Injury Prevention Doe Run, MO

Injury Prevention in Doe Run, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or are entering your golden years and want to dedicate your time to hiking, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our licensed Doe Run, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others recover from injury, we are experts in the entire musculoskeletal system 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. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location most convenient for you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Doe Run, MO residents. Many of us participate in active endeavors like playing sports, playing golf, and more. Furthermore, committing to an active lifestyle reduces the risk of future health problems such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, anxiety, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Doe Run, MO physical therapists help you come back even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention specialists can help preserve your active lifestyle 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 based on evidence-backed techniques 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 Doe Run, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can keep up with your active lifestyle, read on below or inquire about an appointment today.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Doe Run, MO

Injuries generally fall into two categories:

Repetitive demand injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. They are common in overhead athletes such as baseball or volleyball players and commonly manifest themselves as joint pain.
Acute injuries are injuries that happen because of a specific and sudden trauma. Examples include landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, like rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, such as ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, with an immediate impact to or twisting of the knee.

Injury Prevention Doe Run, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Doe Run

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Doe Run, 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 chief causes of why your body cannot handle an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is crucial to supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can lead to dependency on one set of muscles, 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 muscles will become tired more quickly, increasing the risk of injury. Muscle imbalance can refer to poor muscle balance in relation to other 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. Symptoms include:

Muscle weakness
Muscle inflexibility
Poor muscle recruitment
Coordination deficiency

Tailored injury prevention with our professional physical therapists in Doe Run, 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, increasing your risk of injury. It can be caused by numerous musculoskeletal issues. It can lead to:

Joint mobility restrictions
Muscle imbalance
Coordination deficiency
Lessened balance

At our first injury prevention appointment in Doe Run, MO, we’ll discuss 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 medical professionals involved in your care, we’ll come up with a personalized treatment plan based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your body moving as it should.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people with slouched shoulders. People who play sports and others with active lifestyles can be affected by postural dysfunction when lying down, using the computer, or in certain poses they need to be in for their sport. Correct posture refers to correct positioning of the neck, torso, pelvis, and extremities in a way that does not remove the spine from its natural curves. Poor posture can compress the joints in the spine, which disrupts communication between your brain and body and makes it difficult to reach the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It causes injuries through:

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

By teaching you ideal posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring you are using the right muscles for the right movements, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your vertebrae remain in place.

Injury Prevention Techniques in Doe Run, 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 greatly reduce the risk of injury:

Take breaks — Injuries are more common when you do not give your body time to restore itself. If you have a very high activity level, one or two rest days a week will signal to your body to engage in its natural healing and recovery processes. If you have a more modest activity level, take a break for the few hours after an activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
Use protective equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in many sports can help prevent injuries like contusions or concussions. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Doe Run, MO doctor or injury prevention expert may suggest braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the affected area. Other techniques like tying your athletic footwear tightly offers further protection.
Improve muscle strength — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the force and torque necessary for in sports and other activities. Our Doe Run, MO injury prevention professionals will work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you love.
Boost flexibility — Increasing your flexibility achieves three critical things for injury prevention:
1. It increases your range of motion, which lets for your soft tissue to handle more drastic positions.
2. It improves blood flow, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to recover.
3. It encourages good posture, which we already know is an an essential part of injury prevention.
According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like football that require bouncing and jumping require soft tissue with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. 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 techniques to use. 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 brain damage, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and educate you on how to both be a better athlete and prevent injury.
Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, that’s your body’s way of telling you something isn’t right. If you feel sudden pain, immediately stop all physical activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t feeling up to a particularly rigorous workout, save it for another day.
Don’t play through an injury — While gritting through pain is often viewed as a heroic act among competitors, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could make that injury worse and put you out of commission 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 your doctor, and a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
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 head-first sliding in baseball, and even the existence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are examples of rules that leagues enacted to keep participants safe. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that there are penalties for them.
Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s a good idea to get a physical before another season begins or committing yourself to any strenuous activity or training regimen. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a knowledgeable physical therapist in Doe Run, 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 your age, your injury history, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention Doe Run, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Doe Run

Injury Prevention for Older Doe Run, MO Adults

Falls in senior citizens accounted for over 3 million emergency room admissions and more than 34,000 deaths. Studies show that being physical active can go a long way in preventing falls. Other conditions that limit mobility like arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints healthy. While the physical demands for seniors may not be as high as an athlete, healthy strength, stability, flexibility, and ideal posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Doe Run, MO include:

Doe Run, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in one of your favorite activities can lead to a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same euphoria. The knowledgeable Doe Run, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to design for you a personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body prepared for the rigors of physical activity, and your mind at ease that you do not have to fear going back to what you love doing most. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits that you do not want to lose. Make an appointment online or call the location nearest you to get started with one of our injury prevention experts in Doe Run, MO.