Injury Prevention in Mehlville, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or a recent retiree who wants to dedicate your time to camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you desire. While our licensed Mehlville, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to 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. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location most convenient for you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Mehlville, MO residents. We love activities such as playing sports, kayaking, or other physical activities. Furthermore, committing to an active lifestyle reduces the risk of chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, mental health issues, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Mehlville, MO physical therapists help you return to action and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention specialists can help keep you active 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 personalized to each client and the activities they want to return to.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a nagging injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Mehlville, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your sport or hobby, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist at your earliest convenience.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Mehlville, MO

Injuries typically happen for one of two reasons:

1. Repetitive demand injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. They are common in overhead athletes such as raquetball or shotput and pole-vaulters and typically are accompanied by joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, 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.

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

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

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to supporting joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can result in an overreliance on one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also prevents you from having ideal posture, and one set of muscles becoming tired sooner, making them more susceptible to injuries. Injuries can be caused by poor muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or within muscle groups, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff not having proportionate strength. Symptoms include:

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

Personalized injury prevention with our certified physical therapists in Mehlville, MO will ensure that different muscles and muscle groups are equally strong.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, causing injury. Problems in your nervous system, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can cause injury through:

• Joint mobility restrictions
• Muscle imbalance
• Poor coordination
• Lessened balance

When you first visit our injury prevention specialists in Mehlville, MO, we’ll go over your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, together with your physician or any additional medical professionals involved in your treatment, we’ll design a tailored plan of attack 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 sit a lot. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can be affected by postural dysfunction when resting, driving, or in specific body positions related to their sport. Correct posture means correct positioning of your body from your head to your toes in a way that keeps the spine within its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the bones of the spine closer together, which disrupts our body’s internal communications and makes it challenging to achieve 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 teaching you good posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring muscle balance, range of motion, and that your spine is in its natural position.

Injury Prevention Methods in Mehlville, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. No one safety tip is guaranteed to be effective in injury prevention. However, there are precautions to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• 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 signal to your body to engage in its natural healing and recovery processes. If you have a more moderate activity level, take a break for the few hours after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Wear the correct equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in many sports can help prevent injuries such as bruises or concussions. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Mehlville, MO physician or physical therapist may advise stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other methods like tying your shoes tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the force and torque your body is put through in sports and other activities. Our Mehlville, 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.
• Increase flexibility — Increasing your flexibility accomplishes three critical things for injury prevention:
  1. It improves your range of motion, which allows for your soft tissue to handle more forceful positions.
  2. It enhances blood flow, which carries nourishing blood to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and re-energizing the muscles.
  3. It improves your posture, which, as you read earlier, is an important part of injury prevention.

  According to studies, sports like soccer that require bouncing and jumping require muscles and tendons compliant enough to incorporate and expel the high amount of energy required. Also, remember to stretch and warm up before any physical activity to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use accepted 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 reduce the risk of injury. Football players are taught to tackle a certain way to reduce the risk of a head injury, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. We use 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 a part of your body is bothering you, your body is trying to send you a message. If you feel sudden pain, immediately stop all physical activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t holing up well in a particularly rigorous training session, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though gritting 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 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 urgent care, and a series of physical therapy sessions to make sure 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 to help prevent injury. Penalties for targeting in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the existence of bike lanes are examples of rules that were adopted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. Those are in place for a reason, and there’s a reason that there are penalties for them.
• Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s always advisable to have a medical evaluation before a new season or starting up a new physical activity. During your physical, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a licensed physical therapist in Mehlville, MO is something you should consider. All of our techniques have been proven 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 Mehlville, MO Adults

Falls in adults over 65 were responsible for more than 3 million urgent care visits and more than 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates that physical activity can go a long way in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions such as 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 healthy. While the physical demands for seniors may not be as high as an athlete, healthy strength, balance, flexibility, and good posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Mehlville, 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

Mehlville, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in something you love doing causes a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same exhilaration. The experienced Mehlville, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to develop your 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. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Make an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to see what our Mehlville, MO injury prevention specialists can do for you.