Injury Prevention in Howell, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or a recent retiree who wants to dedicate your time to hiking, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our licensed Howell, 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 body’s current condition and how you move to teach out exercises that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location nearest you.

Being physically active is an essential part of many Howell, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in active endeavors such as playing sports, hiking, and more. Additionally, committing to an active lifestyle reduces the risk of chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, anxiety, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Howell, MO physical therapists allow you to come back even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention experts 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 level of activity they want to reach.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a lingering injury that is not getting better with time, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Howell, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and protect your active lifestyle, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Howell, MO

Most injuries fall into two categories:

1. Overuse injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes athletes who use throwing or striking motions and typically reveal themselves with joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen because of a specific and sudden trauma. Examples include falling or a sudden impact by an object or another person. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, such as rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. 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 Howell, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally happen because of dysfunction or imbalance and your body and between body parts. There are three main causes of why your body cannot adjust to an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is key to maintaining healthy joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can lead to dependency on one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. 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 poor muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or in the same muscle group, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff not having proportionate strength. Symptoms include:

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

Customized injury prevention with our knowledgeable physical therapists in Howell, 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, causing injury. Problems in your nervous system, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can cause injury through:

• Joint mobility limitations
• Muscle imbalance
• Coordination deficiency
• Reduced balance

When you initially visit our injury prevention specialists in Howell, MO, we’ll discuss your medical history and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, alongside with your doctor or any additional providers treating you, we’ll develop a tailored game plan based on empirically-backed 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 have postural dysfunction when resting, driving, or in specific poses related to their sport. Correct posture means correct positioning of the different joints and muscles of your body in a way that encourages our spine to stay in its natural curves. Poor posture can compact the joints in the spine, which disrupts your nervous system and makes it challenging to attain the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. Symptoms include:

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

By helping you understand ideal posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring muscle balance, range of motion, and that your spine is in its natural position.

How to Prevent Injury in Howell, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. 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’re heavily active, make sure to take one or two days off per week to allow your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you have a more modest activity level, rest for the rest of the day after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Wear the appropriate equipment — Helmets, chin straps, elbow pads, and other recommended equipment in many sports helps you avoid injuries such as bruises or head injuries. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Howell, MO doctor or injury prevention specialist may fit you for stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other techniques like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further stabilization.
• Boost muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the rigors necessary for in sports and other activities. Our Howell, MO injury prevention specialists will work to build up your body to be able to avoid injury in the activities you love.
• Enhance flexibility — Increasing your flexibility accomplishes three important things for injury prevention:
  1. It improves which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for your tendons and ligaments to handle more forceful positions.
  2. It boosts blood flow, which allows for nutrient-rich blood to flow to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to recover.
  3. It encourages good posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is an important part of injury prevention.

  According to studies, sports like football that include dynamic activities require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to store and expel the high levels of energy required. Also, remember to stretch and warm up before any physical activity to further reduce the risk of injury.

• 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 get be the best player you can be but help prevent injuries by not forcing your body into unnatural positions and movements. Football players learn to tackle with the shoulder in order to avoid a head injury, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to make sure their muscles are moving unnaturally. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and educate you on how to improve it.
• Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If a part of your body is bothering you, that’s your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, immediately stop all physical activity and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body does not feel well enough for a particularly rigorous training session, 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, forcing your body to perform with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could aggravate a current injury and leave you off the field or court for longer than it originally would have. Depending on what caused your injury and how severe it is, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, seeing your doctor, and scheduling appointments with a physical therapist to ensure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
• 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 targeting in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the existence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers 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.
• Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s always advisable to get a physical before another season begins or starting up a new activity or training regimen. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Howell, MO is something you should consider. Every treatment plan we employ has 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 Older Howell, MO Adults

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for over 3 million urgent care visits and over 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that physical activity is a great method for reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions that cause pain 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 active. While older adults typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, healthy strength, stability, flexibility, and good posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Howell, MO include:

• Hip Replacement Physical Therapy
• Workers Comp' Physical Therapy
• Migraine Relief
• Sprain and Strain Treatment
• Geriatric Physical Therapy
• Injury Rehabilitation
• Pain Management Services
• TMJ Treatment
• Herniated Disc Treatment
• Rotator Cuff Tear Treatment

Howell, 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 exultation. The licensed Howell, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to develop your personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body strong and flexible, and your mind confident that you do not have to fear going back to what you love. You deserve to feel 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 find out more about what our Howell, MO injury prevention specialists can do for you.