Injury Prevention in Clover Bottom, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or a recent retiree who wants to spend more time being physical fit, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our certified Clover Bottom, 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 movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to guide you through techniques that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location most convenient for you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Clover Bottom, MO residents. We love activities like playing sports, hiking, or other physical activities. Additionally, committing to an active lifestyle reduces the risk of serious health problems such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, degenerative brain diseases, anxiety, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Clover Bottom, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action 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, for both recovery and injury prevention, have been prove to work and are developed uniquely for each client and the level of activity they want to reach.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a lingering injury that won’t heal on its own, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Clover Bottom, MO for a free injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can continue with your active lifestyle, keep reading or inquire about an appointment at your earliest convenience.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Clover Bottom, MO

Injuries typically happen for one of two reasons:

1. Repetitive demand injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. They are common in overhead athletes such as tennis or basketball players, with joint pain usually being the first indicator.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, like rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, for example ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, with an immediate impact to or twisting of the knee.

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Clover Bottom, 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 common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is crucial to supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can result in dependency on one muscle group, which may cause your body to force it to participate in an activity it shouldn’t. It can also lead to poor 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 inadequate muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong chest and weak back, or within muscle groups, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff not having proportionate strength. Muscle imbalance can result in:

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

Tailored injury prevention with our certified physical therapists in Clover Bottom, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and lead to your body bending in ways it is not designed to, causing injury. It can be caused by numerous musculoskeletal issues. Symptoms include:

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

When you initially visit our injury prevention professionals in Clover Bottom, MO, we’ll go through your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, together with your physician or any additional medical professionals involved in your treatment, we’ll create a personalized game plan based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people who spend a lot of time doing the same activity. People who play sports and others with active lifestyles can suffer from postural dysfunction when resting, using the computer, or in specific positions necessary for their sport. Correct posture refers to correct alignments 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 bring the vertebrae closer together, which disrupts communication between your brain and body and makes it challenging to attain optimal movement health. Symptoms include:

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

By guiding you to correct posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring muscle balance, range of motion, and that your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Clover Bottom, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything you could to prevent one. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are precautions to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• Take a rest — Injuries are more common in overworked bodies. 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 processes. If you’re moderately active, take it easy for the few hours after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Wear the correct equipment — Helmets, shin guards, elbow pads, and other recommended equipment in many sports can help prevent injuries such as rashes or concussions. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or soft tissue, your Clover Bottom, MO doctor or injury prevention expert may recommend stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other methods like making sure all the equipment is snug can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• 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 professional Clover Bottom, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to be able to avoid injury in the activities you love.
• Enhance flexibility — Increasing your flexibility contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It boosts which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which allows for your soft tissue to adapt to more forceful movements.
  2. It increases blood flow, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and fortifying the muscles.
  3. It improves your posture, which we already know is an is one of the most important factors of injury prevention.

  According to research, sports like football that include sudden twists and movements require soft tissue flexible enough to store and exert the high amount of energy required. Also, don’t forget to stretch and warm up before games or training to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use correct technique — In every sport, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. These techniques not only improve performance but help prevent injuries by not forcing your body into unnatural positions and movements. Football players learn to tackle with the shoulder in order to avoid brain damage, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best apply torque to your body. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and analyze how to improve it.
• Listen to your body — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, your body is trying to send you a message. 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 feeling up to an intense workout, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — While gutting it out through pain is often seen as a valiant act among competitors, playing with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could make that injury worse and put you out of commission for longer than it originally would have. Depending on what caused your injury and how severe it is, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, seeing an emergency room, and a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure your body heals naturally and can withstand a return to physical activity.
• 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 leading with the helmet in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the presence of bike lanes are all rules that leagues enacted to keep players safe. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s a good idea to get a physical before starting another season or starting up a new physical activity. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Clover Bottom, MO is a good idea for you. 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, your injury history, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Clover Bottom, MO

Falls in the elderly accounted for more than 3 million urgent care visits and more than 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that physical activity is invaluable in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions 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 older adults typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, appropriate strength, stability, flexibility, and optimal posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Clover Bottom, MO include:

• 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
• Hip Replacement Physical Therapy

Clover Bottom, 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 won’t allow us to experience the same exultation. The knowledgeable Clover Bottom, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to guide you through your own 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. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Make an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to start your program with one of our injury prevention professionals in Clover Bottom, MO.