Injury Prevention in Calverton Park, MO. Whether you’re an athlete trying to get an opportunity 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 professional Calverton Park, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to recover from injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to show you exercises that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location most convenient for you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Calverton Park, MO residents. Many of us participate in active endeavors like playing sports, swimming, and more. Additionally, keeping an active lifestyle helps prevent chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, degenerative brain diseases, anxiety, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Calverton Park, MO physical therapists allow you to come back as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention professionals can help keep you active by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our methods, for both healing from and preventing injury, 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 won’t heal on its own, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Calverton Park, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can keep up with your active lifestyle, read on below or inquire about an appointment today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Calverton Park, MO

Most injuries fall into two categories:

1. Repetitive motion injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. They are common in overhead athletes athletes who are required to repeat throwing or striking motions and typically manifest themselves as joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen suddenly. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, for example rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, for example ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Calverton Park, 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 hold up under the force, torque, or stretching that are required or are possible in a given activity. There are three primary causes of why your body cannot adjust to an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is crucial to supporting joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can lead to overemphasis for one set of muscles, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also prevents you from having ideal posture, and the weaker set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher probability of injury. Injuries can be caused by insufficient muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong hamstring and weak quadriceps, or within muscle groups, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff having different levels of strength. Symptoms include:

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

Personalized injury prevention with our knowledgeable physical therapists in Calverton Park, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and lead to your body moving in ways it is not designed to, causing injury. Problems in your nervous system, swelling, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can lead to:

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

When you first visit our injury prevention specialists in Calverton Park, 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 create a customized treatment plan based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement health to the level you need it to to do what you love.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people with slouched shoulders. People who play sports and others with active lifestyles can have postural dysfunction when resting, using the computer, or in specific body positions related to a given activity. Good posture refers to proper alignments when both static and moving in a way that keeps the spine within its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the vertebrae closer together, 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 limitations
• Poor muscle recruitment

Good posture is a vital part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, flexibility, and that your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Calverton Park, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. No one precaution is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are precautions to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your intended activity:

• Take a rest — Injuries are more common when you do not give your body time to restore itself. If you’re heavily active, make sure to take one or two days off per week to allow your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you have a more modest activity level, take it easy after activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Use the appropriate equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, safety pads and guards, and other recommended equipment in many sports can help prevent injuries such as cuts or brain injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or soft tissue, your Calverton Park, MO doctor or injury prevention specialist may recommend braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize a joint. Other techniques like tying your shoes tightly offers further stabilization.
• Improve muscle strength — Strengthening soft tissue helps it stand up to the rigors your body is put through in sports and other activities. In your tailored injury prevention program with our knowledgeable Calverton Park, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you want to participate in.
• Improve flexibility — Increasing your flexibility accomplishes three important things for injury prevention:
  1. It increases which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which allows for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adapt to more forceful movements.
  2. It enhances blood flow, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to restore themselves.
  3. It encourages good posture, which, as you read earlier, is is one of the most important aspects of injury prevention.

  According to research, sports like basketball that require sudden twists and movements require soft tissue with sufficient flexibility to incorporate and release the high levels of energy required. Stretching and warm up exercises before games or training further helps prevent injuries.

• Use proper technique — In every physical activity, there are accepted 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 are taught to tackle a certain way to avoid brain damage, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and analyze how to both improve your performance and reduce your risk of injury.
• 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 withdraw from the activity and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body isn’t feeling up to an intense workout, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though playing through pain is often viewed as commendable among competitors, forcing your body to perform with soft tissue or structural damage 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 an emergency room, and a series of physical therapy sessions to make sure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
• Play by the rules — Depending on the sport or activity and age level of the participants, it likely has special rules to help prevent injury. Penalties for targeting in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the presence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are all rules that were adopted 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.
• Speak a professional physical therapist — It’s a good idea to get a physical before a new season or starting up a new activity or training regimen. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a knowledgeable physical therapist in Calverton Park, MO is a good idea for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been proven to prevent injury, and we’ll personalize your program to your age, any previous injuries, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Calverton Park, MO

Falls in senior citizens accounted for more than 3 million urgent care admissions and over 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that physical activity is a great method for reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions like arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be more bearable and take longer to progress with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints healthy. While the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, appropriate strength, balance, flexibility, and correct posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Calverton Park, 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

Calverton Park, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in something you love doing can lead to a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same joy. The experienced Calverton Park, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to design for you a 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. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits that you do not want to lose. Make an appointment online or call the location nearest you to discover what our Calverton Park, MO injury prevention specialists can do for you.