Injury Prevention in Lake Tekawitha, MO. Whether you play a sport and are hoping for a shot at the next level, or a recent retiree who wants to dedicate your time to camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our licensed Lake Tekawitha, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others 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 methods that are proven to prevent injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location nearest you.

Being physically active is an essential part of many Lake Tekawitha, MO people’s lives. We love activities like playing sports, swimming, or other physical activities. Additionally, committing to an active lifestyle reduces the risk of serious health problems including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, mental health issues, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Lake Tekawitha, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention experts can help preserve your active lifestyle by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our treatment plans, for both recovery and injury prevention, are based on evidence-backed techniques and are customized for each client and the activities they want to return to.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a persistent injury that is not getting better with time, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Lake Tekawitha, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can continue with your active lifestyle, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Lake Tekawitha, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Repetitive demand injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. They are common in overhead athletes such as baseball or basketball players, with joint pain usually being the first indicator.
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, like rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, like ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, with a sudden impact to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Lake Tekawitha, MO

While injuries occur for many different reasons, and are sometimes unpreventable, they generally happen 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 common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is crucial to maintaining healthy joints and reducing injury. Imbalance can cause an overreliance on one set of muscles, which may cause your body to force it to participate in an activity it shouldn’t. 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. Injuries can be caused by insufficient muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong chest and weak back, or within muscle groups, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff not having proportionate strength. Symptoms include:

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

Tailored injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Lake Tekawitha, MO will ensure that your muscles are at optimal proportional strength.

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 a variety of musculoskeletal issues. Symptoms include:

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

When you first see our injury prevention specialists in Lake Tekawitha, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, alongside with your doctor or any additional providers treating you, we’ll design a personalized plan of attack been proven to work through research and studies to get your body moving as it should.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people who sit a lot. Athletes and other physically active people can be affected by postural dysfunction when lying down, sitting, or in certain positions necessary for a given activity. Healthy posture refers to correct positioning when both static and moving in a way that encourages our spine to stay in its natural curves. Poor posture can compress the vertebrae, which has a negative affect on our body’s ability to communicate with itself and attain the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It can also lead to:

• 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 can be improved and maintained, and your vertebrae remain in place.

How to Prevent Injury in Lake Tekawitha, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything possible to reduce that risk. No one safety tip is guaranteed to be effective in injury prevention. However, there are things you can do to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your intended activity:

• Take a rest — Your body needs time to rest and recover after any moderate to intense activity. 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 it easy after activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
• Use the appropriate equipment — Helmets, chest guards, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in many sports can help prevent injuries such as contusions or head injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Lake Tekawitha, MO doctor or injury prevention expert may advise stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other measures like tying your cleats tightly offers further stabilization.
• Improve muscle strength — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the rigors necessary for in sports and other activities. Our Lake Tekawitha, MO injury prevention experts will work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you love.
• Enhance flexibility — Stretching accomplishes three critical things for injury prevention:
  1. It enhances which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for your tendons and ligaments to adjust to more forceful movements.
  2. It boosts blood flow, which carries protein-rich blood to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and reinvigorating the muscles.
  3. It encourages good posture, which we already know is an is one of the most important aspects of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like soccer that necessitate bouncing and jumping require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to store and exert the high levels of energy required. Also, don’t forget to stretch and warm up before any physical activity to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use proper technique — Through the years, each sport and physical activity develops a consensus of the best ways 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 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 slow down your movement and educate you on how to both be a better athlete and reduce your risk of injury.
• Listen to your body — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, your body is trying to send you a message. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, immediately stop all physical activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t holing up well in a particularly rigorous workout, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — While gutting it out through pain is often seen as a heroic act among competitors, forcing your body to perform with soft tissue or structural damage could exacerbate a current injury and leave you on the sidelines 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, visiting your doctor, and a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
• Play by the rules — Most sports have special rules at different levels to reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for helmet to helmet hits in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the existence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are examples of rules that were adopted to keep players safe. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Consult a professional physical therapist — It’s always advisable to have a medical evaluation before another season begins or starting up a new physical activity. While there, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a knowledgeable physical therapist in Lake Tekawitha, MO is right for you. All of our techniques have been demonstrated to help athletes remain healthy, and you plan will be completely unique to you and catered to your age, your injury history, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Lake Tekawitha, MO

Falls in adults over 65 were responsible for over 3 million emergency room visits and more than 34,000 deaths. Studies show that being physical active can go a long way in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions like arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be more bearable and take longer to progress 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, the same principles of strength, balance, flexibility, and proper posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Lake Tekawitha, 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

Lake Tekawitha, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in one of your favorite activities can create a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same elation. The licensed Lake Tekawitha, 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 confident 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. Make an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to get started with one of our injury prevention experts in Lake Tekawitha, MO.