Villa, MO doctor or physical therapist may suggest braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the affected area. Other methods like making sure all the equipment is snug can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Boost muscle strength — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the rigors of heavy activity. In your tailored injury prevention program with our professional Bella Villa, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you love.
• Increase flexibility — Increasing your flexibility contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It enhances which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which allows for your tendons and ligaments to adjust to more dramatic movements.
  2. It boosts blood flow, which carries protein-rich blood to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to restore themselves.
  3. It improves your posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is an important part of injury prevention.

  According to studies, sports like soccer that necessitate dynamic activities require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to store and release the high levels of energy required. Stretching and warm up exercises before games or training further helps prevent injuries.

• Use correct technique — Through the years, each sport and physical activity develops a consensus of the best techniques to use. These techniques not only improve performance but help prevent injuries. Football players learn to tackle with the shoulder in order to avoid a concussion, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and educate you on how to both be a better athlete and reduce your risk of injury.
• Listen to your body — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, your body is trying to send you a message. If you feel sudden pain, stop immediately and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t feeling up to an intense workout, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — While teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that plays through pain, playing with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could make that injury worse and leave you on the sidelines for much longer than if you had sat out at the time of the injury. 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 recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
• Play by the rules — Most sports have special rules at different levels to help prevent injury. Penalties for leading with the helmet in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the presence of bike lanes are examples of rules put in place to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Consult a professional physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to have a medical evaluation before a new season or committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. During your visit, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Bella Villa, MO is right for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated to prevent injury, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, your injury history, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Bella Villa, MO

Falls in the elderly were responsible for more than 3 million emergency room admissions and more than 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that being physical active is invaluable in preventing falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be slowed down by physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints strong. While older adults typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, appropriate strength, stability, flexibility, and correct posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Bella Villa, MO include:

• 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
• Hip Replacement Physical Therapy

Bella Villa, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in something you love doing causes a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same joy. The professional Bella Villa, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to develop your personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body strong and flexible, 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. Request an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to find out more about what our Bella Villa, MO injury prevention professionals can do for you.