Injury Prevention Bismarck, MO

Injury Prevention in Bismarck, MO. Whether you’re an athlete trying to get an opportunity at the next level, or a recent retiree who wants to dedicate your time to being physical fit, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our licensed Bismarck, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to heal after an injury, we are experts in the entire musculoskeletal system who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to teach out methods that are proven to prevent injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location nearest you.

Physical activity is an essential part of many Bismarck, MO people’s lives. We love active endeavors such as playing sports, playing golf, or other physical activities. Furthermore, pursuing an active lifestyle helps stave off serious health problems like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, anxiety, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Bismarck, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention professionals can help keep you active by improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. All of our methods, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, have been prove to work and are customized for each client and the level of activity they want to reach.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a persistent injury that is not getting better with time, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Bismarck, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can keep up with your active lifestyle, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Bismarck, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

Repetitive demand injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes athletes who use throwing or striking motions and typically manifest themselves as joint pain.
Acute injuries are injuries that happen because of a specific and sudden trauma. Examples include falling or a sudden impact by an object or another person. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, such as rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, such as ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, with a sudden impact to the knee.

Injury Prevention Bismarck, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Bismarck

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Bismarck, MO

While injuries occur for many different reasons, and are sometimes inescapable, they generally occur because of dysfunction or imbalance and your body and between body parts. There are three main causes of why your body cannot handle an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is key to maintaining healthy joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can result in dependency on one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also causes posture dysfunction, and the weaker set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher probability of injury. Muscle imbalance can refer to insufficient muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or within muscle groups, 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 Bismarck, MO will ensure that different muscles and muscle groups are equally strong.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, causing injury. Neurological issues, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can cause injury through:

Joint mobility restrictions
Muscle imbalance
Coordination deficits
Decreased balance

When you first see our injury prevention experts in Bismarck, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, in concert with with your doctor or any other medical professionals involved in your treatment, we’ll create a personalized plan of attack 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 desk jobs. Athletes and other physically active people can have postural dysfunction when at lest, sitting, or in specific stances necessary for a given activity. Good posture refers to correct 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 the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It can also lead to:

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

Good posture is an important part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, range of motion, and that your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.

How to Prevent Injury in Bismarck, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are things you can do to make sure your body is prepared for your intended activity:

Take breaks — Your body needs time to rest and recover after any moderate to intense activity. If you have a very high activity level, one or two rest days a week will signal to your body to engage in its natural healing processes. If you have a more modest activity level, take it easy for the few hours after an activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
Wear protective equipment — Helmets, chest guards, safety pads and guards, and other required equipment in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries such as bruises or concussions. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or soft tissue, your Bismarck, MO physician or injury prevention specialist may suggest braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize a joint. Other techniques like tying your cleats tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
Improve muscle strength — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the rigors of heavy activity. In your personalized injury prevention program with our expert Bismarck, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the often forgotten muscles needed to be able to avoid injury in the activities you love.
Increase flexibility — Stretching accomplishes three critical things for injury prevention:
1. It improves which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for your soft tissue to handle more forceful movements.
2. It improves blood flow, which allows for nutrient-rich blood to flow to your soft tissue, removing waste byproduct and rebuilding the muscles.
3. It encourages good posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is an important part of injury prevention.
According to research, sports like soccer that necessitate bouncing and jumping require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to incorporate and exert the high amount of energy required. Also, remember to stretch and warm up before any physical activity to further reduce the risk of injury.
Use proper 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 player you can be but help reduce the risk of injury. Football players learn to tackle a certain way to avoid a concussion, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and evaluate how to improve it.
Listen to your body — If a part of your body is sore, that means that body part is telling your brain that something is wrong. If you feel sudden pain, immediately withdraw from the activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t feeling up to a particularly rigorous training session, save it for another day.
Don’t play through an injury — Even though playing 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 exacerbate a current injury and put you out of commission for much longer than you would have been sitting out. Depending on the nature of your injury, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, seeing an emergency room, and scheduling appointments with a physical therapist to make sure your body heals naturally and can handle the activity you want to return to.
Play by the rules — Many sports have special rules at different levels to help prevent injury. Penalties for targeting in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the presence of bike lanes are all rules that leagues enacted to keep players safe. Those are in place for a reason, and there’s a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
Speak a professional physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to have a medical evaluation before another season begins or starting up a new activity or training regimen. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a licensed physical therapist in Bismarck, MO is something you should consider. All of our techniques have been demonstrated 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 Bismarck, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Bismarck

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Bismarck, MO

Falls in senior citizens accounted for over 3 million emergency room admissions and over 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that physical activity is a great method for reducing the risk of 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 healthy. While seniors typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, appropriate strength, balance, flexibility, and optimal posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Bismarck, MO include:

Bismarck, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in something you love doing can lead to a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same exultation. The professional Bismarck, 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 at ease 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 do not want to lose. Request an appointment online or call the location nearest you to start your program with one of our injury prevention experts in Bismarck, MO.