Injury Prevention in Stone Meadows, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or a recent retiree who wants to dedicate your time to taking ski vacations, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you desire. While our professional Stone Meadows, 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 body’s current condition and how you move to show you techniques that are proven to reduce the risk of injury by preparing your body for the stressors of your desired activity. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location nearest you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Stone Meadows, MO residents. Many of us participate in active endeavors such as playing sports, playing golf, and more. Additionally, keeping an active lifestyle reduces the risk of serious health problems including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, degenerative brain diseases, mental health issues, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Stone Meadows, MO physical therapists help you come back and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention experts 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, have been prove to work and are personalized to each client and the level of activity they want to reach.

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 Stone Meadows, 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 at your earliest convenience.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Stone Meadows, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Chronic injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes athletes who use throwing or striking motions and typically manifest themselves as joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen suddenly. Examples include landing on uneven ground 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, for example ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Stone Meadows, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, 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 crucial to maintaining healthy joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can lead to an overreliance on one muscle group, which may cause your body to force it to participate in an activity it shouldn’t. It also prevents you from having ideal 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 inadequate 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 result in:

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

Personalized injury prevention with our professional physical therapists in Stone Meadows, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and lead to your body moving in ways it is not designed to, causing injury. Problems in your nervous system, swelling, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can lead to:

• Joint mobility limitations
• Muscle imbalance
• Coordination deficiency
• Decreased balance

At our first injury prevention appointment in Stone Meadows, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, together with your doctor or any additional medical professionals treating you, we’ll come up with a customized plan of attack been proven to work by research and studies to get your movement health to reach its potential.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people with slouched shoulders. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can suffer from postural dysfunction when resting, driving, or in specific body positions necessary for their sport. Optimal posture refers to proper positioning 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 compress the joints in the spine, 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. Symptoms include:

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

By guiding you to correct posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring 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.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Stone Meadows, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of 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 a rest — Injuries are more common in overworked bodies. If you’re heavily active, one or two rest days a week will signal to your body to engage in its natural healing and recovery processes. If you’re moderately active, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
• Wear protective equipment — Helmets, chin straps, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in many sports can help prevent injuries such as lacerations or concussions. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or soft tissue, your Stone Meadows, MO physician or injury prevention expert may advise braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the affected area. Other measures like making sure all the equipment is snug can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the rigors necessary for in sports and other activities. Our Stone Meadows, MO injury prevention professionals will work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you love.
• Boost flexibility — Increasing your flexibility 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 handle more forceful movements.
  2. It improves blood flow, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to recover.
  3. It improves your posture, which, as you read earlier, is is one of the most important factors of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like basketball that require dynamic activities require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to store and exert 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 correct technique — In every physical activity, there are accepted techniques to use. These techniques not only improve performance but help prevent injuries. Football players learn to tackle a certain way 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 evaluate how to both be a better athlete and reduce your risk of injury.
• Listen to your body — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, your body is trying to send you a message. If you feel a sudden pop or grinding sensation, immediately stop all physical activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body does not feel well enough for a particularly rigorous training session, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though playing through pain is often seen as a valiant act among competitors, forcing your body to perform with soft tissue or structural damage 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 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 scheduling appointments with a physical therapist to make sure your body heals properly and can withstand a return to physical activity.
• Play by the rules — Most sports have special rules at different levels to reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for targeting 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 leagues enacted to keep players safe. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that there are penalties for them.
• Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to see a doctor before starting another season or committing yourself to any strenuous activity or training regimen. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a expert physical therapist in Stone Meadows, 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 The Elderly in Stone Meadows, MO

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for over 3 million urgent care admissions and more than 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates that physical activity is invaluable in preventing falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that accumulate over time can be slowed down by physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints active. While older adults typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, appropriate strength, stability, flexibility, and ideal posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Stone Meadows, 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

Stone Meadows, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in one of your favorite activities can create a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same euphoria. The experienced Stone Meadows, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to design for you a personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body prepared for the rigors of physical activity, and your mind at ease that you do not have to fear going back to what you love. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Request an appointment online or call the location nearest you to get started with one of our injury prevention specialists in Stone Meadows, MO.