Injury Prevention in Lakeshire, 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 professional Lakeshire, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others recover from injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to guide you through methods that are proven to prevent injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location nearest you.
Being physically active is vitally important to many Lakeshire, MO residents. Many of us participate in activities such as playing sports, biking, or other physical activities. Additionally, pursuing an active lifestyle helps prevent chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, degenerative brain diseases, mental health issues, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Lakeshire, MO physical therapists help you return to action and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention specialists can help preserve your active lifestyle by improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. All of our treatment plans, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, have been prove to work and are customized for each client and the level of activity they want to reach.
If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a persistent injury that won’t heal on its own, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Lakeshire, MO for a free injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can continue with your active lifestyle, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist today.
Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Lakeshire, MO
Injuries typically fall into two categories:
- Repetitive motion 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 lacrosse players and typically reveal themselves with joint pain.
- Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, fractures, and dislocations.
Some of the injuries we see most frequently, for example 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 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 occur 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 primary causes of why your body cannot handle an activity:
Muscle Imbalance
Muscle balance is crucial to supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can cause dependency on one muscle group, 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. Injuries can be caused by inadequate muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong chest and weak back, 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 deficits
Tailored injury prevention with our professional physical therapists in Lakeshire, MO will ensure that your muscles are at optimal proportional strength.
Movement Dysfunction
Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, causing injury. It can be caused by a range of musculoskeletal issues. Symptoms include:
- Joint mobility limitations
- Muscle imbalance
- Poor coordination
- Decreased balance
When you initially visit our injury prevention specialists in Lakeshire, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical history and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, in concert with with your physician or any additional providers treating you, we’ll create a tailored game plan based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement back on track.
Posture Dysfunction
Bad posture is not just an issue for people with slouched shoulders. People who play sports and others with active lifestyles can be affected by postural dysfunction when lying down, driving, or in certain poses related to a given activity. Optimal posture refers to proper alignments of the neck, torso, pelvis, and extremities 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 difficult to attain the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It causes injuries through:
- Muscle weakness
- Muscle imbalance
- Poor positioning
- Joint mobility restrictions
- Poor muscle recruitment
Good posture is a necessary part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, flexibility, and that your spine is in its natural position.
How to Prevent Injury in Lakeshire, MO
You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything possible to prevent one. No one precaution is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are precautions to greatly reduce the risk of injury:
- Take breaks — Injuries are more common when you do not give your body time to restore itself. If you’re heavily active, one or two rest days a week will encourage your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you’re moderately active, take a break for the few hours after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
- Wear protective equipment — Helmets, chin straps, elbow pads, and other recommended equipment in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries such as lacerations or head injuries. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Lakeshire, MO physician or injury prevention expert may fit you for stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other methods like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further protection.
- Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the force and torque of heavy activity. Our Lakeshire, MO injury prevention professionals will work to build up your body to be able to stay healthy in the activities you want to participate in.
- Improve flexibility — Stretching accomplishes three important things for injury prevention:
- It boosts your range of motion, which lets for your tendons and ligaments to adapt to more forceful positions.
- It enhances circulation, which allows for nutrient-rich blood to flow to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to restore themselves.
- It boosts your posture, which we already know is an an important part of injury prevention.
According to research, sports like soccer that necessitate sudden twists and movements require soft tissue with sufficient flexibility to store and release 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 physical activity, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. These techniques not only help you perform better but help prevent injuries. Football players learn to tackle with the shoulder in order to reduce the risk of brain damage, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to make sure their muscles are moving unnaturally. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and analyze how to improve it.
- Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, that means that body part is telling your brain that something is wrong. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, stop immediately and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body isn’t holing up well in a particularly rigorous training session, don’t force it.
- Don’t play through an injury — While gutting it out through pain is often seen as a courageous act among competitors, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could aggravate a current injury and leave you off the field or court for much longer than you would have been sitting out. 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 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 helmet to helmet hits in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the existence of bike lanes are examples of rules put in place to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that there are penalties for them.
- Speak a licensed physical therapist — It’s always advisable to get a physical before a new season or starting up a new physical activity. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a licensed physical therapist in Lakeshire, MO is a good idea for you. All of our techniques have been proven to help athletes remain healthy, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.
Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Lakeshire, MO
Falls in adults over 65 accounted for more than 3 million emergency room visits and more than 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that physical activity is invaluable in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints strong. While older adults typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, healthy strength, balance, flexibility, and optimal posture are great agents in injury prevention.
Other services we offer in Lakeshire, MO include:
- Total Knee Replacement Physical Therapy
- Vestibular Therapy
- Concussion Treatment
- Soft Tissue Mobilization
- Post Surgical Rehabilitation
- Shin Splint Treatment
- Direct Access Physical Therapy
- Gait Analysis
- Pelvic Floor Therapy
- Dry Needling Near Me
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 keeps us from experiencing the same freedom. The professional Lakeshire, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to guide you through your own personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body as safe and healthy as can be, and your mind at ease that you do not have to fear going back to what you love doing most. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits that you do not want to lose. Schedule an appointment online or call the location nearest you to get started with one of our injury prevention professionals in Lakeshire, MO.