Injury Prevention in Boles, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or you just retired and want to spend more time taking ski vacations, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our professional Boles, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to heal after an injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to teach out measures that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location nearest you.
Being physically active is vitally important to many Boles, MO residents. Many of us participate in active endeavors such as playing sports, hiking, or other physical activities. Furthermore, pursuing an active lifestyle helps prevent chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, depression, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Boles, MO physical therapists allow you to come back even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention specialists can help preserve your active lifestyle by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our treatment plans, 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 suffered an injury, or have a persistent injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Boles, MO for a free injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can continue with your sport or hobby, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist today.
Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Boles, MO
Injuries generally fall into two categories:
- Repetitive demand injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. They are common in overhead athletes athletes who use throwing or striking motions and commonly reveal themselves with joint pain.
- Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, broken bones, and dislocations.
Some of the injuries we see most frequently, for example rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, such as ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, with a sudden impact to the knee.
What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Boles, 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 are required or are possible in a given activity. There are three common dysfunctions that lead to injury:
Muscle Imbalance
Muscle balance is crucial to supporting joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can cause 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, making them more susceptible to injuries. Muscle imbalance applies to poor muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong hamstring and weak quadriceps, 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 licensed physical therapists in Boles, MO will ensure that your muscles are at optimal proportional strength.
Movement Dysfunction
Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, causing injury. Problems in your nervous system, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can lead to:
- Joint mobility limitations
- Muscle imbalance
- Poor coordination
- Decreased balance
At our first injury prevention appointment in Boles, MO, we’ll go through your medical history and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, alongside with your physician or any additional medical professionals treating you, we’ll develop a tailored treatment plan been proven to work by research and studies to get your movement back on track.
Posture Dysfunction
Bad posture is not just an issue for people with slouched shoulders. People who play sports and other physically active people can be affected by postural dysfunction when at lest, using the computer, or in specific positions necessary for their sport. Correct posture means proper positioning of your body from your head to your toes in a way that encourages our spine to stay in its natural curves. Poor posture can compact the vertebrae, which interferes with 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 restrictions
- Poor muscle recruitment
Good posture is a vital part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, range of motion, and that your vertebrae remain in place.
How to Prevent Injury in Boles, MO
All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. No one precaution is guaranteed to be effective in injury prevention. However, there are precautions 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’re heavily active, one or two rest days a week will allow your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you have a more modest activity level, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
- Wear protective equipment — Helmets, chest guards, safety pads and guards, and other recommended equipment in many sports helps you avoid injuries such as rashes or concussions. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Boles, MO physician or injury prevention expert may advise braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the injured area. Other techniques like tying your athletic footwear tightly offers further protection.
- Increase muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the force and torque of heavy activity. In your tailored injury prevention program with our licensed Boles, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to achieve ideal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you want to participate in.
- Boost flexibility — Stretching contributes to injury prevention in three way:
- It increases which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adjust to more extreme movements.
- It improves blood flow, which carries nourishing blood to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and rebuilding the muscles.
- It encourages good posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is an essential part of injury prevention.
According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like basketball that require bouncing and jumping require soft tissue with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. Also, don’t forget to stretch and warm up before any physical activity to further reduce the risk of injury.
- Use accepted technique — In every physical activity, there are accepted techniques to use. These techniques not only improve performance but help reduce the risk of injury. Football players are taught to tackle with the shoulder in order to avoid a concussion, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best apply torque to your body. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and analyze how to improve it.
- Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If a part of your body is sore, that’s your body’s way of telling you something isn’t right. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, immediately stop all physical activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t holing up well in an intense training session, save it for another day.
- Don’t play through an injury — Even though gutting it out 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 make that injury worse and leave you on the sidelines for longer than it originally would have. Depending on the severity of your injury, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, seeing your doctor, and scheduling appointments with a physical therapist to make sure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
- Follow the rules — Most 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 existence of bike lanes are all rules put in place to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. Those are in place for a reason, and there’s a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
- Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s a good idea to get a physical before a new season or starting up a new physical activity. During your visit, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a knowledgeable physical therapist in Boles, 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 your age, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.
Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Boles, MO
Falls in senior citizens accounted for over 3 million emergency room admissions and over 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that physical activity is a great method for reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions that limit mobility like arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be more bearable and take longer to progress with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints strong. While the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, appropriate strength, balance, flexibility, and proper posture are great agents in injury prevention.
Other services we offer in Boles, MO include:
- Total Knee Replacement Physical Therapy
- Vestibular Therapy
- Concussion Treatment
- Soft Tissue Mobilization
- Post Surgical Rehabilitation
- Shin Splint Treatment
- Direct Access Physical Therapy
- Gait Analysis
- Pelvic Floor Therapy
- Dry Needling Near Me
Boles, 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 exhilaration. The knowledgeable Boles, 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 do not have to fear going back to what you love doing most. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Schedule an appointment online or call the location nearest you to discover what our Boles, MO injury prevention experts can do for you.