Injury Prevention in New Town, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or are entering your golden years and want to spend more time being physical fit, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our professional New Town, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to recover from injury, we are experts in the entire musculoskeletal system who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to guide you through methods that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location nearest you.

Physical activity is an essential part of many New Town, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in activities such as playing sports, playing golf, or other physical activities. Furthermore, keeping an active lifestyle helps prevent chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, anxiety, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed New Town, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention specialists can help preserve your active lifestyle by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our treatment plans, for both recovery and injury prevention, 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 sustained an injury, or have a lingering injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in New Town, MO for a free injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can continue with your sport or hobby, read on below or inquire about an appointment today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in New Town, MO

Injuries generally fall into two categories:

1. Overuse injuries are injuries happen gradually as a body part degrades because of repetitive movements. They are common in overhead athletes such as softball or quarterbacks, with joint pain usually being the first warning sign.
2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen suddenly. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, fractures, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, 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 a sudden impact to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in New Town, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally happen 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 key to supporting joints and reducing injury. Imbalance can result in an overreliance on one muscle group, which may cause your body to use it in a way it shouldn’t. It also causes posture dysfunction, and one set of muscles becoming tired sooner, increasing the risk of injury. Muscle imbalance can refer to insufficient muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or in the same muscle group, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff having different levels of strength. Symptoms include:

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

Tailored injury prevention with our professional physical therapists in New Town, MO will ensure that your muscles are at optimal proportional strength.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and lead to your body moving in ways it is not designed to, increasing your risk of injury. It can be caused by a variety of musculoskeletal issues. It can cause injury through:

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

At our first injury prevention appointment in New Town, MO, we’ll go over your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, in tandem with with your doctor or any other providers involved in your treatment, we’ll design a tailored plan of attack based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people with slouched shoulders. Athletes and other physically active people can suffer from postural dysfunction when resting, sitting, or in certain stances they need to be in for their sport. Good posture means correct positioning of your body from your head to your toes in a way that encourages our spine to stay in its natural curves. Poor posture can compact the vertebrae, which disrupts communication between your brain and body and makes it difficult to reach the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It causes injuries through:

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

Good posture is an important part of injury prevention because it ensures you are using the right muscles for the right movements, your flexibility can be improved and maintained, and your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.

How to Prevent Injury in New Town, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. No one precaution is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are precautions to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• Take a rest — Injuries are more common when you do not give your body time to restore itself. If you have a very high activity level, make sure to take one or two days off per week to encourage your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you have a more moderate activity level, take it easy for the few hours after an activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
• Use the correct equipment — Helmets, shin guards, elbow pads, and other required equipment in many sports can help prevent injuries such as contusions or brain injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or muscle, tendon, or ligament, your New Town, MO doctor or physical therapist may recommend stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other measures like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further stabilization.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the rigors necessary for in sports and other activities. Our New Town, MO injury prevention professionals will work to achieve ideal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to be able to avoid injury in the activities you want to participate in.
• Enhance flexibility — Stretching accomplishes three critical things for injury prevention:
  1. It enhances which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which allows for your soft tissue to adjust to more pronounced positions.
  2. It enhances circulation, which carries nourishing blood to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to restore themselves.
  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 motions require soft tissue compliant enough to incorporate and exert the high amount of energy required. Stretching and warm up exercises before activities further helps prevent injuries.

• Use accepted technique — Through the years, each sport and physical activity develops a consensus of the best techniques to use. These techniques not only help you get be the best athlete you can be but help prevent injuries by not forcing your body into unnatural positions and movements. Football players are taught to tackle with the shoulder in order to reduce the risk of brain damage, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best apply torque to your body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and evaluate how to improve it.
• Listen to your body — If a part of your body is bothering you, your body is trying to send you a message. If you feel sudden pain, stop immediately and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body isn’t holing up well in an intense training session, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — While gutting it out through pain is often viewed as commendable among competitors, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could make that injury worse and put you out of commission for much longer than if you had sat out at the time of the injury. Depending on what caused your injury and how severe it is, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, seeing your doctor, and a series of physical therapy sessions to make sure your body heals properly and can handle 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 reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for targeting in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the presence of bike lanes are examples of rules that were adopted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to get a physical before another season begins or starting up a new physical activity. During your physical, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a licensed physical therapist in New Town, MO is a good idea for you. All of our techniques have been demonstrated to reduce the risk of injury, and we’ll personalize your program to your age, your injury history, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in New Town, MO

Falls in adults over 65 were responsible for more than 3 million urgent care visits and over 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that being physical active can go a long way in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions that cause pain such as arthritis that accumulate over time can be more bearable and take longer to progress with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints strong. While the physical demands for seniors may not be as high as an athlete, appropriate strength, stability, flexibility, and optimal posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in New Town, 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

New Town, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in in an activity you prepare and train for and love causes a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same exultation. The experienced New Town, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to guide you through your own 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 that you do not want to lose. Request an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to learn more about what our New Town, MO injury prevention experts can do for you.