Champ, MO

Champ, MO

Don't let the fear of reinjury keep you from the things what you do best.

Injury Prevention in Champ, MO. Whether you play a sport and are trying to get a shot at the next stage, or you just retired and want to dedicate your time to being physical fit, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you desire. While our licensed Champ, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others 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 guide you through measures that are proven to prevent injury. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location nearest you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Champ, MO residents. We love active endeavors like playing sports, playing golf, or other physical activities. Additionally, keeping an active lifestyle reduces the risk of chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, depression, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Champ, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention professionals can help keep you active by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our methods, for both recovery and injury prevention, have been prove to work and are personalized to each client and the level of activity they want to reach.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a nagging injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Champ, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and protect your sport or hobby, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist at your earliest convenience.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Champ, MO

Injuries typically happen for one of two reasons:

  1. Repetitive demand injuries are injuries that occur when a part of the body repeats the same motion time and time again. They are common in overhead athletes such as water polo or soccer goalies, with joint pain usually being the first symptom.
  2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen in an instant. Examples include landing on uneven ground or a sudden impact by an object or another person. 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, for example ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, with a sudden impact to the knee.

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

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Champ, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally occur because of dysfunction or imbalance and your body and between body parts. There are three primary causes of why your body cannot adjust to an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is crucial to maintaining healthy joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can lead to overemphasis for 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 faster, increasing the risk of injury. Muscle imbalance applies to inadequate muscle balance between 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. Symptoms include:

Customized injury prevention with our knowledgeable physical therapists in Champ, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, increasing your risk of injury. It can be caused by numerous musculoskeletal issues. Symptoms include:

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

At our first injury prevention appointment in Champ, MO, we’ll go over your medical history and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, in tandem with with your physician or any other medical professionals involved in your care, we’ll develop a customized plan of attack based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement health to reach its potential.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people with desk jobs. People who play sports and other physically active people can have postural dysfunction when at lest, driving, or in certain stances related to a given activity. Optimal posture refers to 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 compact the bones of the spine, which interferes with our body’s ability to communicate with itself and achieve ideal movement health. 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 spine is in its natural position.



Injury Prevention Techniques in Champ, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything possible to reduce that risk. No one safety tip is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are things you can do to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your desired activity level:

  • 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 allow your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you’re moderately active, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
  • Use protective equipment — Helmets, chest guards, protective eyewear, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries such as contusions or brain injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Champ, MO doctor or physical therapist may fit you for stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other techniques like tying your cleats tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
  • Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the force and torque necessary for in sports and other activities. Our Champ, MO injury prevention specialists will 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 contributes to injury prevention in three way:
    1. It increases which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for your tendons and ligaments to adjust to more forceful movements.
    2. It boosts blood flow, which carries nourishing blood to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and re-energizing the muscles.
    3. It encourages good posture, which we already know is an an important part of injury prevention.

    According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like soccer that require sudden twists and movements require soft tissue with sufficient flexibility to incorporate and expel the high levels of energy required. Stretching and warm up exercises before games or training further helps prevent injuries.

  • Use proper technique — In every sport, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. 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 head injury, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best apply torque to your body. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and educate you on how to improve it.
  • Listen to your body — If a part of your body is bothering you, that means that body part is telling your brain that something isn’t right. If you feel sudden pain, immediately stop all physical activity and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body isn’t holing up well in a particularly rigorous training session, save it for another day.
  • Don’t play through an injury — While gutting it out through pain is often seen as a courageous 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 off the field or court for longer than it originally would have. Depending on the severity of your injury, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, visiting urgent care, and scheduling appointments with a physical therapist to ensure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
  • Follow 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 head-first sliding in baseball, and even the presence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are all rules that leagues enacted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that there are penalties for them.
  • Consult a professional physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to have a medical evaluation before starting another season or committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. During your visit, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a experienced physical therapist in Champ, MO is something you should consider. All of our techniques have been demonstrated to help athletes remain healthy, and we’ll personalize your program to your age, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.

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

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Champ, MO

Falls in senior citizens accounted for over 3 million emergency room visits and over 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that physical activity can go a long way in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints healthy. While the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, healthy strength, stability, flexibility, and proper posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Champ, MO include:

Champ, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in something you love doing can create a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same happiness. The experienced Champ, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to design for you a personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body as safe and healthy as can be, and your mind at ease 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 that you do not want to lose. Request an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to discover what our Champ, MO injury prevention professionals can do for you.

Services Offered

Services Offered
  • Physical Therapy
    • Pre/Post Surgical Rehabilitation
    • Acute Injury Management
    • Chronic Injury Management
  • Work Conditioning/Hardening
  • Functional Capacity Evaluations
  • Sports Physical Therapy
  • Pediatric Orthopedic Physical Therapy
  • Geriatric Physical Therapy
  • Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization (Astym)
  • Spine Specialty – Certified Manual Therapy
  • Free Injury Screenings
  • Trigger Point Dry Needling
  • Kinesio Taping®
  • Video Motion Analysis
  • Blood Flow Restriction Therapy

Our Team

Sara Crain
PT, CEAS, Astym Cert.
Candace Cunningham
Clinic Director, PT, DPT
Abigail Alsmeyer
Front Office
Justin Bridwell
Front Office

Locations

Begin Your Recovery Today

Injuries and pain shouldn’t keep you from moving and doing the things you love.