Injury Prevention in Lakeshire, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or you just retired and want to spend more time being physical fit, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you desire. While our licensed Lakeshire, 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 show you methods that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location nearest you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Lakeshire, MO residents. We love active endeavors like playing sports, playing golf, and more. Furthermore, committing to an active lifestyle helps prevent chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, anxiety, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Lakeshire, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention specialists can help you reduce the risk of further injury by improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. All of our methods, for both healing from and preventing injury, are proven to be effective and are customized for each client and the activities they want to return to.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a nagging injury that won’t heal on its own, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Lakeshire, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can continue with your sport or hobby, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Lakeshire, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Overuse injuries are injuries that occur when a part of the body repeats the same motion time and time again. They are common in overhead athletes such as tennis or quarterbacks and typically reveal themselves with joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, such as rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, for example ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, with an immediate impact to or twisting of the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Lakeshire, 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 reducing injury. Imbalance can cause an overreliance on one muscle group, which may cause your body to use it in a way 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 probability 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 within muscle groups, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff having different levels of strength. Muscle imbalance can lead to:

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

Customized injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Lakeshire, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and lead to your body moving in ways it is not designed to, increasing your risk of injury. It can be caused by numerous musculoskeletal issues. It can cause injury through:

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

At our first injury prevention appointment in Lakeshire, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical history and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, together with your physician or any other providers treating you, we’ll come up with a personalized 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 who sit a lot. People who play sports and others with active lifestyles can be affected by postural dysfunction when at lest, sitting, or in specific positions necessary for a given activity. Correct posture means proper alignments when both static and moving in a way that keeps the spine within its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the bones of the spine closer together, which interferes with our body’s ability to communicate with itself and reach ideal movement health. Symptoms include:

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

By guiding you to good posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring muscle balance, flexibility, and that your vertebrae remain in place.

Injury Prevention Best Practices in Lakeshire, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything you could to reduce that risk. No one technique is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are things you can do 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 have a very high activity level, one or two rest days a week will encourage your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you have a more moderate activity level, take it easy after activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
• Use protective equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, elbow pads, and other recommended equipment in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries such as contusions or brain injuries. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Lakeshire, MO physician or physical therapist may suggest braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the injured area. Other methods like tying your shoes tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening soft tissue helps it stand up to the force and torque necessary for in sports and other activities. Our Lakeshire, MO injury prevention specialists will work to achieve ideal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you love.
• Improve flexibility — Stretching achieves three important things for injury prevention:
  1. It enhances which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adapt to more dramatic positions.
  2. It improves circulation, which carries nourishing blood to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to restore themselves.
  3. It improves your posture, which, as you read earlier, is an important part of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like football that include sudden twists and movements require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to incorporate and exert the high amount of energy required. Also, it’s important to stretch and warm up before games or training to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use correct technique — In every sport, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. These techniques not only help you perform better but help reduce the risk of injury. Football players learn to tackle with the shoulder in order to reduce the risk of a head injury, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and evaluate how to improve it.
• Listen to your body — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, that means that body part is telling your brain that something isn’t right. If you feel sudden pain, immediately stop all physical activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t holing up well in an intense training session, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though playing through pain is often viewed as commendable among competitors, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could make that injury worse 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 a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
• Follow the rules — Most sports have special rules at different levels in the interest of safety. Penalties for helmet to helmet hits in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the existence of bike lanes are all rules that leagues enacted 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 get a physical before another season begins or starting up a new activity or training regimen. During your visit, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a expert physical therapist in Lakeshire, MO is something you should consider. All of our techniques have been proven to help athletes remain healthy, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, your injury history, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Lakeshire, MO

Falls in senior citizens accounted for over 3 million urgent care admissions and over 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates 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 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, appropriate strength, stability, flexibility, and good posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Lakeshire, 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

Lakeshire, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in in an activity you prepare and train for and love causes a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same euphoria. The licensed Lakeshire, 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. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Schedule an appointment online or call the location nearest you to discover what our Lakeshire, MO injury prevention experts can do for you.