Injury Prevention in Leslie, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or are entering your golden years and want to spend more time bike riding, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you desire. While our professional Leslie, 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 reach out to the location nearest you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Leslie, MO residents. Many of us participate in activities like playing sports, playing golf, and more. Furthermore, committing to an active lifestyle reduces the risk of significant health problems such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, eurodegenerative disease, anxiety, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Leslie, MO physical therapists help you come back as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention experts can help preserve your active lifestyle by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our methods, for both healing from and preventing injury, have been prove to work 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 most convenient for you in Leslie, MO for a complimentary 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 Leslie, MO

Injuries generally 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 water polo or quarterbacks and typically manifest themselves as joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, 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 an immediate impact to or twisting of the knee.

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

While injuries can happen in a variety of circumstances, and are sometimes inescapable, they generally occur because of dysfunction or imbalance and your body and between body parts. There are three common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to supporting joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can lead to an overreliance on one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also causes posture dysfunction, and one set of muscles becoming fatigued faster, making them more susceptible to injuries. Injuries can be caused by insufficient muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong chest and weak back, or in the same muscle group, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Symptoms include:

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

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

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and lead to your body bending in unnatural ways, increasing your risk of injury. Neurological issues, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. Symptoms include:

• Joint mobility restrictions
• Muscle imbalance
• Coordination deficits
• Decreased balance

When you first visit our injury prevention specialists in Leslie, MO, we’ll go through your medical history and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, in concert with with your doctor or any additional providers involved in your treatment, we’ll design a customized plan of attack been proven to work by research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people who spend a lot of time doing the same activity. People who play sports and other physically active people can suffer from postural dysfunction when at lest, driving, or in specific poses necessary for a given activity. Correct posture refers to proper alignments of the neck, torso, pelvis, and extremities in a way that does not remove the spine from its natural curves. Poor posture can compress the vertebrae, which disrupts communication between your brain and body and makes it challenging to attain ideal motion health. It causes injuries through:

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

By helping you understand the best practices for 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.

How to Prevent Injury in Leslie, MO

All sports and physical activities can potentially lead to an injury. 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 allow your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you have a more modest activity level, rest for the rest of the day after an activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
• Use the appropriate equipment — Helmets, shin guards, elbow pads, and other required equipment in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries like contusions or concussions. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Leslie, MO doctor or physical therapist may advise braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the affected area. Other techniques like tying your shoes tightly offers further protection.
• Increase muscle strength — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the force and torque of heavy activity. In your tailored injury prevention program with our professional Leslie, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to achieve ideal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you want to participate in.
• Boost flexibility — Increasing your flexibility achieves three important things for injury prevention:
  1. It increases your range of motion, which allows for your tendons and ligaments to adjust to more dramatic movements.
  2. It improves blood flow, which carries nourishing blood to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and re-energizing the muscles.
  3. It increases your posture, which we already know is an an essential part of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like basketball that necessitate sudden twists and movements require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. Also, don’t forget to stretch and warm up before any physical activity to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use proper 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 prevent injuries. Football players are taught to tackle a certain way 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 break down your movement and educate you on how to improve it.
• Listen to your body — If a part of your body is sore, your body is trying to send you a message. If you feel a sudden crack or grinding sensation, stop immediately and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t holing up well in an intense workout, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — While teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate an athlete that guts it out through pain, forcing your body to perform with soft tissue or structural damage could make that injury worse and put you out of commission for longer than it originally would have. Depending on the severity of your injury, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, seeing urgent care, and a series of physical therapy sessions to make sure your body heals properly and can withstand the activity you want to return to.
• Play by the rules — Depending on the sport or activity and age level of the participants, it likely has special rules 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 bike lanes are examples of rules put in place to keep participants safe. Those are in place for a reason, and there’s a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Speak a licensed physical therapist — It’s a good idea to get a physical before another season begins or starting up a new activity or training regimen. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a experienced physical therapist in Leslie, MO is something you should consider. All of our techniques have been demonstrated to reduce the risk of injury, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, any previous injuries, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for Older Leslie, MO Adults

Falls in the elderly accounted for over 3 million emergency room visits and more than 34,000 deaths. Studies show that physical activity is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions like arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be more bearable and take longer to progress with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints strong. While seniors typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, appropriate strength, balance, flexibility, and proper posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Leslie, 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

Leslie, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in one of your favorite activities can create a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same elation. The licensed Leslie, 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 do not have to fear going back to what you love. We will aid you in feeling 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 get started with one of our injury prevention experts in Leslie, MO.