Injury Prevention St. Genevieve, MO

Injury Prevention in St. Genevieve, MO. Whether you play a sport and are trying to get a shot at the next stage, or a recent retiree who wants to dedicate your time to hiking, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our certified St. Genevieve, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to recover from injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to guide you through exercises that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location most convenient for you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many St. Genevieve, MO residents. Many of us participate in active endeavors like playing sports, swimming, or other physical activities. Additionally, keeping an active lifestyle helps stave off 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 St. Genevieve, 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, for both recovery and injury prevention, are based on evidence-backed techniques and are personalized to each client and the activities they want to return to.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a lingering injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in St. Genevieve, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can continue with your sport or hobby, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in St. Genevieve, MO

Injuries typically happen for one of two reasons:

Wear-and-tear 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 commonly are accompanied by joint pain.
Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, like rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, for example ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

Injury Prevention St. Genevieve, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near St. Genevieve

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in St. Genevieve, MO

While injuries occur for many different reasons, and are sometimes inescapable, they generally occur 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 common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is key to maintaining healthy joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can result in overemphasis for 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 one set of muscles becoming fatigued faster, increasing the risk of injury. Muscle imbalance applies to poor muscle balance in relation to other 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. Symptoms include:

Muscle weakness
Muscle inflexibility
Poor muscle recruitment
Poor coordination

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

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, swelling, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. Symptoms include:

Joint mobility limitations
Muscle imbalance
Coordination deficits
Lessened balance

When you initially visit our injury prevention professionals in St. Genevieve, MO, we’ll go over your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, alongside with your doctor or any additional medical professionals treating you, we’ll develop a customized treatment plan been proven to work through 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 doing the same activity. People who play sports and other physically active people can suffer from postural dysfunction when at lest, using the computer, or in specific stances they need to be in for their sport. Healthy posture refers to proper alignments of your body from your head to your toes in a way that does not remove the spine from its natural curves. Poor posture can compact the vertebrae, which has a negative affect on our body’s ability to communicate with itself and achieve the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It causes injuries through:

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

Good posture is a necessary part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, flexibility, and that your spine is in its natural position.

How to Prevent Injury in St. Genevieve, 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 desired activity level:

Take a rest — 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 encourage your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you’re moderately active, take it easy for the few hours after an activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
Wear protective equipment — Helmets, shin guards, protective eyewear, and other recommended equipment in many sports can help prevent injuries like contusions or brain injuries. If you’ve had a previous injury, your St. Genevieve, MO physician or physical therapist may advise braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize a joint. Other measures 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 necessary for in sports and other activities. In your customized injury prevention program with our experienced St. Genevieve, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you want to participate in.
Boost flexibility — Increasing your flexibility achieves three critical things for injury prevention:
1. It boosts your range of motion, which allows for your soft tissue to handle more dramatic positions.
2. It boosts circulation, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to heal.
3. It improves your posture, which we already know is an an important part of injury prevention.
According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like soccer that require dynamic activities 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 accepted 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 reduce the risk of injury. Football players are taught to tackle a certain way to avoid a concussion, 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 both improve your performance and reduce your risk of injury.
Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If a part of your body is bothering you, your body is trying to send you a message. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, immediately withdraw from the activity and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body isn’t feeling up to a particularly rigorous workout, don’t force it.
Don’t play through an injury — While gritting through pain is often viewed as commendable among competitors, playing with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could exacerbate an existing injury and put you out of commission for much longer than if you had sat out at the time of the injury. Depending on the nature of your injury, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, visiting urgent care, and rehab with a physical therapist to make sure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
Follow the rules — Many sports have special rules at different levels to help prevent injury. Penalties for targeting in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the existence of bike lanes are examples of rules put in place to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that there are penalties for them.
Speak a licensed physical therapist — It’s a good idea to see a doctor before another season begins or committing yourself to any strenuous activity or training regimen. During your visit, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a licensed physical therapist in St. Genevieve, MO is something you should consider. Every treatment plan we employ has been proven to prevent injury, and you plan will be completely unique to you and catered to your age, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention St. Genevieve, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near St. Genevieve

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in St. Genevieve, MO

Falls in the elderly accounted for more than 3 million emergency room visits and more than 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that physical activity can go a long way in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions that cause pain 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 the physical demands for seniors may not be as high as an athlete, healthy strength, stability, flexibility, and proper posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in St. Genevieve, MO include:

St. Genevieve, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in something you love doing can lead to a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same elation. The knowledgeable St. Genevieve, 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 do not have to fear going back to what you love. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits that you do not want to lose. Make an appointment online or call the location nearest you to start your program with one of our injury prevention experts in St. Genevieve, MO.