Injury Prevention in Eureka, MO. Whether you’re an athlete trying to get an opportunity at the next level, or are entering your golden years and want to spend more time taking ski vacations, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our licensed Eureka, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to heal after an injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to teach out measures that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location nearest you.

Being physically active is an essential part of many Eureka, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in active endeavors such as playing sports, biking, and more. Additionally, committing to an active lifestyle helps prevent significant health problems like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, anxiety, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Eureka, MO physical therapists allow you to come back as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention specialists can help keep you active 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, have been prove to work and are customized for each client and the lifestyle they desire.

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 Eureka, MO for a free injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can continue with your active lifestyle, read on below or inquire about an appointment at your earliest convenience.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Eureka, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Repetitive motion injuries are injuries happen gradually as a body part degrades because of repetitive movements. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes athletes who are required to repeat throwing or striking motions and commonly are accompanied by joint pain.
2. 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, fractures, and dislocations.

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

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Eureka, 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 key to maintaining healthy joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can lead to dependency on one set of muscles, which may cause your body to use it in a way 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 likelihood of injury. Muscle imbalance can refer to insufficient muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or within muscle groups, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff having different levels of strength. Muscle imbalance can lead to:

• Muscle weakness
• Muscle inflexibility
• Poor muscle recruitment
• Poor coordination

Personalized injury prevention with our certified physical therapists in Eureka, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

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. Neurological issues, swelling, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. Symptoms include:

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

When you first visit our injury prevention specialists in Eureka, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, in concert with with your doctor or any other medical professionals involved in your treatment, we’ll come up with a customized plan of attack been proven to work through research and studies to get your movement health to reach its potential.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people with slouched shoulders. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can suffer from postural dysfunction when resting, using the computer, or in certain body positions necessary for their sport. Good posture refers to correct alignments when both static and moving in a way that encourages our spine to stay in its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the joints in the spine closer together, which disrupts your nervous system and makes it challenging 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 limitations
• Poor muscle recruitment

Good posture is a vital part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, flexibility, and that your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Eureka, MO

All sports and physical activities can potentially lead to an injury. No one technique is guaranteed to be effective in injury prevention. However, there are several steps you can take to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• Take breaks — Your body needs time to rest and recover after any moderate to intense activity. If you have a very high activity level, one or two rest days a week will encourage your body to engage in its natural healing and recovery processes. If you have a more modest activity level, take a break after activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
• Wear the appropriate equipment — Helmets, chin straps, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in many sports can help prevent injuries like contusions or brain injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Eureka, MO physician or physical therapist may suggest stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other techniques like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further protection.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening soft tissue helps it stand up to the force and torque of heavy activity. Our Eureka, MO injury prevention specialists will work to achieve ideal muscle balance and strengthen the often forgotten muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you want to participate in.
• Improve flexibility — Stretching contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It increases which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for your tendons and ligaments to handle more dramatic positions.
  2. It improves circulation, which allows for nourishing blood to flow to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and re-energizing the muscles.
  3. It enhances your posture, which we already know is an an important part of injury prevention.

  According to research, sports like basketball that require bouncing and jumping require soft tissue with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. Stretching and warm up exercises before games or training further helps prevent injuries.

• Use proper technique — In every physical activity, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. These techniques not only improve performance but help prevent injuries. 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 rotate their body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and evaluate 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, stop immediately and seek proportional medical care. If your body does not feel well enough for a particularly rigorous workout, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though playing 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 make that injury worse and leave you off the field or court for much longer than if you had sat out at the time of the injury. Depending on what caused your injury and how severe it is, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, visiting an emergency room, and rehab with a physical therapist to ensure your body heals naturally and can handle a return to physical activity.
• Play by 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 helmet to helmet hits in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the existence of bike lanes are all rules that were adopted to keep participants safe. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Speak a professional physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to see a doctor before another season begins or starting up a new physical activity. During your visit, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Eureka, MO is a good idea for you. All of our techniques have been proven 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 Senior Citizens in Eureka, MO

Falls in adults over 65 accounted for over 3 million emergency room visits and over 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that physical activity is invaluable in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions that limit mobility like arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be slowed down by physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints strong. While the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, healthy strength, stability, flexibility, and good posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Eureka, 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

Eureka, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in something you love doing can create a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same happiness. The professional Eureka, 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 confident that you can safely return to the activities you love doing most. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Schedule an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to find out more about what our Eureka, MO injury prevention professionals can do for you.