Injury Prevention in Twin Oaks, MO. Whether you’re an athlete trying to get an opportunity at the next stage, or are entering your golden years and want to spend more time bike riding, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our professional Twin Oaks, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to recover from injury, we are experts in the entire musculoskeletal system who can evaluate your movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to guide you through techniques that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location nearest you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Twin Oaks, MO residents. Many of us participate in active endeavors such as playing sports, swimming, or other physical activities. Furthermore, keeping an active lifestyle reduces the risk of significant health problems like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, anxiety, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Twin Oaks, MO physical therapists help you come back even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention professionals can help preserve your active lifestyle by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our methods, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, are based on evidence-backed techniques and are developed uniquely for each client and the lifestyle they desire.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a lingering injury that won’t heal on its own, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Twin Oaks, MO for a free injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can continue with your sport or hobby, read on below or inquire about an appointment today.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Twin Oaks, MO

Most injuries fall into two categories:

1. Chronic injuries are injuries happen gradually as a body part degrades because of repetitive movements. 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.
2. 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 common injuries, for example rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, such as ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Twin Oaks, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally happen because of dysfunction or instability and your body and between body parts. There are three main causes of why your body cannot handle an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can cause dependency on one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also prevents you from having good posture, and the weaker set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher probability of injury. Injuries can be caused by inadequate muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or in the same muscle group, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff not having proportionate strength. Muscle imbalance can result in:

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

Personalized injury prevention with our knowledgeable physical therapists in Twin Oaks, 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. Neurological issues, swelling, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can cause injury through:

• Joint mobility restrictions
• Muscle imbalance
• Poor coordination
• Lessened balance

When you initially visit our injury prevention experts in Twin Oaks, MO, we’ll discuss your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, in concert with with your doctor or any additional medical professionals treating you, we’ll come up with a tailored game plan been proven to work by research and studies to get your movement health to reach its potential.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people who sit a lot. Athletes and other physically active people can suffer from postural dysfunction when resting, using the computer, or in certain positions related to a given activity. Optimal posture refers to correct alignments of the neck, torso, pelvis, and extremities in a way that keeps the spine within its natural curves. Poor posture can compress the joints in the spine, which interferes with our body’s ability to communicate with itself and 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, flexibility, and that your vertebrae remain in place.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Twin Oaks, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything possible to prevent one. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are precautions to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• Take a rest — Injuries are more common in overworked bodies. If you have a very high activity level, one or two rest days a week will encourage your body to engage in its natural healing and recovery processes. If you have a more modest activity level, take a break for the few hours after an activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
• Wear the right equipment — Helmets, chin straps, safety pads and guards, and other required equipment in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries like contusions or brain injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Twin Oaks, MO physician or injury prevention specialist may recommend braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize a joint. Other techniques like tying your shoes tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Boost muscle strength — Strengthening soft tissue helps it stand up to the force and torque of heavy activity. In your customized injury prevention program with our licensed Twin Oaks, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to build up your body to be able to avoid injury in the activities you love.
• Increase flexibility — Stretching contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It boosts your range of motion, which lets for your soft tissue to handle more forceful movements.
  2. It enhances blood flow, which carries protein-rich blood to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to recover.
  3. It improves your posture, which, as you read earlier, is an essential part of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like basketball that include bouncing and jumping require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to store and release the high levels of energy required. Also, don’t forget to stretch and warm up before games or training to further reduce the risk of injury.

• 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 learn to tackle a certain way to avoid brain damage, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and educate you on how to improve it.
• Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, that’s your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, immediately stop all physical activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body does not feel well enough for a particularly rigorous training session, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — While teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that plays through pain, forcing your body to perform with soft tissue or structural damage could exacerbate a current 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, visiting urgent care, and a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure 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 help prevent injury. Penalties for leading with the helmet in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the presence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are all rules that were adopted to keep players safe. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that there are penalties for them.
• Speak 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. During your appointment, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Twin Oaks, MO is right for you. All of our techniques have been demonstrated 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 which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Twin Oaks, MO

Falls in the elderly accounted for more than 3 million emergency room admissions and over 34,000 deaths. Studies show that physical activity is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions 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 active. While seniors typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, the same principles of strength, balance, flexibility, and good posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Twin Oaks, 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

Twin Oaks, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in something you love doing causes a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same joy. The experienced Twin Oaks, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to guide you through your own personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body strong and flexible, and your mind confident that you do not have to fear going back to what you love doing most. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Make an appointment online or call the location nearest you to find out more about what our Twin Oaks, MO injury prevention specialists can do for you.