Injury Prevention in Kinloch, MO. Whether you’re an athlete trying to get an opportunity at the next level, 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 certified Kinloch, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to recover from injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to guide you through exercises that are proven to prevent injury. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location nearest you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Kinloch, MO residents. We love active endeavors such as playing sports, biking, and more. Additionally, pursuing an active lifestyle helps stave off significant health problems such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, anxiety, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Kinloch, MO physical therapists help you come back even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention specialists can help keep you active by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our methods, 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 suffered an injury, or have a lingering injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Kinloch, MO for a free injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your active lifestyle, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Kinloch, MO

Most injuries fall into two categories:

1. Repetitive demand injuries are injuries that occur when a part of the body repeats the same motion time and time again. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes athletes who use throwing or striking motions, with joint pain usually being the first warning sign.
2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen in an instant. Examples include landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, for example rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, for example ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Kinloch, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally occur because your soft tissue, 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 crucial to supporting joints and reducing 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 set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher probability of injury. Muscle imbalance applies to inadequate muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong hamstring and weak quadriceps, or within muscle groups, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff not having proportionate strength. Muscle imbalance can lead to:

• Muscle weakness
• Muscle inflexibility
• Poor muscle recruitment
• Poor coordination

Personalized injury prevention with our experienced physical therapists in Kinloch, 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 many different musculoskeletal issues. Symptoms include:

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

When you initially see our injury prevention experts in Kinloch, MO, we’ll discuss your medical history 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 create a personalized treatment 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 desk jobs. Athletes and other physically active people can be affected by postural dysfunction when resting, sitting, or in specific stances they need to be in for a given activity. Good posture means correct positioning of the different joints and muscles of your body in a way that does not remove the spine from its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the bones of the spine closer together, which has a negative affect on our body’s ability to communicate with itself and attain optimal movement 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 you are using your muscles equally, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Kinloch, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything you could to prevent one. No one technique is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are precautions to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your desired activity level:

• Take breaks — Your body needs time to rest and recover after any moderate to intense activity. If you’re heavily active, one or two rest days a week will allow 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 your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
• Use the correct equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, protective eyewear, and other required equipment in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries such as lacerations or concussions. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Kinloch, MO physician or injury prevention expert may fit you for stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other measures like tying your cleats tightly offers further stabilization.
• Increase muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the rigors necessary for in sports and other activities. Our Kinloch, MO injury prevention experts will work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to be able to avoid injury in the activities you love.
• Increase flexibility — Increasing your flexibility achieves three important things for injury prevention:
  1. It increases your range of motion, which allows for your tendons and ligaments to adapt to more drastic positions.
  2. It improves blood flow, which carries nourishing blood to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and re-energizing the muscles.
  3. It increases your posture, which, as you read earlier, is an essential part of injury prevention.

  According to research, sports like soccer that include sudden twists and movements require muscles and tendons flexible enough to store and expel the high amount of energy required. Also, remember to stretch and warm up before any physical activity to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use accepted technique — In every sport, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. These techniques not only improve performance but help reduce the risk of injury. Football players are taught to tackle a certain way to reduce the risk of a head injury, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. 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.
• Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If a part of your body is bothering you, 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 does not feel well enough for a particularly rigorous workout, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that guts it out through pain, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could make that injury worse and put you out of commission 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, visiting urgent care, and a series of physical therapy sessions to make sure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
• Play by the rules — Many sports have special rules at different levels to help prevent injury. Penalties for leading with the helmet in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the existence of bike lanes are examples of rules that were adopted to keep participants safe. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that there are penalties for them.
• Consult a professional physical therapist — It’s always advisable to see a doctor before a new season or committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. During your appointment, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Kinloch, MO is something you should consider. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated to reduce the risk of injury, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, any previous injuries, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Kinloch, MO

Falls in the elderly accounted for more than 3 million urgent care admissions and over 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that being physical active is a great method for reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions like arthritis that accumulate over time can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints healthy. While the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, healthy strength, balance, flexibility, and good posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Kinloch, 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

Kinloch, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in one of your favorite activities can lead to a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same euphoria. The knowledgeable Kinloch, 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 at ease that you can safely return to the activities 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 call the location nearest you to see what our Kinloch, MO injury prevention specialists can do for you.