Injury Prevention in Wickes, MO. Whether you’re an athlete hoping for an opportunity at the next stage, or a recent retiree who wants to dedicate your time to hiking, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our professional Wickes, 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. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location most convenient for you.

Physical activity is an essential part of many Wickes, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in activities such as playing sports, playing golf, or other physical activities. Furthermore, committing to an active lifestyle reduces the risk of chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, depression, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Wickes, MO physical therapists help you return to action even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention professionals can help preserve your active lifestyle by improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. All of our treatment plans, for both healing from and preventing injury, have been prove to work and are personalized to each client and the level of activity they want to reach.

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 most convenient for you in Wickes, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can continue with your sport or hobby, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist at your earliest convenience.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Wickes, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

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 such as water polo or shotput and pole-vaulters and typically manifest themselves as joint pain.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include landing on uneven ground or a sudden impact by an object or another person. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, for example rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, like ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Wickes, MO

While injuries occur for many different reasons, and some are unpreventable, 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 crucial to supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can cause overemphasis for one set of muscles, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also causes posture dysfunction, and the weaker muscles will become fatigued sooner, increasing the risk of injury. Muscle imbalance can refer to inadequate muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or in the same muscle group, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Symptoms include:

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

Personalized injury prevention with our professional physical therapists in Wickes, MO will ensure that your muscles are at optimal proportional strength.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, increasing your risk of injury. It can be caused by many different musculoskeletal issues. It can cause injury through:

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

At our initial injury prevention appointment in Wickes, MO, we’ll discuss your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, in tandem with with your physician or any other medical professionals involved in your care, we’ll devise a customized plan of attack based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people who sit a lot. People who play sports and others with active lifestyles can have postural dysfunction when lying down, driving, or in certain positions related to their sport. Good posture means 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 compact the joints in the spine, which disrupts your nervous system and makes it difficult to attain the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It causes injuries through:

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

Good posture is a necessary part of injury prevention because it ensures you are using your muscles equally, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your vertebrae remain in place.

How to Prevent Injury in Wickes, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything possible to prevent one. No one precaution is guaranteed to be effective in injury prevention. However, there are several steps you can take to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• Take a rest — 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 signal to your body to engage in its natural healing processes. If you have a more moderate activity level, take a break for the few hours after an activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
• Use the correct equipment — Helmets, chin straps, protective eyewear, and other required equipment in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries like cuts or head injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Wickes, MO physician or physical therapist may fit you for stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other techniques like making sure all the equipment is snug can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening soft tissue helps it stand up to the rigors necessary for in sports and other activities. In your personalized injury prevention program with our knowledgeable Wickes, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you love.
• Enhance flexibility — Increasing your flexibility contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It increases which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for your tendons and ligaments to adjust to more drastic movements.
  2. It enhances blood flow, which carries protein-rich blood to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to recover.
  3. It encourages good posture, which we already know is an an important part of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like basketball that include 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 proper 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 improve performance 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 make sure their muscles are moving unnaturally. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and analyze how to improve it.
• Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If a part of your body is sore, your body is trying to send you a message. If you feel sudden pain, stop immediately and seek proportional medical care. If your body does not feel well enough for a particularly rigorous workout, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though gutting it out through pain is often seen as a heroic act among competitors, forcing your body to perform with soft tissue or structural damage could exacerbate a current injury and leave you on the sidelines 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 an emergency room, and a series of physical therapy sessions to make sure your body heals properly and can handle a return to physical activity.
• Play by the rules — Depending on the sport or activity and age level of the participants, it likely has special rules to reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for helmet to helmet hits in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the existence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are all rules that leagues enacted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. Those are in place for a reason, and there’s a reason that there are penalties for them.
• Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s a good idea to have a medical evaluation before another season begins or starting up a new activity or training regimen. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a experienced physical therapist in Wickes, MO is something you should consider. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated 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 Senior Citizens in Wickes, MO

Falls in adults over 65 accounted for more than 3 million emergency room visits and over 34,000 deaths. Studies show that physical activity is a great method for reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that accumulate over time can be slowed down by physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints active. While the physical demands for seniors may not be as high as an athlete, appropriate strength, stability, flexibility, and good posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Wickes, MO include:

• Stroke Rehabilitation
• Hip Replacement Physical Therapy
• Workers Comp' Physical Therapy
• Migraine Relief
• Sprain and Strain Treatment
• Geriatric Physical Therapy
• Injury Rehabilitation
• Pain Management Services
• TMJ Treatment
• Herniated Disc Treatment

Wickes, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in one of your favorite activities causes a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same exultation. The knowledgeable Wickes, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to guide you through your own 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 doing most. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Schedule an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to see what our Wickes, MO injury prevention specialists can do for you.