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

Injury Prevention in Clearwater, MO. Whether you’re an athlete hoping for a shot at the next stage, or you just retired and want to dedicate your time to camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our professional Clearwater, 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 show you methods that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location most convenient for you.

Being physically active is an essential part of many Clearwater, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in activities such as playing sports, hiking, or other physical activities. Additionally, committing to an active lifestyle reduces the risk of chronic conditions including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, anxiety, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Clearwater, MO physical therapists allow you to come back and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention specialists 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, are proven to be effective and are developed uniquely for each client and the lifestyle they desire.

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 Clearwater, MO for a free 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 Clearwater, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

Repetitive demand injuries are injuries happen gradually as a body part degrades because of repetitive movements. 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 landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, for example rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, such as ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, with an immediate impact to or twisting of the knee.

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

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

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

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is crucial to maintaining healthy joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can lead to an overreliance on one set of muscles, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It can also lead to poor posture, and the weaker muscles will become fatigued sooner, making them more susceptible to injuries. Muscle imbalance can refer to poor muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or within muscle groups, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff not having proportionate strength. Muscle imbalance can cause injury through:

Muscle weakness
Muscle inflexibility
Poor muscle recruitment
Coordination deficits

Personalized injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Clearwater, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and lead to your body bending in unnatural ways, increasing your risk of injury. Problems in your nervous system, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. Symptoms include:

Joint mobility restrictions
Muscle imbalance
Poor coordination
Reduced balance

At our first injury prevention appointment in Clearwater, MO, we’ll go through your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, together with your doctor or any other medical professionals involved in your treatment, we’ll design a personalized treatment plan been proven to work through research and studies to get your movement health to reach its potential.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people who sit a lot. Athletes and other physically active people can have postural dysfunction when at lest, sitting, or in specific positions necessary for their sport. Good posture means correct alignments when both static and moving in a way that does not remove the spine from its natural curves. Poor posture can compress the vertebrae, which disrupts our body’s internal communications and makes it challenging to reach ideal motion health. It causes injuries through:

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

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

How to Prevent Injury in Clearwater, MO

All sports and physical activities can potentially lead to an injury. No one safety tip is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are things you can do 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 signal to your body to engage in its natural healing and recovery processes. If you have a more modest activity level, take a break after activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
Use the right equipment — Helmets, shin guards, protective eyewear, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries like bruises or concussions. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Clearwater, MO physician or injury prevention professional may recommend stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other techniques like tying your cleats tightly offers further stabilization.
Increase muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the force and torque of heavy activity. Our Clearwater, MO injury prevention experts will work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you love.
Enhance flexibility — Stretching accomplishes three critical 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 adjust to more dramatic movements.
2. It improves circulation, which allows for nutrient-rich blood to flow to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and rebuilding the muscles.
3. It encourages good posture, which, as you read earlier, is an essential part of injury prevention.
According to research, 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 games or training to further reduce the risk of injury.
Use accepted technique — Through the years, each sport and physical activity develops a consensus of the best ways to position and move your body. 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 reduce the risk of brain damage, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and evaluate how to improve it.
Listen to your body — If a part of your body is sore, your body is trying to send you a message. If you feel a sudden crack or grinding sensation, immediately stop all physical activity and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body isn’t holing up well in an intense workout, don’t force it.
Don’t play through an injury — While gutting it out through pain is often viewed as a courageous act among competitors, forcing your body to perform with soft tissue or structural damage could make that injury worse and put you out of commission for much longer than you would have been sitting out. Depending on the severity of your injury, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, visiting your doctor, and a series of physical therapy sessions to make sure your body heals naturally and can handle the activity you want to return to.
Follow the rules — Most sports have special rules at different levels to reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for leading with the helmet 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 put in place to keep players safe. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
Consult a professional physical therapist — It’s a good idea to see a doctor before a new season or starting up a new activity or training regimen. During your physical, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a expert physical therapist in Clearwater, MO is something you should consider. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated to help athletes remain healthy, and you plan will be completely unique to you and catered to how old you are, any previous injuries, and how physically active you wish to be.

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

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Clearwater, MO

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for more than 3 million emergency room admissions and over 34,000 deaths. Studies show that being physical active is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions that limit mobility such as 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 older adults typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, healthy strength, balance, flexibility, and ideal posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Clearwater, MO include:

Clearwater, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in in an activity you prepare and train for and love can create a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same exultation. The experienced Clearwater, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to develop your personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body strong and flexible, and your mind at ease that you can safely return to the activities you love. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Schedule an appointment online or call the location nearest you to start your program with one of our injury prevention specialists in Clearwater, MO.