Injury Prevention in Crescent, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or you just retired and want to spend more time camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our licensed Crescent, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to heal after an injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to guide you through measures 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 vitally important to many Crescent, MO residents. Many of us participate in active endeavors like playing sports, kayaking, or other physical activities. Additionally, keeping an active lifestyle reduces the risk of chronic conditions including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, anxiety, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Crescent, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention specialists can help keep you active by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our treatment plans, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, are proven to be effective and are personalized to each client and the lifestyle they desire.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a nagging injury that won’t heal on its own, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Crescent, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can continue with your sport or hobby, read on below or inquire about an appointment today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Crescent, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Overuse 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 athletes who use throwing or striking motions and typically manifest themselves as joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen suddenly. Examples include falling or a sudden impact by an object or another person. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, for example rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, like ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, with a sudden impact to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Crescent, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally happen 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 key to supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can result in overemphasis for one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also prevents you from having good posture, and the weaker set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher likelihood of injury. Muscle imbalance applies to insufficient muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong hamstring and weak quadriceps, or in the same muscle group, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff not having proportionate strength. Symptoms include:

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

Customized injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Crescent, 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. It can be caused by numerous musculoskeletal issues. It can cause injury through:

• Joint mobility restrictions
• Muscle imbalance
• Coordination deficits
• Lessened balance

When you initially see our injury prevention professionals in Crescent, MO, we’ll discuss your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, in concert with with your doctor or any other medical professionals involved in your care, we’ll come up with a customized plan of attack based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your body moving as it should.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people who spend a lot of time doing the same activity. People who play sports and other physically active people can have postural dysfunction when lying down, sitting, or in specific stances related to a given activity. Healthy posture means proper positioning of your body from your head to your toes in a way that keeps the spine within its natural curves. Poor posture can compact the vertebrae, which disrupts communication between your brain and body and makes it difficult to achieve the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It can also lead to:

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

Good posture is a vital part of injury prevention because it ensures you are using your muscles equally, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your spine is in its natural position.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Crescent, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything possible to prevent one. No one technique is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are precautions to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• Take a rest — Injuries are more common when you do not give your body time to restore itself. 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’re moderately active, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Use the appropriate equipment — Helmets, chin straps, protective eyewear, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries such as lacerations or concussions. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or soft tissue, your Crescent, MO physician or physical therapist may suggest braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize a joint. Other methods like tying your shoes tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the force and torque your body is put through in sports and other activities. Our Crescent, MO injury prevention specialists will work to achieve ideal muscle balance and strengthen the often forgotten muscles needed to be able to avoid injury in the activities you want to participate in.
• Boost flexibility — Stretching contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It improves your range of motion, which allows for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adapt to more pronounced positions.
  2. It boosts blood flow, which carries nutrient-rich blood to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and revitalizing the muscles.
  3. It encourages good posture, which, as you read earlier, is an important part of injury prevention.

  According to studies, sports like basketball that require bouncing and jumping require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. Also, don’t forget to stretch and warm up before games or training to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use accepted technique — In every sport, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. These techniques not only help you perform better but help reduce the risk of injury. Football players learn to tackle a certain way to avoid a concussion, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and educate you on how to improve it.
• Listen to your body — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, that means that body part is telling your brain that something is wrong. If you feel a sudden crack or grinding sensation, immediately stop all physical activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t holing up well in a particularly rigorous workout, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though playing through pain is often viewed as a heroic act among competitors, forcing your body to perform 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 urgent care, and a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure 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 head-first sliding in baseball, and even the presence of bike lanes are all rules that leagues enacted to keep participants safe. Those are in place for a reason, and there’s a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Consult a professional physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to have a medical evaluation before a new season or starting up a new physical activity. During your visit, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a knowledgeable physical therapist in Crescent, 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 how old you are, your injury history, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Crescent, MO

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for more than 3 million emergency room visits and over 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates that physical activity is invaluable in preventing 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 strong. While the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, healthy strength, balance, flexibility, and ideal posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Crescent, MO include:

• Dry Needling Near Me
• Tendonitis Treatment
• Manual Physical Therapy
• Orthopedic Rehab Near Me
• Beginner Running Program
• Chronic Pain Treatment
• Spine Specialist Near Me
• MCL Injury
• Shoulder Pain

Crescent, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in in an activity you prepare and train for and love can lead to a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same freedom. The licensed Crescent, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to guide you through your own personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body as safe and healthy as can be, 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 do not want to lose. Request an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to get started with one of our injury prevention experts in Crescent, MO.