Injury Prevention in Green Park, MO. Whether you play a sport and are hoping for an opportunity at the next level, or a recent retiree who wants to spend more time bike riding, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our licensed Green Park, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others recover from injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to guide you through measures that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location nearest you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Green Park, MO residents. We love activities like playing sports, kayaking, or other physical activities. Additionally, keeping an active lifestyle helps stave off future health problems including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, anxiety, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Green Park, MO physical therapists help you come back and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention specialists can help preserve your active lifestyle by improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. All of our methods, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, are proven to be effective and are customized for each client and the lifestyle they desire.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a persistent injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Green Park, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your active lifestyle, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist at your earliest convenience.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Green Park, MO

Most injuries fall into two categories:

1. Overuse 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 use throwing or striking motions, with joint pain usually being the first indicator.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, such as rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, such as ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Green Park, 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 primary causes of why your body cannot handle an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is crucial to maintaining healthy joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can lead to dependency on one set of muscles, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also causes posture dysfunction, and one set of muscles becoming fatigued more quickly, making them more susceptible to injuries. Muscle imbalance can refer to poor muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong chest and weak back, or within muscle groups, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Muscle imbalance can lead to:

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

Customized injury prevention with our certified physical therapists in Green Park, 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 unnatural ways, increasing your risk of injury. It can be caused by numerous musculoskeletal issues. It can cause injury through:

• Joint mobility restrictions
• Muscle imbalance
• Poor coordination
• Reduced balance

When you first see our injury prevention experts in Green Park, MO, we’ll go over your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, alongside with your physician or any other medical professionals involved in your treatment, we’ll develop a personalized treatment plan been proven to work through 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 resting, driving, or in specific stances related to a given activity. Correct posture means 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 bring the joints in the spine closer together, which disrupts your nervous system and makes it difficult to achieve optimal motion health. 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 you are using the right muscles for the right movements, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your spine is in its natural position.

Injury Prevention Techniques in Green Park, MO

All sports and physical activities can potentially lead to an 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 a rest — 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 encourage your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you have a more modest activity level, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Wear the right equipment — Helmets, chest guards, safety pads and guards, and other recommended equipment in many sports helps you avoid injuries such as rashes or concussions. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or muscle, tendon, or ligament, your Green Park, MO physician or physical therapist may suggest braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize a joint. Other measures like tying your athletic footwear tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Improve muscle strength — Strengthening soft tissue helps it stand up to the rigors of heavy activity. In your customized injury prevention program with our expert Green Park, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you want to participate in.
• Enhance flexibility — Increasing your flexibility achieves three critical things for injury prevention:
  1. It enhances which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for your tendons and ligaments to adjust to more forceful movements.
  2. It increases circulation, which allows for nourishing blood to flow to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and reinvigorating the muscles.
  3. It boosts your posture, which we already know is an is one of the most important factors of injury prevention.

  According to research, sports like soccer that necessitate dynamic movements require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. Also, it’s important to stretch and warm up before games or training to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use correct technique — Through the years, each sport and physical activity develops a consensus of the best techniques to use. These techniques not only help you get be the best athlete you can be but help prevent injuries. Football players learn to tackle with the shoulder in order to reduce the risk of a concussion, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and educate you on how to both be a better athlete 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 isn’t right. If you feel a sudden crack or grinding sensation, immediately withdraw from the activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t feeling up to an intense workout, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate an athlete that guts it out through pain, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could exacerbate a current injury and put you out of commission for longer than it originally would have. Depending on the nature of your injury, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, seeing urgent care, and scheduling appointments with a physical therapist to ensure your body heals properly and can withstand 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 leading with the helmet in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the presence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are examples of rules put in place to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. Those were enacted for a reason, and there’s a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Speak 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, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a knowledgeable physical therapist in Green Park, MO is right for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated to reduce the risk of injury, and you plan will be completely unique to you and catered to your age, any previous injuries, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for Older Green Park, MO Adults

Falls in adults over 65 were responsible for more than 3 million urgent care admissions and more than 34,000 deaths. Studies show that being physical active is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that develop over the course of several years 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 good posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Green Park, MO include:

• Shoulder Pain
• Mobility
• Knee Injury
• Joint Pain
• Sciatica
• Dry Needling
• ACL Tear
• Pain Management
• Rotator Cuff Tear

Green Park, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in in an activity you prepare and train for and love can create a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same happiness. The licensed Green Park, 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 doing most. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Make an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to see what our Green Park, MO injury prevention professionals can do for you.