Osage Hills, MO

Osage Hills, MO

Don't let the fear of reinjury keep you from the things what you do best.

Injury Prevention in Osage Hills, MO. Whether you play a sport and are hoping for an opportunity at the next stage, or a recent retiree who wants to spend more time camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our professional Osage Hills, 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 show you techniques that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location most convenient for you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Osage Hills, MO residents. We love activities like playing sports, swimming, or other physical activities. Additionally, committing to an active lifestyle helps stave off future health problems such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, anxiety, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Osage Hills, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention professionals can help preserve your active lifestyle 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 customized for each client and the lifestyle they desire.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a lingering injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Osage Hills, MO for a free injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and protect your sport or hobby, keep reading or inquire about an appointment at your earliest convenience.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Osage Hills, MO

Injuries generally 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 such as softball or lacrosse players and typically are accompanied by joint pain.
  2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen suddenly. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, such as rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, like ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, with an immediate impact to or twisting of the knee.

Injury Prevention Osage Hills, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Osage Hills

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Osage Hills, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally occur 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 maintaining healthy 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 can also lead to poor posture, and the weaker muscles will become fatigued faster, increasing the risk of injury. Muscle imbalance applies to 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. Symptoms include:

Personalized injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Osage Hills, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and lead to your body bending in unnatural ways, causing injury. It can be caused by a range of musculoskeletal issues. It can lead to:

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

At our first injury prevention appointment in Osage Hills, MO, we’ll go through your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, alongside with your doctor or any other medical professionals treating you, we’ll develop a customized game plan based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement health to reach its potential.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people who spend a lot of time in the same position. People who play sports and other physically active people can suffer from postural dysfunction when lying down, sitting, or in specific body positions necessary for a given activity. Good posture refers to correct positioning 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 compress the bones of the spine, which interferes with our body’s ability to communicate with itself and attain the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It causes injuries through:

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

Good posture is a vital 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.



Injury Prevention Best Practices in Osage Hills, MO

All sports and physical activities can potentially lead to an injury. 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 intended activity:

  • Take breaks — Your body needs time to rest and recover after any moderate to intense activity. If you have a very high activity level, one or two rest days a week will encourage your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you’re moderately active, take a break for the few hours after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
  • Wear the right equipment — Helmets, chin straps, safety pads and guards, and other required equipment in many sports helps you avoid injuries such as rashes or brain injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Osage Hills, MO physician or injury prevention expert may advise braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize a joint. Other techniques like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further protection.
  • Strengthen muscles — Strengthening soft tissue helps it stand up to the rigors necessary for in sports and other activities. Our Osage Hills, 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 — Stretching achieves three important things for injury prevention:
    1. It enhances which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for your soft tissue to adjust to more extreme positions.
    2. It boosts blood flow, which carries protein-rich blood to your soft tissue, removing waste byproduct and re-energizing the muscles.
    3. It increases 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 muscles and tendons flexible enough to incorporate and expel the high levels of energy required. Stretching and warm up exercises before games or training further helps prevent injuries.

  • Use correct 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 by not forcing your body into unnatural positions and movements. Football players learn 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 rotate their body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and educate you on how to both improve your performance and reduce your risk of injury.
  • Listen to your body — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, that’s your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, immediately withdraw from the activity and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body does not feel well enough for an intense training session, save it for another day.
  • 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 aggravate an existing injury and leave you on the sidelines for longer than it originally would have. Depending on what caused your injury and how severe it is, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, visiting your doctor, and scheduling appointments with a physical therapist to make sure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
  • Play by the rules — Depending on the sport or activity and age level of the participants, it likely has special rules in the interest of safety. Penalties for leading with the helmet in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the presence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers 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 there are penalties for them.
  • Consult a professional physical therapist — It’s always advisable to see a doctor before another season begins or committing yourself to any strenuous activity or training regimen. During your physical, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a licensed physical therapist in Osage Hills, MO is a good idea for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated to help athletes remain healthy, and you plan will be completely unique to you and catered to how old you are, your injury history, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention Osage Hills, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Osage Hills

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Osage Hills, MO

Falls in the elderly accounted for over 3 million emergency room admissions and more than 34,000 fatalities. Studies show 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 effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints active. While the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, healthy strength, balance, flexibility, and proper posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Osage Hills, MO include:

Osage Hills, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in in an activity you prepare and train for and love can create a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same joy. The knowledgeable Osage Hills, 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 at ease that you can safely return to the activities you love doing most. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Make an appointment online or call the location nearest you to discover what our Osage Hills, MO injury prevention professionals can do for you.

Services Offered

Services Offered
  • Physical Therapy
  • Pre/Post Surgical Rehabilitation
  • Acute Injury Management
  • Chronic Injury Management
  • Work Conditioning/Hardening
  • Functional Capacity Evaluations
  • Sports Physical Therapy
  • Pediatric Orthopedic Physical Therapy
  • Geriatric Physical Therapy
  • Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization
  • DorsaVi Video Motion Analysis
  • Vestibular Therapy and Post-Concussion Rehabilitation
  • Trigger Point Dry Needling
  • Free Injury Screenings
  • Kinesio Taping®
  • Blood Flow Restriction Therapy

Locations

Begin Your Recovery Today

Injuries and pain shouldn’t keep you from moving and doing the things you love.