Injury Prevention in Town and Country, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or a recent retiree who wants to dedicate your time to camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our professional Town and Country, 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 guide you through measures that are proven to prevent injury. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location nearest you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Town and Country, MO residents. Many of us participate in active endeavors like playing sports, swimming, or other physical activities. Furthermore, pursuing an active lifestyle helps stave off chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, mental health issues, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Town and Country, MO physical therapists allow you to come back even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention professionals can help keep you active by improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. 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 lingering injury that is not getting better with time, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Town and Country, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can continue with your active lifestyle, keep reading or inquire about an appointment today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Town and Country, MO

Injuries generally happen for one of two reasons:

1. Chronic injuries are injuries happen gradually as a body part degrades because of repetitive movements. They are common in overhead athletes athletes who use 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, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, like rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, like ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, with a sudden impact to the knee.

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Town and Country, MO

While injuries occur for many different reasons, and some are inescapable, they generally happen 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 chief causes of why your body cannot adjust to an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is key to maintaining healthy joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can lead to dependency on one set of muscles, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. 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 can refer to poor muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong chest and weak back, or within muscle groups, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff not having proportionate strength. Symptoms include:

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

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

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and lead to your body bending in unnatural ways, causing injury. Neurological issues, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can cause injury through:

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

At our initial injury prevention appointment in Town and Country, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, in concert with with your doctor or any additional providers involved in your care, we’ll design a tailored plan of attack based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement health to the level you need it to to do what you love.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people with slouched shoulders. People who play sports and other physically active people can be affected by postural dysfunction when at lest, sitting, or in certain stances necessary for their sport. Healthy posture means proper alignments of the different joints and muscles of your body in a way that encourages our spine to stay in its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the joints in the spine closer together, which disrupts our body’s internal communications and makes it challenging to achieve the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It can also lead to:

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

Good posture is an important part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, range of motion, and that your spine is in its natural position.

Injury Prevention Best Practices in Town and Country, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything you could to reduce that risk. No one precaution is guaranteed to be effective in injury prevention. However, there are precautions to make sure your body is prepared for your desired activity level:

• 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 signal to your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you have a more modest activity level, rest for the rest of the day after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Use protective equipment — Helmets, shin guards, protective eyewear, and other required equipment in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries such as lacerations or head injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or soft tissue, your Town and Country, MO doctor or physical therapist may fit you for stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other measures like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further stabilization.
• Improve muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the force and torque your body is put through in sports and other activities. In your tailored injury prevention program with our certified Town and Country, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to achieve ideal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to be able to stay healthy in the activities you want to participate in.
• Increase flexibility — Stretching achieves three important things for injury prevention:
  1. It enhances your range of motion, which allows for your tendons and ligaments to adjust to more extreme movements.
  2. It enhances blood flow, which carries nutrient-rich blood to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to heal.
  3. It encourages good posture, which we already know is an an essential part of injury prevention.

  According to studies, sports like football that require sudden twists and movements require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. Stretching and warm up exercises before games or training further helps prevent injuries.

• Use correct technique — In every sport, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. These techniques not only help you perform better but help prevent injuries. Football players are taught to tackle a certain way to reduce the risk of a concussion, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best apply torque to your body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow 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, that’s your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. If you feel a sudden pop or grinding sensation, immediately stop all physical activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t holing up well in a particularly rigorous training session, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that plays through pain, forcing your body to perform with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could aggravate an existing injury and leave you on the sidelines 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 handle a return to physical activity.
• Follow the rules — Most sports have special rules at different levels to help prevent injury. Penalties for helmet to helmet hits in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, 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 violations of those rules are punished.
• Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to have a medical evaluation before starting another season or starting up a new activity or training regimen. During your physical, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a expert physical therapist in Town and Country, MO is a good idea for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been proven to reduce the risk of injury, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, your injury history, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Town and Country, MO

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for over 3 million emergency room visits and more than 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that physical activity can go a long way 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 muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints healthy. While seniors typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, appropriate strength, balance, flexibility, and optimal posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Town and Country, 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

Town and Country, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in something you love doing can lead to a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same exhilaration. The professional Town and Country, 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. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Make an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to start your program with one of our injury prevention professionals in Town and Country, MO.