Injury Prevention in Crescent, MO. Whether you’re an athlete trying to get a shot at the next stage, or a recent retiree who wants to dedicate your time to being physical fit, 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 recover from injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to show you measures that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location most convenient for you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Crescent, MO residents. Many of us participate in activities such as playing sports, kayaking, and more. Furthermore, committing to an active lifestyle reduces the risk of chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, mental health issues, and certain 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 you reduce the risk of further injury by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our treatment plans, for both recovery and injury prevention, have been prove to work and are customized for each client and the activities they want to return to.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a nagging injury that is not getting better with time, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Crescent, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can keep up with 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 Crescent, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Chronic injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. They are common in overhead athletes such as baseball or soccer goalies and commonly manifest themselves as joint pain.
2. 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 either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, like ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, such as receiving a direct blow 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 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 key to supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can lead to overemphasis for one set of muscles, which may cause your body to use it in a way it shouldn’t. It also prevents you from having ideal posture, and one set of muscles becoming tired sooner, making them more susceptible to injuries. Muscle imbalance can refer to poor muscle balance between 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. Muscle imbalance can lead to:

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

Customized injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Crescent, MO will ensure that different muscles and muscle groups are equally strong.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, causing injury. Neurological issues, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can cause injury through:

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

At our first injury prevention appointment in Crescent, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical history and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, together with your doctor or any additional providers treating you, we’ll create a personalized 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 who spend a lot of time in the same position. People who play sports and other physically active people can be affected by postural dysfunction when lying down, sitting, or in specific poses necessary for their sport. Good posture means 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 bring the joints in the spine closer together, which disrupts your nervous system and makes it difficult to reach optimal motion health. Symptoms include:

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

By teaching you good posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring muscle balance, flexibility, and that your spine is in its natural position.

How to Prevent Injury in Crescent, MO

All sports and physical activities can potentially lead to an injury. No one safety tip is guaranteed to be effective in injury prevention. However, there are several steps you can take to make sure your body is prepared for your desired activity level:

• Take breaks — Injuries are more common when you do not give your body time to restore itself. If you’re heavily active, one or two rest days a week will signal to your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you’re moderately active, take a break after activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Use the right equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, protective eyewear, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries like contusions or brain injuries. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Crescent, MO doctor or injury prevention specialist may suggest stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other techniques like tying your athletic footwear tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the force and torque necessary for in sports and other activities. Our Crescent, MO injury prevention professionals will work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you want to participate in.
• Improve flexibility — Stretching 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 the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adapt to more drastic movements.
  2. It enhances blood flow, which carries nutrient-rich blood to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and rebuilding the muscles.
  3. It boosts your posture, which, as you read earlier, is an essential part of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like football that include sudden twists and movements require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to incorporate and exert the high levels of energy required. Stretching and warm up exercises before activities further helps prevent injuries.

• 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 a concussion, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best apply torque to your body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and educate you on how to both improve your performance and prevent injury.
• 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, stop immediately and seek proportional medical care. If your body does not feel well enough for a particularly rigorous training session, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that plays through pain, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could make that injury worse and leave you on the sidelines for longer than it originally would have. Depending on the severity of your injury, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, visiting an emergency room, and a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure your body heals properly 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 in the interest of safety. Penalties for targeting in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the existence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are all rules put in place to keep participants 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 always advisable to get a physical before starting another season or starting up a new activity or training regimen. While there, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a knowledgeable physical therapist in Crescent, MO is something you should consider. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated to prevent injury, and you plan will be completely unique to you and catered to your age, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention for Older Crescent, MO Adults

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for over 3 million emergency room visits and over 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates that physical activity is invaluable in preventing falls. Other conditions that limit mobility like 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 healthy. While seniors typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, the same principles of strength, stability, flexibility, and ideal posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Crescent, 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

Crescent, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in in an activity you prepare and train for and love causes a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same elation. The experienced Crescent, 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 doing most. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Request an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to start your program with one of our injury prevention experts in Crescent, MO.