Injury Prevention in Dittmer, MO. Whether you’re an athlete trying to get an opportunity at the next stage, or you just retired and want to spend more time hiking, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our certified Dittmer, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to recover from injury, we are experts in the entire musculoskeletal system who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to teach out methods that are proven to prevent injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location nearest you.

Being physically active is an essential part of many Dittmer, MO people’s lives. We love active endeavors like playing sports, biking, or other physical activities. Furthermore, pursuing an active lifestyle helps prevent future health problems like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, mental health issues, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Dittmer, MO physical therapists help you come back as fierce as ever, 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 healing from and preventing injury, 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 persistent injury that is not getting better with time, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Dittmer, 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 active lifestyle, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Dittmer, MO

Injuries generally happen for one of two reasons:

1. Wear-and-tear injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. They are common in overhead athletes athletes who use throwing or striking motions and typically are accompanied by joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include landing on uneven ground or a sudden impact by an object or another person. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

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

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Dittmer, 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 essential to maintaining healthy joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can cause dependency on 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 probability of injury. Muscle imbalance can refer to insufficient 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. Symptoms include:

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

Tailored injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Dittmer, MO will ensure that your muscles are at optimal proportional strength.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, increasing your risk of injury. Problems in your nervous system, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can cause injury through:

• Joint mobility limitations
• Muscle imbalance
• Poor coordination
• Lessened balance

At our first injury prevention appointment in Dittmer, 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 physician or any additional providers treating you, we’ll design a customized game 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 others with active lifestyles can be affected by postural dysfunction when at lest, using the computer, or in certain poses related to their sport. Optimal posture refers to proper positioning 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 vertebrae closer together, which interferes with our body’s ability to communicate with itself and reach 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

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

How to Prevent Injury in Dittmer, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. No one precaution is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are things you can do to make sure your body is prepared for your desired activity level:

• Take a rest — Your body needs time to rest and recover after any moderate to intense activity. If you’re heavily active, one or two rest days a week will allow your body to engage in its natural healing processes. If you have a more moderate activity level, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
• Use the appropriate equipment — Helmets, chin straps, protective eyewear, and other equipment necessary in many sports helps you avoid injuries such as cuts or brain injuries. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Dittmer, MO physician or injury prevention specialist may advise braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the injured area. Other methods like making sure all the equipment is snug can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Boost muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the force and torque necessary for in sports and other activities. In your tailored injury prevention program with our licensed Dittmer, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you love.
• Boost flexibility — Increasing your flexibility contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It improves 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 drastic positions.
  2. It enhances blood flow, which allows for nourishing blood to flow to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and fortifying the muscles.
  3. It encourages good posture, which, as you read earlier, is an essential part of injury prevention.

  According to studies, sports like basketball that necessitate bouncing and jumping require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. Also, it’s important to stretch and warm up before any physical activity to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use correct 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 athlete you can be but help prevent injuries. Football players are taught to tackle a certain way to avoid 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 break down your movement and educate you on how to both improve your performance and reduce your risk of injury.
• Listen to your body — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, that’s your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. If you feel sudden pain, immediately withdraw from the activity and seek proportional medical care. 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 — Even though gutting it out through pain is often viewed as a valiant act among competitors, forcing your body to perform with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could aggravate an existing injury 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 make sure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
• Play by the rules — Most sports have special rules at different levels in the interest of safety. Penalties for targeting in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the presence of bike lanes are examples of rules that were adopted to keep players safe. Those were enacted for a reason, and there’s a reason that there are penalties for them.
• Speak a professional physical therapist — It’s always advisable to get a physical before starting another season or committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. During your visit, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a expert physical therapist in Dittmer, MO is something you should consider. All of our techniques have been proven to reduce the risk of injury, and we’ll personalize your program to your age, any previous injuries, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Dittmer, MO

Falls in the elderly were responsible for more than 3 million emergency room admissions and more than 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that physical activity is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be slowed down by physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints strong. While the physical demands for seniors may not be as high as an athlete, appropriate strength, balance, flexibility, and good posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Dittmer, 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

Dittmer, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in in an activity you prepare and train for and love can lead to a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same joy. The professional Dittmer, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to develop your personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body prepared for the rigors of physical activity, and your mind confident that you can safely return to the activities you love doing most. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Request an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to discover what our Dittmer, MO injury prevention specialists can do for you.