Injury Prevention in Mapaville, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or a recent retiree who wants to spend more time camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our certified Mapaville, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others heal after an injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to guide you through methods that are proven to prevent injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location nearest you.

Physical activity is an essential part of many Mapaville, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in active endeavors like playing sports, kayaking, or other physical activities. Additionally, pursuing an active lifestyle helps stave off chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, degenerative brain diseases, anxiety, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Mapaville, 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 optimizing your overall movement health. 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 lifestyle they desire.

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 Mapaville, MO for a free injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your active lifestyle, read on below or inquire about an appointment today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Mapaville, 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 raquetball or volleyball players, with joint pain usually being the first warning sign.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. 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, almost always occur spontaneously, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

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

While injuries occur for many different reasons, and some are inescapable, they generally occur because your soft tissue, bones, and joints cannot handle 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 supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can lead to an overreliance on one set of muscles, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also prevents you from having ideal posture, and the weaker muscles will become tired faster, increasing the risk of injury. Muscle imbalance applies to poor muscle balance between 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

Tailored injury prevention with our certified physical therapists in Mapaville, 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 bending in unnatural ways, causing 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
• Poor coordination
• Decreased balance

When you first visit our injury prevention professionals in Mapaville, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, alongside with your doctor or any other medical professionals involved in your treatment, we’ll come up with a tailored game plan 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 spend a lot of time doing the same activity. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can suffer from postural dysfunction when lying down, driving, or in specific poses related to their sport. Healthy 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 interferes with our body’s ability to communicate with itself and attain ideal movement health. It causes injuries through:

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

Good posture is a vital part of injury prevention because it ensures you are using your muscles equally, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your vertebrae remain in place.

How to Prevent Injury in Mapaville, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are precautions to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your desired activity level:

• Take a rest — Injuries are more common in overworked bodies. If you have a very high activity level, make sure to take one or two days off per week to allow your body to engage in its natural healing processes. If you have a more moderate activity level, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Use the correct equipment — Helmets, shin guards, protective eyewear, and other required equipment in many sports can help prevent injuries such as lacerations or concussions. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Mapaville, MO doctor or injury prevention specialist may fit you for stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other measures like making sure all the equipment is snug can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Increase muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the rigors your body is put through in sports and other activities. Our Mapaville, 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 — Increasing your flexibility accomplishes three critical things for injury prevention:
  1. It increases your range of motion, which lets for your soft tissue to adjust to more drastic positions.
  2. It increases circulation, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and reinvigorating the muscles.
  3. It improves your posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is is one of the most important factors of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like basketball that require dynamic activities require soft tissue with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. Stretching and warm up exercises before activities further helps prevent injuries.

• Use correct 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 help you perform better but help prevent injuries. Football players are taught to tackle a certain way to reduce the risk of a concussion, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to make sure their muscles are moving unnaturally. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and analyze how to improve it.
• 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 a sudden pop or grinding sensation, stop immediately and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body isn’t holing up well in a particularly rigorous workout, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though gritting through pain is often seen as a heroic act among competitors, forcing your body to perform with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could make that injury worse 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 body heals naturally and can withstand a return to physical activity.
• 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 leading with the helmet in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the presence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are all 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 professional physical therapist — It’s a good idea to have a medical evaluation before another season begins or starting up a new activity or training regimen. While there, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a experienced physical therapist in Mapaville, MO is something you should consider. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated to help athletes remain healthy, and we’ll personalize your program to your age, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention for Older Mapaville, MO Adults

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for over 3 million emergency room visits and over 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates that being physical active is a great method for reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that accumulate over time can be more bearable and take longer to progress 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, balance, flexibility, and optimal posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Mapaville, 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

Mapaville, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in something you love doing causes a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same elation. The knowledgeable Mapaville, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to design for you a personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body prepared for the rigors of physical activity, and your mind confident that you do not have to fear going back to what you love. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Make an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to start your program with one of our injury prevention specialists in Mapaville, MO.