Injury Prevention in Kampville, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or a recent retiree who wants to spend more time being physical fit, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our certified Kampville, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to heal after an injury, we are complete movement health specialists 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. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location nearest you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Kampville, MO residents. We love activities such as playing sports, swimming, and more. Furthermore, committing to an active lifestyle helps stave off chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, depression, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Kampville, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention professionals can help you reduce the risk of further injury by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our treatment plans, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, have been prove to work 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 most convenient for you in Kampville, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury 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 Kampville, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Overuse injuries are injuries happen gradually as a body part degrades because of repetitive movements. They are common in overhead athletes such as softball or basketball players and typically manifest themselves as joint pain.
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, sprains and strains, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, such as 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 Kampville, MO

While injuries occur for many different reasons, and some are unpreventable, they generally occur because of dysfunction or instability and your body and between body parts. There are three common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to supporting joints and reducing injury. Imbalance can result in overemphasis for one set of muscles, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also prevents you from having good posture, and the weaker muscles will become fatigued more quickly, increasing the risk of injury. Muscle imbalance applies to inadequate muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong hamstring and weak quadriceps, 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

Personalized injury prevention with our certified physical therapists in Kampville, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, causing injury. It can be caused by numerous musculoskeletal issues. It can lead to:

• Joint mobility restrictions
• Muscle imbalance
• Coordination deficits
• Lessened balance

At our first injury prevention appointment in Kampville, MO, we’ll go through your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, alongside with your doctor or any other providers involved in your care, we’ll come up with a personalized game plan been proven to work by research and studies to get your movement health to the level you need it to to do what you love.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people who sit a lot. People who play sports and other physically active people can have postural dysfunction when lying down, driving, or in specific positions related to a given activity. Healthy posture refers to correct alignments of the different joints and muscles of your body in a way that keeps the spine within its natural curves. Poor posture can compact the joints in the spine, which has a negative affect on our body’s ability to communicate with itself and reach ideal motion health. Symptoms include:

• 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 nervous system can communicate as its intended to.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Kampville, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything you could to prevent one. 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 prepared for your intended activity:

• Take breaks — 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 engage in its natural healing processes. If you’re moderately active, take a break after activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Use the appropriate equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, elbow pads, and other recommended equipment in many sports can help prevent injuries such as contusions or brain injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or soft tissue, your Kampville, MO physician or injury prevention expert may suggest stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other measures like making sure all the equipment is snug can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the force and torque necessary for in sports and other activities. Our Kampville, MO injury prevention professionals will work to achieve ideal muscle balance and strengthen the often forgotten muscles needed to be able to stay healthy in the activities you want to participate in.
• Boost flexibility — Stretching accomplishes three critical things for injury prevention:
  1. It enhances your range of motion, which allows for your tendons and ligaments to adapt to more forceful movements.
  2. It increases circulation, which carries protein-rich blood to your soft tissue, removing waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to recover.
  3. It increases your posture, which we already know is an an essential part of injury prevention.

  According to studies, sports like soccer that include sudden twists and movements require soft tissue with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. Also, it’s important to stretch and warm up before any physical activity 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 improve performance but help prevent injuries. Football players learn to tackle a certain way to reduce the risk of a head injury, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and educate you on how to both improve your performance and prevent injury.
• Listen to your body — If a part of your body is bothering you, that’s your body’s way of telling you 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 does not feel well enough for a particularly rigorous workout, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — While teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that plays through pain, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could exacerbate an existing injury and leave you on the sidelines 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, visiting 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 — 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 presence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are examples of rules that were adopted to keep players safe. 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 get a physical before another season begins or committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a licensed physical therapist in Kampville, MO is a good idea for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been proven to prevent injury, and we’ll personalize your program to your age, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Kampville, MO

Falls in adults over 65 accounted for more than 3 million emergency room admissions and more than 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates that physical activity is a great method for reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions like arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints active. While seniors typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, the same principles of strength, balance, flexibility, and optimal posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Kampville, 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

Kampville, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in one of your favorite activities can create a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same exhilaration. The experienced Kampville, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to design for you a personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body as safe and healthy as can be, and your mind at ease that you can safely return to the activities you love. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Request an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to get started with one of our injury prevention professionals in Kampville, MO.