Injury Prevention in Old Monroe, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or are entering your golden years and want to spend more time hiking, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our professional Old Monroe, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others 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 show you techniques that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location most convenient for you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Old Monroe, MO residents. We love active endeavors like playing sports, swimming, and more. Additionally, pursuing an active lifestyle helps stave off chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, degenerative brain diseases, anxiety, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Old Monroe, 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 improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. 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 level of activity they want to reach.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a nagging injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Old Monroe, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your sport or hobby, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist at your earliest convenience.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Old Monroe, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Overuse 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 injuries that happen in an instant. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, like rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, like ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, with a sudden impact to the knee.

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Old Monroe, MO

While injuries can happen in a variety of circumstances, and are sometimes inescapable, 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 key 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 optimal posture, and the weaker set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher probability of injury. Injuries can be caused by insufficient muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or within muscle groups, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Muscle imbalance can result in:

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

Tailored injury prevention with our knowledgeable physical therapists in Old Monroe, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and lead to your body moving 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
• Coordination deficiency
• Lessened balance

At our first injury prevention appointment in Old Monroe, MO, we’ll go through your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, together with your doctor or any other medical professionals treating you, we’ll come up with a personalized game plan been proven to work by research and studies to get your movement health to reach its potential.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people who spend a lot of time doing the same activity. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can have postural dysfunction when at lest, using the computer, or in certain poses they need to be in for a given activity. Correct posture means proper alignments of the different joints and muscles of your body in a way that does not remove the spine from its natural curves. Poor posture can compact the joints in the spine, which has a negative affect on our body’s ability to communicate with itself and achieve ideal motion health. It causes injuries through:

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

By helping you understand correct posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring muscle balance, flexibility, and that your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.

How to Prevent Injury in Old Monroe, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything possible to prevent one. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are precautions to make sure your body is prepared for your desired activity level:

• Take breaks — Injuries are more common in overworked bodies. If you have a very high activity level, one or two rest days a week will allow your body to engage in its natural healing and recovery processes. If you’re moderately active, take a break after activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Use the appropriate equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, safety pads and guards, and other recommended equipment in many sports can help prevent injuries like rashes or brain injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Old Monroe, MO doctor or injury prevention professional may suggest braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize a joint. Other methods like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further protection.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the rigors your body is put through in sports and other activities. Our Old Monroe, MO injury prevention specialists will work to achieve ideal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you want to participate in.
• Enhance flexibility — Stretching contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It enhances your range of motion, which lets for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adapt to more drastic movements.
  2. It improves blood flow, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and rebuilding the muscles.
  3. It encourages good posture, which, as you read earlier, is is one of the most important aspects of injury prevention.

  According to research, sports like basketball that include sudden twists and movements require soft tissue with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. Also, remember to stretch and warm up before any physical activity to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use proper technique — In every physical activity, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. These techniques not only improve performance but help prevent injuries. Football players learn to tackle with the shoulder in order to reduce the risk of a head injury, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and educate you on how to improve it.
• Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If a part of your body is bothering you, that means that body part is telling your brain that something is wrong. If you feel a sudden crack or grinding sensation, stop immediately and seek proportional medical care. If your body does not feel well enough for an intense training session, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — While teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate an athlete that guts it out through pain, playing with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could make that injury worse and put you out of commission for longer than it originally would have. Depending on the severity of your injury, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, seeing your doctor, and rehab with a physical therapist to make sure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
• Play by the rules — Many sports have special rules at different levels to help prevent injury. Penalties for helmet to helmet hits in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the existence of bike lanes are all rules that were adopted to keep players safe. Those are in place for a reason, and there’s a reason that there are penalties for them.
• Speak a licensed physical therapist — It’s a good idea to see a doctor before a new season or committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. While there, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Old Monroe, MO is a good idea for you. 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 Senior Citizens in Old Monroe, MO

Falls in adults over 65 were responsible for over 3 million urgent care admissions and over 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that being physical active is invaluable in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints active. While the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, appropriate strength, balance, flexibility, and ideal posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Old Monroe, 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

Old Monroe, 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 joy. The knowledgeable Old Monroe, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to guide you through your own personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body strong and flexible, and your mind confident that you can safely return to the activities you love. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits that you do not want to lose. Schedule an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to find out more about what our Old Monroe, MO injury prevention experts can do for you.