Injury Prevention in Hawk Point, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or you just retired 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 Hawk Point, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to heal after an injury, we are experts in the entire musculoskeletal system who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to guide you through exercises that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location nearest you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Hawk Point, MO residents. We love activities such as playing sports, swimming, or other physical activities. Additionally, keeping an active lifestyle reduces the risk of significant health problems including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, eurodegenerative disease, anxiety, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Hawk Point, MO physical therapists allow you to come back as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention specialists can help you reduce the risk of further injury 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 developed uniquely 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 Hawk Point, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and protect your sport or hobby, read on below or inquire about an appointment today.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Hawk Point, 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 are required to repeat throwing or striking motions, with joint pain usually being the first symptom.
2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen because of a specific and sudden trauma. Examples include landing on uneven ground or a sudden impact by an object or another person. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

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

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Hawk Point, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally happen 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 adjust to an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is key to supporting joints and reducing injury. Imbalance can lead to 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 fatigued sooner, increasing the risk of injury. Injuries can be caused by insufficient 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 deficits

Personalized injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Hawk Point, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, increasing your risk of injury. It can be caused by numerous musculoskeletal issues. Symptoms include:

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

At our initial injury prevention appointment in Hawk Point, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, alongside with your physician or any additional providers involved in your care, we’ll come up with a tailored game plan based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement health to the level you need it to to do what you love.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people with desk jobs. People who play sports and other physically active people can have postural dysfunction when resting, sitting, or in specific stances related to a given activity. Correct posture means proper alignments when both static and moving in a way that keeps the spine within its natural curves. Poor posture can compact the joints in the spine, which disrupts our body’s internal communications and makes it challenging to achieve ideal movement health. Symptoms include:

• 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 your muscles equally, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your vertebrae remain in place.

Injury Prevention Best Practices in Hawk Point, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything possible to reduce that risk. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are precautions to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• Take a rest — Injuries are more common in overworked bodies. 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’re moderately active, take it easy for the few hours after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Wear protective equipment — Helmets, shin guards, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in many sports can help prevent injuries such as cuts or head injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or soft tissue, your Hawk Point, MO doctor or physical therapist may advise braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the injured area. Other techniques like tying your cleats tightly offers further stabilization.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the force and torque necessary for in sports and other activities. In your personalized injury prevention program with our certified Hawk Point, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to build up your body to be able to stay healthy in the activities you want to participate in.
• Improve flexibility — Increasing your flexibility achieves three important things for injury prevention:
  1. It improves which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to handle more pronounced positions.
  2. It boosts circulation, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your soft tissue, removing waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to restore themselves.
  3. It encourages good posture, which we already know is an an important part of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like basketball that include sudden twists and movements require soft tissue with sufficient flexibility to incorporate and exert the high amount of energy required. Also, it’s important to stretch and warm up before games or training to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use proper technique — In every physical activity, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. These techniques not only help you get be the best athlete you can be but help prevent injuries. Football players are taught to tackle a certain way to reduce the risk of a concussion, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and analyze how to both improve your performance and prevent injury.
• Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, that means that body part is telling your brain that something isn’t right. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, immediately stop all physical activity and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body isn’t feeling up to a particularly rigorous training session, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that plays through pain, playing with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could exacerbate an existing injury and leave you off the field or court for much longer than you would have been sitting out. Depending on the nature of your injury, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, seeing urgent care, and rehab with a physical therapist 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 leading with the helmet in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the presence of bike lanes are examples of rules that leagues enacted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. Those are in place for a reason, and there’s a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s always advisable to have a medical evaluation 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 Hawk Point, MO is something you should consider. All of our techniques have been proven to prevent injury, and we’ll personalize your program to your age, your injury history, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Hawk Point, MO

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for over 3 million urgent care visits and over 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that physical activity is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions that cause pain like arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be more bearable and take longer to progress with 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 Hawk Point, 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

Hawk Point, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in something you love doing can lead to a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same exultation. The knowledgeable Hawk Point, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to design for you a personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body strong and flexible, and your mind at ease 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 that you once valued so much. Request an appointment online or call the location nearest you to get started with one of our injury prevention experts in Hawk Point, MO.