Injury Prevention in Lemay, MO. Whether you play a sport and are trying to get an opportunity at the next stage, or a recent retiree who wants to spend more time bike riding, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our licensed Lemay, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others heal after an 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 reduce the risk of injury by preparing your body for the stressors of your desired activity. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location most convenient for you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Lemay, MO residents. We love active endeavors like playing sports, biking, or other physical activities. Additionally, pursuing an active lifestyle helps prevent significant health problems such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, mental health issues, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Lemay, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention professionals can help you reduce the risk of further injury 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, are proven to be effective and are developed uniquely for each client and the activities they want to return to.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a nagging injury that won’t heal on its own, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Lemay, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and protect your active lifestyle, keep reading or inquire about an appointment at your earliest convenience.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Lemay, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Chronic injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes such as raquetball or lacrosse players and commonly are accompanied by joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, fractures, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, such as rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, like ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, with an immediate impact to or twisting of the knee.

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Lemay, MO

While injuries can happen in a variety of circumstances, and are sometimes inescapable, they generally happen because of dysfunction or imbalance and your body and between body parts. There are three chief causes of why your body cannot handle an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to maintaining healthy joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can lead to overemphasis for one set of muscles, which may cause your body to force it to participate in an activity it shouldn’t. It also prevents you from having optimal posture, 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 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 the four muscles in the rotator cuff not having proportionate strength. Muscle imbalance can lead to:

• Muscle weakness
• Muscle inflexibility
• Poor muscle recruitment
• Coordination deficiency

Customized injury prevention with our professional physical therapists in Lemay, MO will ensure that different muscles and muscle groups are equally strong.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and lead to your body moving in unnatural ways, increasing your risk of injury. Problems in your nervous system, swelling, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can lead to:

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

When you first visit our injury prevention specialists in Lemay, MO, we’ll discuss your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, together with your physician or any additional providers treating you, we’ll come up with a tailored plan of attack 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. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can have postural dysfunction when resting, sitting, or in specific positions related to their sport. Good posture means correct positioning of the different joints and muscles of your body in a way that keeps the spine within 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 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 guiding you to good posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring you are using the right muscles for the right movements, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your spine is in its natural position.

Injury Prevention Methods in Lemay, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything you could to reduce that risk. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are things you can do to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• Take a rest — Injuries are more common in overworked bodies. If you’re heavily active, one or two rest days a week will signal to your body to engage in its natural healing and recovery processes. If you have a more modest activity level, rest for the rest of the day after an activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
• Wear the correct equipment — Helmets, chest guards, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in many sports can help prevent injuries like contusions or head injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or soft tissue, your Lemay, MO doctor or physical therapist may advise braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the injured area. Other techniques like making sure all the equipment is snug can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the force and torque of heavy activity. Our Lemay, MO injury prevention specialists will work to build up your body to be able to stay healthy in the activities you love.
• Improve flexibility — Increasing your flexibility accomplishes 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 adjust to more dramatic positions.
  2. It increases blood flow, which allows for nutrient-rich blood to flow to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and fortifying the muscles.
  3. It encourages good posture, which we already know is an an important part of injury prevention.

  According to studies, sports like football that necessitate dynamic movements require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to store and expel the high levels of energy required. Stretching and warm up exercises before activities further helps prevent injuries.

• Use correct technique — In every physical activity, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. These techniques not only help you get be the best player 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 reduce the risk of a concussion, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and evaluate how to both improve your performance 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’s your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, immediately withdraw from the 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 — While playing through pain is often viewed as commendable among competitors, playing with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could aggravate an existing injury and put you out of commission 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 an emergency room, and scheduling appointments with a physical therapist to ensure your body heals naturally and can handle a return to physical activity.
• Play by the rules — Many sports have special rules at different levels to help prevent injury. Penalties for targeting in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the presence 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 there are penalties for them.
• Speak a licensed physical therapist — It’s always advisable to get a physical before starting another season or committing yourself to any strenuous activity or training regimen. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Lemay, MO is something you should consider. Every treatment plan we employ has 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 Older Lemay, MO Adults

Falls in the elderly were responsible for over 3 million urgent care visits and over 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that physical activity can go a long way in preventing falls. Other conditions like arthritis that accumulate over time can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints healthy. While the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, the same principles of strength, stability, flexibility, and ideal posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Lemay, MO include:

• Shin Splint Treatment
• Direct Access Physical Therapy
• Gait Analysis
• Pelvic Floor Therapy
• Dry Needling Near Me
• Tendonitis Treatment
• Manual Physical Therapy
• Orthopedic Rehab Near Me
• Beginner Running Program
• Chronic Pain Treatment

Lemay, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in one of your favorite activities causes a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same joy. The licensed Lemay, 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 do not have to fear going back to what you love doing most. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you do not want to lose. Schedule an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to see what our Lemay, MO injury prevention experts can do for you.