Injury Prevention in Wentzville, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or you just retired and want to spend more time being physical fit, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our certified Wentzville, 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 show you exercises that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location nearest you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Wentzville, MO residents. We love active endeavors like playing sports, playing golf, or other physical activities. Furthermore, keeping an active lifestyle helps prevent chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, eurodegenerative disease, depression, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Wentzville, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention specialists 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, have been prove to work and are personalized to each client and the lifestyle they desire.

If you’ve recently suffered 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 Wentzville, MO for a free injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can keep up with your sport or hobby, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Wentzville, MO

Most injuries fall into two categories:

1. Repetitive demand injuries are injuries that occur when a part of the body repeats the same motion time and time again. They are common in overhead athletes athletes who are required to repeat throwing or striking motions and commonly reveal themselves with joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or a sudden impact by an object or another person. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, such as rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, like ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Wentzville, MO

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

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to supporting joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can lead to overemphasis for one muscle group, which may cause your body to use it in a way 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 poor muscle balance in relation to other 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 having different levels of strength. Muscle imbalance can result in:

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

Tailored injury prevention with our experienced physical therapists in Wentzville, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and lead to your body bending in ways it is not designed to, causing injury. It can be caused by many different musculoskeletal issues. It can cause injury through:

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

When you initially visit our injury prevention experts in Wentzville, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, in concert with with your doctor or any other providers involved in your treatment, we’ll come up with a personalized plan of attack been proven to work by 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 at lest, sitting, or in certain body positions they need to be in for their sport. Correct posture means proper positioning of your body from your head to your toes in a way that encourages our spine to stay in its natural curves. Poor posture can compact the joints in the spine, which disrupts our body’s internal communications and makes it harder to reach optimal motion health. Symptoms include:

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

By helping you understand the best practices for posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring muscle balance, flexibility, and that your spine is in its natural position.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Wentzville, MO

All sports and physical activities can potentially lead to an injury. No one precaution is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are things you can do to make sure your body is prepared for your intended activity:

• Take breaks — Injuries are more common when you do not give your body time to restore itself. 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 a break for the few hours after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Wear protective equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, safety pads and guards, and other recommended equipment in many sports helps you avoid injuries like rashes or head injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Wentzville, MO physician or injury prevention specialist may recommend stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other methods like tying your cleats tightly offers further stabilization.
• Boost muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the force and torque your body is put through in sports and other activities. In your personalized injury prevention program with our licensed Wentzville, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you want to participate in.
• Improve flexibility — Increasing your flexibility achieves three critical things for injury prevention:
  1. It boosts your range of motion, which allows for your tendons and ligaments to handle more pronounced movements.
  2. It boosts circulation, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and reinvigorating the muscles.
  3. It increases your posture, which we already know is an an essential part of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like soccer that necessitate sudden twists and movements require soft tissue flexible enough to incorporate and release the high levels of energy required. Stretching and warm up exercises before games or training further helps prevent injuries.

• Use correct technique — Through the years, each sport and physical activity develops a consensus of the best ways to position and move your body. These techniques not only help you perform better but help prevent injuries. Football players are taught to tackle with the shoulder in order to reduce the risk of brain damage, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and evaluate how to both improve your performance and prevent injury.
• 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 isn’t right. If you feel sudden pain, stop immediately and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t feeling up to a particularly rigorous workout, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — While gutting it out through pain is often seen as commendable among competitors, forcing your body to perform with soft tissue or structural damage could aggravate an existing 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, visiting your doctor, and a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure your body heals properly and can withstand a return to physical activity.
• Follow 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 targeting in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the presence of bike lanes are all rules that were adopted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. Those were enacted for a reason, and there’s a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Speak a professional physical therapist — It’s a good idea to see a doctor before starting another season or starting up a new physical activity. During your appointment, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a knowledgeable physical therapist in Wentzville, MO is a good idea for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated to prevent injury, and you plan will be completely unique to you and catered to how old you are, any previous injuries, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Wentzville, MO

Falls in adults over 65 accounted for over 3 million urgent care visits and over 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that being physical active can go a long way in preventing falls. Other conditions that cause pain such as arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints active. While the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, healthy strength, balance, flexibility, and ideal posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Wentzville, 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

Wentzville, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in one of your favorite activities can create a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same exhilaration. The licensed Wentzville, 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 can safely return to the activities you love. You deserve to feel 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 discover what our Wentzville, MO injury prevention experts can do for you.