Injury Prevention in Labadie, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or are entering your golden years and want to dedicate your time to taking ski vacations, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our licensed Labadie, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to 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 techniques that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location nearest you.
Physical activity is an essential part of many Labadie, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in active endeavors like playing sports, swimming, and more. Furthermore, committing to an active lifestyle reduces the risk of future health problems including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, depression, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Labadie, MO physical therapists allow you to come back and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention experts can help you reduce the risk of further injury by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our treatment plans, for both recovery and injury prevention, 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 won’t heal on its own, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Labadie, MO for a free injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can keep up with your active lifestyle, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist today.
Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Labadie, MO
Most injuries fall into two categories:
- Repetitive motion injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. They are common in overhead athletes such as tennis or lacrosse players and typically manifest themselves as joint pain.
- Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.
Some common injuries, like rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, such as ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, with a sudden impact to the knee.
Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Labadie, MO
While injuries can happen in a variety of circumstances, and some are inescapable, they generally happen because your muscles, ligaments, tendons, 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 common dysfunctions that lead to injury:
Muscle Imbalance
Muscle balance is essential to supporting joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can cause dependency on one set of muscles, 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 probability of injury. Muscle imbalance applies to poor 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 an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Muscle imbalance can cause injury through:
- Muscle weakness
- Muscle inflexibility
- Poor muscle recruitment
- Poor coordination
Tailored injury prevention with our certified physical therapists in Labadie, MO will bring balance to your muscles.
Movement Dysfunction
Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and lead to your body bending in unnatural ways, causing injury. It can be caused by many different musculoskeletal issues. It can lead to:
- Joint mobility limitations
- Muscle imbalance
- Coordination deficits
- Decreased balance
When you first see our injury prevention specialists in Labadie, MO, we’ll discuss your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, in concert with with your doctor or any other providers involved in your care, we’ll come up with a tailored game plan been proven to work by research and studies to get your movement back on track.
Posture Dysfunction
Bad posture doesn’t just affect people with slouched shoulders. People who play sports and other physically active people can be affected by postural dysfunction when lying down, driving, or in certain positions they need to be in for a given activity. Correct posture refers to correct alignments of your body from your head to your toes in a way that keeps the spine within its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the vertebrae closer together, which disrupts communication between your brain and body and makes it harder 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 teaching you correct posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring you are using your muscles equally, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your spine is in its natural position.
How to Prevent Injury in Labadie, 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 several steps you can take to greatly reduce the risk of injury:
- Take a rest — 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 encourage your body to engage in its natural healing processes. If you’re moderately active, rest for the rest of the day after an activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
- Use protective equipment — Helmets, chin straps, protective eyewear, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries like rashes or head injuries. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Labadie, MO doctor or injury prevention professional may advise braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the affected area. Other methods like tying your cleats tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
- Improve muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the rigors necessary for in sports and other activities. Our Labadie, MO injury prevention professionals will work to achieve ideal muscle balance and strengthen the often forgotten muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you love.
- Enhance flexibility — Stretching contributes to injury prevention in three way:
- It boosts your range of motion, which lets for your tendons and ligaments to adapt to more forceful positions.
- It enhances blood flow, which carries protein-rich blood to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to restore themselves.
- It encourages good posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is an important part of injury prevention.
According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like basketball that include bouncing and jumping require soft tissue flexible enough to perform those movements. Stretching and warm up exercises before activities further helps prevent injuries.
- Use proper 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 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 rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best apply torque to your body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and analyze 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 sore, 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 isn’t holing up well in 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 an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could exacerbate an existing injury and put you out of commission for much longer than if you had sat out at the time of the injury. Depending on the nature of your injury, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, seeing your doctor, 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 — Depending on the sport or activity and age level of the participants, it likely has special rules to help prevent injury. Penalties for leading with the helmet in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the existence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are examples of rules that were adopted 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.
- Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to get a physical before a new season or committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. During your visit, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a licensed physical therapist in Labadie, MO is something you should consider. All of our techniques have been demonstrated to help athletes remain healthy, and you plan will be completely unique to you and catered to how old you are, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.
Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Labadie, MO
Falls in senior citizens accounted for more than 3 million urgent care visits and over 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that physical activity is a great method for reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints healthy. While older adults typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, appropriate strength, balance, flexibility, and optimal posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.
Other services we offer in Labadie, 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
Labadie, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy
Suffering in injury in something you love doing causes a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same elation. The licensed Labadie, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to develop your personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body prepared for the rigors of physical activity, 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 that you do not want to lose. Make an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to get started with one of our injury prevention experts in Labadie, MO.
