Injury Prevention in Warrenton, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or you just retired and want to dedicate your time to camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our professional Warrenton, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others recover from injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to teach out exercises that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location nearest you.

Being physically active is an essential part of many Warrenton, MO people’s lives. We love activities such as playing sports, biking, and more. Additionally, keeping an active lifestyle reduces the risk of chronic conditions including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, depression, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Warrenton, MO physical therapists allow you to come back and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention experts can help keep you active by improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. All of our methods, for both healing from and preventing injury, are proven to be effective and are developed uniquely for each client and the lifestyle they desire.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a persistent injury that is not getting better with time, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Warrenton, MO for a free injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your active lifestyle, read on below or inquire about an appointment at your earliest convenience.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Warrenton, MO

Most injuries fall into two categories:

1. Overuse injuries are injuries happen gradually as a body part degrades because of repetitive movements. They are common in overhead athletes such as tennis or basketball players and typically manifest themselves as joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen because of a specific and sudden trauma. Examples include landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, for example rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, such as ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, with a sudden impact to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Warrenton, MO

While injuries can happen in a variety of circumstances, and are sometimes unpreventable, they generally happen because of dysfunction or imbalance and your body and between body parts. There are three common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is key to supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can lead to dependency 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 optimal posture, and the weaker set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher likelihood of injury. Injuries can be caused by 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 cause injury through:

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

Customized injury prevention with our experienced physical therapists in Warrenton, 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. It can be caused by many different musculoskeletal issues. Symptoms include:

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

At our first injury prevention appointment in Warrenton, MO, we’ll go over your medical history and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, in concert with with your physician or any other medical professionals treating you, we’ll develop a customized treatment plan based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people with slouched shoulders. People who play sports and other physically active people can have postural dysfunction when resting, driving, or in specific stances they need to be in for a given activity. Healthy posture refers to proper positioning when both static and moving in a way that encourages our spine to stay in its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the bones of the spine closer together, which has a negative affect on our body’s ability to communicate with itself and achieve ideal motion health. It can also lead to:

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

By helping you understand correct posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring you are using your muscles equally, your flexibility can be improved and maintained, and your spine is in its natural position.

Injury Prevention Methods in Warrenton, 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 things you can do to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• Take breaks — Injuries are more common when you do not give your body time to restore itself. If you’re heavily active, 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, take it easy after activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
• Wear protective equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, protective eyewear, and other equipment necessary in many sports can help prevent injuries such as bruises or concussions. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Warrenton, MO physician or injury prevention expert may fit you for stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other methods like tying your athletic footwear tightly offers further stabilization.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the rigors your body is put through in sports and other activities. Our Warrenton, MO injury prevention professionals will work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you love.
• Improve flexibility — Increasing your flexibility contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It enhances which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for your tendons and ligaments to adapt to more extreme movements.
  2. It improves circulation, which carries nutrient-rich blood to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to recover.
  3. It increases your posture, which, as you read earlier, is an essential part of injury prevention.

  According to studies, sports like soccer that necessitate sudden twists and movements require muscles and tendons compliant enough to store and release the high amount of energy required. Stretching and warm up exercises before activities further helps prevent injuries.

• Use correct technique — In every sport, there are accepted 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 head injury, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best apply torque to your body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and evaluate how to improve it.
• Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If a part of your body is bothering you, that’s your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. If you feel sudden pain, stop immediately and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t holing up well in an intense workout, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate an athlete that plays through pain, forcing your body to perform with soft tissue or structural damage could aggravate a current injury and leave you off the field or court for longer than it originally would have. 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 recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
• Play by the rules — Many sports have special rules at different levels to help prevent injury. Penalties for leading with the helmet in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the presence of bike lanes are all rules that were adopted to keep participants safe. Those are in place for a reason, and there’s a reason that there are penalties for them.
• Consult a professional physical therapist — It’s a good idea to get a physical before a new season or committing yourself to any strenuous activity or training regimen. While there, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a experienced physical therapist in Warrenton, MO is something you should consider. 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, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Warrenton, MO

Falls in adults over 65 accounted for over 3 million urgent care admissions and more than 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates that being physical active is invaluable in preventing falls. Other conditions like arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be more bearable and take longer to progress with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints active. While seniors typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, healthy strength, balance, flexibility, and optimal posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Warrenton, 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

Warrenton, 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 euphoria. The professional Warrenton, 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 once valued so much. Request an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to find out more about what our Warrenton, MO injury prevention experts can do for you.