Injury Prevention in Schluersburg, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, 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 desire. While our licensed Schluersburg, 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 guide you through techniques that are proven to prevent injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location most convenient for you.

Physical activity is an essential part of many Schluersburg, MO people’s lives. We love active endeavors like playing sports, swimming, or other physical activities. Additionally, committing to an active lifestyle helps stave off serious health problems like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, depression, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Schluersburg, MO physical therapists help you come back as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention professionals can help you reduce the risk of further injury by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our methods, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, have been prove to work 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 persistent injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Schluersburg, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can continue with your sport or hobby, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Schluersburg, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Repetitive demand 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 and typically reveal themselves with joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, fractures, and dislocations.

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

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Schluersburg, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally happen because your muscles, ligaments, tendons, bones, and joints cannot hold up under the force, torque, or stretching that they are subjected to in a given movement or collision. There are three primary 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 overemphasis for one set of muscles, which may cause your body to use it in a way it shouldn’t. It can also lead to poor posture, and the weaker set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher likelihood of injury. Muscle imbalance applies to insufficient muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong chest and weak back, or in the same muscle group, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Muscle imbalance can lead to:

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

Tailored injury prevention with our experienced physical therapists in Schluersburg, MO will ensure that different muscles and muscle groups are equally strong.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and lead to your body moving in unnatural ways, causing injury. Problems in your nervous system, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can cause injury through:

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

At our first injury prevention appointment in Schluersburg, MO, we’ll go through your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, in tandem with with your physician or any additional medical professionals treating you, we’ll develop a customized plan of attack been proven to work through research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people who sit a lot. Athletes and other physically active people can suffer from postural dysfunction when at lest, sitting, or in specific positions necessary for their sport. Healthy posture means correct positioning of the neck, torso, pelvis, and extremities in a way that does not remove the spine from its natural curves. Poor posture can compress the joints in the spine, which has a negative affect on our body’s ability to communicate with itself and achieve optimal motion health. It causes injuries through:

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

By helping you understand correct posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring you are using your muscles equally, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your vertebrae remain in place.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Schluersburg, 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 several steps you can take to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your intended activity:

• Take breaks — Your body needs time to rest and recover after any moderate to intense activity. If you’re heavily active, one or two rest days a week will allow your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you’re moderately active, rest for the rest of the day after an activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
• Use protective equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, protective eyewear, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries such as contusions or brain injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or muscle, tendon, or ligament, your Schluersburg, MO physician or injury prevention expert may recommend stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other measures like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further protection.
• Boost muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the force and torque of heavy activity. In your personalized injury prevention program with our expert Schluersburg, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you love.
• Increase flexibility — Increasing your flexibility achieves three important things for injury prevention:
  1. It enhances which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which allows for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adjust to more dramatic movements.
  2. It increases blood flow, which carries nutrient-rich blood to your soft tissue, removing waste byproduct and revitalizing the muscles.
  3. It encourages good posture, which we already know is an an important part of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like football that include sudden twists and movements require soft tissue flexible enough to perform those movements. 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 help you perform better but help prevent injuries. Football players learn to tackle a certain way to avoid brain damage, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and analyze how to improve it.
• Listen to your body — 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 sudden pain, stop immediately 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 playing through pain is often viewed as commendable among competitors, playing with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could exacerbate a current injury and put you out of commission 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, visiting your doctor, and rehab with a physical therapist to make sure your body heals naturally 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 help prevent injury. Penalties for targeting in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the presence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are examples of rules that leagues enacted 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 in your best interest to get a physical before starting another season or committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. During your physical, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a knowledgeable physical therapist in Schluersburg, MO is a good idea for you. All of our techniques have been proven 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 how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Schluersburg, MO

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for more than 3 million emergency room visits and over 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that being physical active is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions like arthritis that accumulate over time can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints healthy. While the physical demands for seniors may not be as high as an athlete, the same principles of strength, stability, flexibility, and good posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Schluersburg, MO include:

• 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
• Plantar Fasciitis Treatment
• Stroke Rehabilitation

Schluersburg, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in in an activity you prepare and train for and love causes a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same exhilaration. The knowledgeable Schluersburg, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to design for you a 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 doing most. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Request an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to get started with one of our injury prevention professionals in Schluersburg, MO.