Injury Prevention in Matson, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or you just retired and want to spend more time camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our professional Matson, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to heal after an injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to teach out exercises that are proven to reduce the risk of injury by preparing your body for the stressors of your desired activity. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location most convenient for you.

Physical activity is an essential part of many Matson, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in active endeavors such as playing sports, swimming, or other physical activities. Additionally, keeping an active lifestyle reduces the risk of significant health problems like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, anxiety, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Matson, MO physical therapists help you come back as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention professionals 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, are based on evidence-backed techniques and are developed uniquely for each client and the level of activity they want to reach.

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 nearest you in Matson, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can continue with your sport or hobby, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist at your earliest convenience.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Matson, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Chronic injuries are injuries that occur when a part of the body repeats the same motion time and time again. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes athletes who are required to repeat throwing or striking motions, with joint pain usually being the first indicator.
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, sprains and strains, fractures, 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, like ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, with a sudden impact to the knee.

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

While injuries can happen in a variety of circumstances, and some are inescapable, 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 common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to maintaining healthy joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can cause 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 muscles will become fatigued sooner, increasing the risk of injury. Injuries can be caused by inadequate 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 an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Symptoms include:

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

Personalized injury prevention with our professional physical therapists in Matson, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, causing injury. It can be caused by many different musculoskeletal issues. It can cause injury through:

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

When you first visit our injury prevention specialists in Matson, MO, we’ll discuss your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, together with your doctor or any additional medical professionals treating you, we’ll create a tailored treatment plan been proven to work through research and studies to get your body moving as it should.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people who spend a lot of time in the same position. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can have postural dysfunction when at lest, using the computer, or in certain positions related to their sport. Healthy posture refers to correct positioning of your body from your head to your toes in a way that does not remove the spine from 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. Symptoms include:

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

By guiding you to 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 can be improved and maintained, and your spine is in its natural position.

Injury Prevention Methods in Matson, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. No one precaution is guaranteed to be effective in injury prevention. However, there are precautions to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your desired activity level:

• Take breaks — Your body needs time to rest and recover after any moderate to intense activity. If you’re heavily active, one or two rest days a week will encourage your body to engage in its natural healing processes. If you have a more modest activity level, take it easy after activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Use the appropriate equipment — Helmets, chin straps, safety pads and guards, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries like lacerations or concussions. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Matson, MO doctor or physical therapist may fit you for braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the injured area. Other measures like tying your athletic footwear tightly offers further stabilization.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening soft tissue helps it stand up to the rigors of heavy activity. Our Matson, MO injury prevention specialists will work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to be able to avoid injury in the activities you love.
• Increase flexibility — Increasing your flexibility contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It increases your range of motion, which allows for your soft tissue to handle more drastic movements.
  2. It increases blood flow, which carries protein-rich blood to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to heal.
  3. It improves your posture, which we already know is an an essential part of injury prevention.

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

• 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 by not forcing your body into unnatural positions and movements. Football players are taught to tackle a certain way to reduce the risk of a head injury, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to make sure their muscles are moving unnaturally. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and educate you on how to both be a better athlete and prevent injury.
• Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, that’s your body’s way of telling you something isn’t right. If you feel sudden pain, immediately stop all physical activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t feeling up to a particularly rigorous training session, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — While gritting through pain is often seen as a heroic act among competitors, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could exacerbate an existing injury and put you out of commission 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, visiting urgent care, and a series of physical therapy sessions to make sure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
• Follow the rules — Many sports have special rules at different levels to reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for helmet to helmet hits 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 leagues enacted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Speak a professional physical therapist — It’s always advisable to have a medical evaluation before starting another season or starting up a new physical activity. During your appointment, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a licensed physical therapist in Matson, MO is something you should consider. All of our techniques have been proven to reduce the risk of injury, 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 Matson, MO

Falls in adults over 65 were responsible for over 3 million urgent care visits and more than 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates that being physical active is invaluable in preventing falls. Other conditions that limit mobility 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 muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints healthy. While the physical demands for seniors may not be as high as an athlete, the same principles of strength, stability, flexibility, and correct posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Matson, MO include:

• Neck Pain Treatment
• 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

Matson, 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 exhilaration. The knowledgeable Matson, 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 confident that you can safely return to the activities you love doing most. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Make an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to start your program with one of our injury prevention professionals in Matson, MO.