Injury Prevention in Berkeley, MO. Whether you play a sport and are hoping for a shot at the next level, or you just retired and want to spend more time being physical fit, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our licensed Berkeley, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others recover from injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to teach out techniques that are proven to prevent injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location nearest you.

Being physically active is an essential part of many Berkeley, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in activities such as playing sports, swimming, or other physical activities. Furthermore, pursuing an active lifestyle helps stave off significant health problems like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, degenerative brain diseases, depression, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Berkeley, MO physical therapists help you return to action as fierce as ever, 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, have been prove to work and are personalized to each client and the activities they want to return to.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a nagging injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Berkeley, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your active lifestyle, keep reading or inquire about an appointment today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Berkeley, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Overuse injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes athletes who are required to repeat throwing or striking motions, with joint pain usually being the first symptom.
2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen in an instant. 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 a sudden impact to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Berkeley, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally occur because of dysfunction or instability and your body and between body parts. There are three common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is crucial to maintaining healthy joints and reducing injury. Imbalance can lead to an overreliance on one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also causes posture dysfunction, and one set of muscles becoming fatigued sooner, making them more susceptible to injuries. Injuries can be caused by 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 an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Symptoms include:

• Muscle weakness
• Muscle inflexibility
• Poor muscle recruitment
• Poor coordination

Personalized injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Berkeley, 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 a range of musculoskeletal issues. It can cause injury through:

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

When you initially see our injury prevention professionals in Berkeley, MO, we’ll discuss your medical history and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, in concert with with your doctor or any other medical professionals involved in your treatment, we’ll devise a tailored plan of attack based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people with desk jobs. Athletes and other physically active people can be affected by postural dysfunction when lying down, sitting, or in certain poses necessary for their sport. Correct posture refers to proper positioning of your body from your head to your toes in a way that keeps the spine within its natural curves. Poor posture can compress the vertebrae, which disrupts communication between your brain and body and makes it harder to achieve ideal motion health. It can also lead to:

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

By guiding you to the best practices for posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring you are using the right muscles for the right movements, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your spine is in its natural position.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Berkeley, MO

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

• Take breaks — Your body needs time to rest and recover after any moderate to intense activity. If you have a very high activity level, make sure to take one or two days off per week to encourage your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you have a more modest activity level, take a break after activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Wear the correct equipment — Helmets, shin guards, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries such as rashes or brain injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Berkeley, MO physician or injury prevention expert may suggest stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other methods like tying your shoes tightly offers further protection.
• Improve muscle strength — 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 experienced Berkeley, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the often forgotten muscles needed to be able to stay healthy in the activities you want to participate in.
• Increase flexibility — Stretching achieves three important things for injury prevention:
  1. It boosts your range of motion, which allows for your soft tissue to handle more extreme positions.
  2. It improves blood flow, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to heal.
  3. It boosts your posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is is one of the most important factors of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like basketball that include bouncing and jumping require muscles and tendons compliant enough 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 physical activity, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. These techniques not only help you get be the best athlete you can be but help reduce the risk of injury. Football players are taught to tackle with the shoulder in order to avoid a concussion, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and evaluate 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, stop immediately and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body does not feel well enough for 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, 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 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 urgent care, and a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
• Follow the rules — Most sports have special rules at different levels in the interest of safety. Penalties for leading with the helmet in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the existence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are examples of rules that leagues enacted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. Those were enacted for a reason, and there’s a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Consult a professional physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to get a physical before another season begins or starting up a new activity or training regimen. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a expert physical therapist in Berkeley, MO is right for you. All of our techniques have been demonstrated to reduce the risk of 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 Senior Citizens in Berkeley, MO

Falls in adults over 65 accounted for over 3 million urgent care visits and more than 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates that physical activity is invaluable in preventing falls. Other conditions like arthritis that accumulate over time can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue 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 Berkeley, 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

Berkeley, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in in an activity you prepare and train for and love can lead to a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same elation. The knowledgeable Berkeley, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to develop your personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body as safe and healthy as can be, and your mind confident that you can safely return to the activities you love. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Request an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to start your program with one of our injury prevention specialists in Berkeley, MO.