Injury Prevention in South County, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or you just retired and want to spend more time being physical fit, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our certified South County, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to 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 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 nearest you.

Physical activity is an essential part of many South County, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in activities such as playing sports, playing golf, or other physical activities. Furthermore, pursuing an active lifestyle reduces the risk of chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, degenerative brain diseases, anxiety, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed South County, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention specialists 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 customized for each client and the level of activity they want to reach.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a nagging injury that won’t heal on its own, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in South County, MO for a complimentary 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 South County, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Repetitive demand injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes such as raquetball or lacrosse players and typically reveal themselves with joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen because of a specific and sudden trauma. Examples include falling or a sudden impact by an object or another person. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, like 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 a sudden impact to the knee.

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in South County, 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 are required or are possible in a given activity. There are three chief 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 dependency on one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also causes posture dysfunction, 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 inadequate muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong hamstring and weak quadriceps, or in the same muscle group, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Symptoms include:

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

Customized injury prevention with our certified physical therapists in South County, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, 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
• Poor coordination
• Reduced balance

At our initial injury prevention appointment in South County, MO, we’ll go through your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, together with your physician or any additional providers treating you, we’ll come up with a personalized plan of attack been proven to work by research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people who sit a lot. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can be affected by postural dysfunction when lying down, driving, or in specific body positions necessary for their sport. Good posture refers to proper positioning of the neck, torso, pelvis, and extremities in a way that keeps the spine within its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the vertebrae closer together, which disrupts your nervous system and makes it harder to achieve the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. Symptoms include:

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

Good posture is a vital part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, flexibility, and that your vertebrae remain in place.

How to Prevent Injury in South County, 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 things you can do to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• Take a rest — Injuries are more common in overworked bodies. If you’re heavily active, one or two rest days a week will allow your body to engage in its natural healing processes. If you’re moderately active, take it easy for the few hours after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Wear the right equipment — Helmets, chin straps, protective eyewear, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries like lacerations or brain injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or soft tissue, your South County, MO doctor or injury prevention expert may suggest stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other techniques like tying your cleats tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Boost muscle strength — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the rigors of heavy activity. Our South County, MO injury prevention specialists will work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you want to participate in.
• Increase flexibility — Stretching accomplishes three important things for injury prevention:
  1. It increases which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adapt to more extreme positions.
  2. It increases blood flow, which carries nutrient-rich blood to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and re-energizing the muscles.
  3. It boosts your posture, which we already know is an an important part of injury prevention.

  According to studies, sports like soccer that require bouncing and jumping require soft tissue with sufficient flexibility to store and release the high levels of energy required. Also, don’t forget 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 are taught to tackle a certain way to reduce the risk of brain damage, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best apply torque to your body. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and analyze how to improve it.
• Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If a part of your body is sore, that means that body part is telling your brain that something isn’t right. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, stop immediately and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body does not feel well enough for an intense training session, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that guts it out through pain, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could aggravate a current injury and leave you off the field or court for much longer than if you had sat out at the time of the injury. Depending on the nature of your injury, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, seeing your doctor, 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 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 special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are all 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 starting up a new activity or training regimen. While there, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a licensed physical therapist in South County, MO is something you should consider. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated to help athletes remain healthy, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, any previous injuries, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in South County, MO

Falls in adults over 65 accounted for over 3 million emergency room visits and over 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that being physical active is invaluable in preventing falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints healthy. While the physical demands for seniors may not be as high as an athlete, healthy strength, balance, flexibility, and correct posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in South County, 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

South County, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in something you love doing causes a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same freedom. The professional South County, 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 can safely return to the activities you love doing most. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you do not want to lose. Schedule an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to start your program with one of our injury prevention experts in South County, MO.