Injury Prevention in Farmington, MO. Whether you’re an athlete hoping for an opportunity at the next level, or a recent retiree who wants to dedicate your time to taking ski vacations, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our professional Farmington, 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 body’s current condition and how you move to teach out exercises that are proven to prevent injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location nearest you.

Physical activity is an essential part of many Farmington, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in activities such as playing sports, swimming, or other physical activities. Additionally, committing to an active lifestyle helps stave off serious health problems like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, degenerative brain diseases, anxiety, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Farmington, MO physical therapists help you return to action even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention professionals 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 proven to be effective and are personalized to each client and the lifestyle they desire.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a lingering injury that won’t heal on its own, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Farmington, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and protect your active lifestyle, read on below or inquire about an appointment today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Farmington, MO

Most injuries fall into two categories:

1. Repetitive motion injuries are injuries happen gradually as a body part degrades because of repetitive movements. They are common in overhead athletes such as tennis or soccer goalies, with joint pain usually being the first warning sign.
2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen because of a specific and sudden trauma. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, such as 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 Farmington, MO

While injuries can happen in a variety of circumstances, and some are inescapable, they generally occur because your muscles, ligaments, tendons, bones, and joints cannot hold up under the force, torque, or stretching that they are subjected to in a given movement or collision. There are three common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to maintaining healthy joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can cause dependency on one set of muscles, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It can also lead to poor posture, and one set of muscles becoming fatigued faster, making them more susceptible to injuries. Injuries can be caused by poor muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or within muscle groups, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Symptoms include:

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

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

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance 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
• Poor coordination
• Reduced balance

At our first injury prevention appointment in Farmington, MO, we’ll discuss your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, alongside with your physician or any additional providers involved in your care, we’ll design a customized plan of attack been proven to work by research and studies to get your movement health to reach its potential.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people who sit a lot. Athletes and other physically active people can have postural dysfunction when lying down, driving, or in specific positions related to a given activity. Optimal posture means proper positioning of the different joints and muscles of your body in a way that does not remove the spine from its natural curves. Poor posture can compact the vertebrae, which disrupts your nervous system and makes it difficult to attain 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 an important part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, range of motion, and that your spine is in its natural position.

Injury Prevention Methods in Farmington, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything you could to reduce that risk. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are things you can do to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your desired activity level:

• Take a rest — Your body needs time to rest and recover after any moderate to intense activity. If you have a very high activity level, make sure to take one or two days off per week to encourage your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you’re moderately active, take it easy after activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Wear the right equipment — Helmets, shin guards, protective eyewear, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries like bruises or concussions. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Farmington, MO doctor or physical therapist may fit you for braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the injured area. Other methods like tying your athletic footwear 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 Farmington, MO injury prevention specialists will work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you love.
• Enhance 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 extreme positions.
  2. It increases blood flow, which allows for nourishing blood to flow to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and rebuilding the muscles.
  3. It encourages good posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is an essential part of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like soccer that include dynamic activities require muscles and tendons flexible enough to store and release 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 techniques to use. These techniques not only help you perform better but help prevent injuries. Football players learn to tackle with the shoulder in order 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 capture how you move and analyze how to both be a better athlete 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 isn’t holing up well in an intense workout, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that guts it out through pain, playing with soft tissue or structural damage 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 the nature of your injury, you may use methods like the 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.
• Follow the rules — Most sports have special rules at different levels to reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for leading with the helmet in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the existence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are examples of rules that were adopted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that there are penalties for them.
• Speak a licensed physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to get a physical before another season begins or starting up a new activity or training regimen. During your visit, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Farmington, MO is right for you. All of our techniques have been proven to reduce the risk of injury, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Farmington, MO

Falls in adults over 65 were responsible for more than 3 million emergency room admissions and more than 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that physical activity is invaluable in preventing falls. Other conditions that limit mobility such as arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be slowed down by physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints strong. While older adults 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 Farmington, MO include:

• Neck Pain Treatment
• 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

Farmington, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in something you love doing can lead to a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same joy. The professional Farmington, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to guide you through your own personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body prepared for the rigors of physical activity, and your mind at ease that you can safely return to the activities you love doing most. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you do not want to lose. Schedule an appointment online or call the location nearest you to see what our Farmington, MO injury prevention experts can do for you.