Injury Prevention in Oakville, MO. Whether you play a sport and are hoping for a shot at the next stage, or a recent retiree who wants to dedicate your time to camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our licensed Oakville, 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 show you exercises that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location most convenient for you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Oakville, MO residents. Many of us participate in active endeavors like playing sports, kayaking, and more. Furthermore, committing to an active lifestyle helps stave off chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, anxiety, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Oakville, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention professionals can help keep you active 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 personalized to each client and the level of activity they want to reach.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a lingering injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Oakville, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and protect your active lifestyle, keep reading or inquire about an appointment today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Oakville, 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 use throwing or striking motions, with joint pain usually being the first symptom.
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 result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, for example ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, with a sudden impact to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Oakville, MO

While injuries can happen in a variety of circumstances, and are sometimes unpreventable, they generally occur because your soft tissue, 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 main causes of why your body cannot adjust to an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can lead to overemphasis for one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It can also lead to poor posture, and one set of muscles becoming tired sooner, making them more susceptible to injuries. Injuries can be caused by inadequate muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong hamstring and weak quadriceps, or within muscle groups, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff having different levels of strength. Muscle imbalance can result in:

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

Customized injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Oakville, MO will ensure that your muscles are at optimal proportional strength.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and lead to your body bending in unnatural ways, causing injury. It can be caused by a range of musculoskeletal issues. Symptoms include:

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

At our initial injury prevention appointment in Oakville, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, in concert with with your physician or any additional providers treating you, we’ll come up with a customized game plan based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people with desk jobs. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can suffer from postural dysfunction when at lest, driving, or in specific body positions they need to be in for a given activity. Optimal posture means correct alignments 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 bring the bones of the spine closer together, which interferes with our body’s ability to communicate with itself and attain ideal motion health. It causes injuries through:

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

By teaching you the best practices for posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring muscle balance, range of motion, and that your vertebrae remain in place.

Injury Prevention Techniques in Oakville, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. No one technique is guaranteed to be effective in injury prevention. However, there are things you can do to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your intended activity:

• Take breaks — 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’re moderately active, take a break after activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Wear the correct equipment — Helmets, chin straps, safety pads and guards, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries like lacerations or head injuries. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Oakville, MO physician or injury prevention professional may advise stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other techniques like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further stabilization.
• Increase muscle strength — Strengthening soft tissue helps it stand up to the force and torque your body is put through in sports and other activities. Our Oakville, MO injury prevention specialists will work to build up your body to be able to avoid injury in the activities you want to participate in.
• Increase flexibility — Increasing your flexibility contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It improves which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for your soft tissue to adapt to more drastic positions.
  2. It boosts circulation, which carries nourishing blood to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and revitalizing the muscles.
  3. It encourages good posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is an important part of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like basketball that necessitate dynamic activities require soft tissue flexible enough to store and exert the high levels of energy required. Also, it’s important to stretch and warm up before any physical activity to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use proper technique — Through the years, each sport and physical activity develops a consensus of the best techniques to use. These techniques not only help you perform better but help prevent injuries by not forcing your body into unnatural positions and movements. Football players learn to tackle with the shoulder in order 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 slow down your movement and analyze how to both be a better athlete and reduce your risk of injury.
• 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 sudden pain, stop immediately and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t holing up well in a particularly rigorous training session, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though playing through pain is often viewed as a valiant act among competitors, playing with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could make that injury worse and leave you off the field or court for longer than it originally would have. Depending on what caused your injury and how severe it is, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, seeing urgent care, and a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure your body heals naturally and can withstand a return to physical activity.
• Play by 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 coming from behind in soccer, and even the existence of bike lanes are all rules that were adopted to keep participants safe. Those were enacted for a reason, and there’s a reason that there are penalties for them.
• Speak a licensed physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to see a doctor before another season begins or committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. During your visit, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a licensed physical therapist in Oakville, MO is a good idea for you. All of our techniques have been proven to prevent injury, and we’ll personalize your program to your age, your injury history, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention for Older Oakville, MO Adults

Falls in adults over 65 accounted for more than 3 million urgent care visits and over 34,000 deaths. Studies show that physical activity can go a long way in 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 healthy. While older adults typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, appropriate strength, balance, flexibility, and optimal posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Oakville, 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

Oakville, 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 exhilaration. The knowledgeable Oakville, 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 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. Request an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to start your program with one of our injury prevention professionals in Oakville, MO.