Injury Prevention in Pinckney, MO. Whether you play a sport and are trying to get an opportunity at the next stage, or a recent retiree who wants to spend more time taking ski vacations, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our certified Pinckney, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others recover from injury, we are experts in the entire musculoskeletal system who can evaluate your movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to teach out 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.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Pinckney, MO residents. Many of us participate in active endeavors like playing sports, kayaking, and more. Furthermore, keeping an active lifestyle reduces the risk of significant health problems including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, eurodegenerative disease, depression, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Pinckney, MO physical therapists help you come back even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention experts 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 proven to be effective and are personalized to each client and the lifestyle they desire.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a persistent injury that is not getting better with time, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Pinckney, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can keep up with your sport or hobby, keep reading or inquire about an appointment today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Pinckney, MO

Injuries typically happen for one of two reasons:

1. Repetitive motion injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. 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 warning sign.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, for example 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 Pinckney, MO

While injuries occur for many different reasons, and some are inescapable, they generally occur because your muscles, ligaments, tendons, bones, and joints cannot handle 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 handle an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is crucial to supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can result in dependency on one muscle group, which may cause your body to use it in a way it shouldn’t. 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 likelihood of injury. Muscle imbalance can refer to poor muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong chest and weak back, or within muscle groups, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Muscle imbalance can cause injury through:

• Muscle weakness
• Muscle inflexibility
• Poor muscle recruitment
• Poor coordination

Customized injury prevention with our certified physical therapists in Pinckney, 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, increasing your risk of injury. It can be caused by a range of musculoskeletal issues. It can cause injury through:

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

When you first see our injury prevention experts in Pinckney, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, alongside with your physician or any other providers involved in your treatment, we’ll develop a personalized 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 with desk jobs. Athletes and other physically active people can suffer from postural dysfunction when at lest, sitting, or in specific body positions they need to be in for a given activity. Good posture refers to 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 compress the vertebrae, which interferes with our body’s ability to communicate with itself and 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

Good posture is an important part of injury prevention because it ensures you are using your muscles equally, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your spine is in its natural position.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Pinckney, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything you could to prevent one. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are things you can do to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your intended activity:

• Take a rest — Injuries are more common in overworked bodies. 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, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Use protective equipment — Helmets, shin guards, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in many sports helps you avoid injuries such as lacerations or head injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Pinckney, MO physician or physical therapist may fit you for stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other methods like making sure all the equipment is snug can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the force and torque of heavy activity. Our Pinckney, MO injury prevention specialists will work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to be able to avoid injury in the activities you want to participate in.
• Boost flexibility — Stretching contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It boosts your range of motion, which allows for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adapt to more forceful movements.
  2. It improves circulation, which allows for nourishing blood to flow to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to recover.
  3. It boosts your posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is is one of the most important factors of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like basketball that include dynamic activities require muscles and tendons compliant enough to store and release the high levels of energy required. Stretching and warm up exercises before games or training further helps prevent injuries.

• Use correct technique — Through the years, each sport and physical activity develops a consensus of the best techniques to use. 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 avoid brain damage, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and educate you on how to improve it.
• 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 sudden pain, immediately stop all physical activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body does not feel well enough for a particularly rigorous workout, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — While teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that guts it out through pain, forcing your body to perform with soft tissue or structural damage could exacerbate a current injury and leave you on the sidelines 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 an emergency room, and a series of physical therapy sessions 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 targeting in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the presence of bike lanes are all rules put in place 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 professional physical therapist — It’s always advisable to see a doctor before a new season or committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. During your physical, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Pinckney, MO is right for you. All of our techniques have 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 for Older Pinckney, MO Adults

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for over 3 million emergency room visits and more than 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that physical activity can go a long way in preventing falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be slowed down by physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints strong. While seniors typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, appropriate strength, stability, flexibility, and proper posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Pinckney, MO include:

• Shoulder Pain Treatment
• Back Pain Treatment
• Neck Pain Treatment
• Physical Therapy Clinic
• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Treatment
• Sciatica Treatment
• Sports Medicine
• Hand Pain Physical Therapy
• Foot & Ankle Pain Treatment
• Hip Pain Treatment

Pinckney, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in something you love doing can create a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same exultation. The licensed Pinckney, 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 doing most. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Schedule an appointment online or call the location nearest you to see what our Pinckney, MO injury prevention specialists can do for you.