Injury Prevention in Gray Summit, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or are entering your golden years and want to dedicate your time to camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you desire. While our professional Gray Summit, 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 movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to guide you through exercises that are proven to prevent injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location nearest you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Gray Summit, MO residents. We love active endeavors like playing sports, kayaking, and more. Furthermore, pursuing an active lifestyle reduces the risk of significant health problems including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, eurodegenerative disease, depression, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Gray Summit, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention experts can help keep you active 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 level of activity they want to reach.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a nagging injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Gray Summit, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can continue with your active lifestyle, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Gray Summit, MO

Injuries typically fall into two categories:

1. Chronic injuries are injuries that occur when a part of the body repeats the same motion time and time again. They are common in overhead athletes athletes who are required to repeat throwing or striking motions, with joint pain usually being the first indicator.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or a sudden impact by an object or another person. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, like rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, for example ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Gray Summit, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally occur because your muscles, ligaments, tendons, 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 essential to supporting joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can cause overemphasis for one set of muscles, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also causes posture dysfunction, and the weaker muscles will become tired sooner, making them more susceptible to injuries. Injuries can be caused by insufficient muscle balance between 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
• Poor coordination

Tailored injury prevention with our knowledgeable physical therapists in Gray Summit, 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 moving in ways it is not designed to, increasing your risk of injury. Problems in your nervous system, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. Symptoms include:

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

At our first injury prevention appointment in Gray Summit, MO, we’ll discuss your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, alongside with your physician or any other medical professionals involved in your treatment, we’ll come up with a personalized game plan 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 with desk jobs. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can have postural dysfunction when lying down, using the computer, or in specific poses necessary for a given activity. Healthy 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 compact the vertebrae, which interferes with our body’s ability to communicate with itself and achieve the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It causes injuries through:

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

Good posture is a vital part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, flexibility, and that your spine is in its natural position.

Injury Prevention Techniques in Gray Summit, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything possible to prevent one. No one technique is guaranteed to be effective in injury prevention. However, there are things you can do to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your intended activity:

• Take a rest — Injuries are more common in overworked bodies. If you have a very high activity level, make sure to take one or two days off per week to allow your body to engage in its natural healing processes. If you have a more modest activity level, rest for the rest of the day after an activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
• Wear protective equipment — Helmets, chin straps, protective eyewear, and other required equipment in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries such as bruises or concussions. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or muscle, tendon, or ligament, your Gray Summit, MO physician or injury prevention expert may advise stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other measures like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further stabilization.
• Improve muscle strength — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the rigors of heavy activity. In your personalized injury prevention program with our knowledgeable Gray Summit, MO physical therapists, we’ll 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 enhances your range of motion, which lets for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to handle more extreme positions.
  2. It increases blood flow, which carries protein-rich blood to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and re-energizing the muscles.
  3. It encourages good posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is an important part of injury prevention.

  According to research, sports like soccer that necessitate dynamic motions require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. Stretching and warm up exercises before activities further helps prevent injuries.

• Use accepted technique — In every sport, there is an accepted way 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 with the shoulder in order to reduce the risk of a head injury, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and analyze how to improve it.
• Listen to your body — If a part of your body is sore, your body is trying to send you a message. If you feel sudden pain, stop immediately and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t holing up well in an intense training session, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — While teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate an athlete that plays through pain, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could aggravate a current injury and leave you on the sidelines 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, visiting an emergency room, and rehab with a physical therapist 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 to reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for leading with the helmet 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 put in place to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Consult a professional physical therapist — It’s always advisable to get a physical before a new season or starting up a new activity or training regimen. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Gray Summit, MO is a good idea for you. All of our techniques have been proven to reduce the risk of 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 Gray Summit, MO Adults

Falls in the elderly were responsible for over 3 million emergency room visits and more than 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that physical activity is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions like arthritis that accumulate over time can be more bearable and take longer to progress with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints active. While the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, the same principles of strength, stability, flexibility, and optimal posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Gray Summit, 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

Gray Summit, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in something you love doing can lead to a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same euphoria. The licensed Gray Summit, 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 do not have to fear going back to what you love. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Request an appointment online or call the location nearest you to learn more about what our Gray Summit, MO injury prevention specialists can do for you.