Injury Prevention in Affton, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or are entering your golden years and want to spend more time camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our professional Affton, 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 movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to guide you through techniques that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location nearest you.

Physical activity is an essential part of many Affton, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in activities like playing sports, hiking, and more. Furthermore, committing to an active lifestyle reduces the risk of significant health problems including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, degenerative brain diseases, mental health issues, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Affton, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention specialists can help you reduce the risk of further injury by improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. All of our treatment plans, for both recovery and injury prevention, are proven to be effective and are developed uniquely for each client and the activities they want to return to.

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 nearest you in Affton, MO for a free injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and protect your sport or hobby, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Affton, MO

Injuries typically fall into two categories:

1. Repetitive demand injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. 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 a sudden impact by an object or another person. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, like rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, like ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, with a sudden impact to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Affton, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally happen because your soft tissue, bones, and joints cannot hold up under the force, torque, or stretching that they are subjected to in a given movement or collision. There are three common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to supporting joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can cause overemphasis for one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also causes posture dysfunction, and the weaker set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher probability of injury. Muscle imbalance can refer to insufficient muscle balance in relation to other 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

Tailored injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Affton, MO will ensure that different muscles and muscle groups are equally strong.

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 numerous musculoskeletal issues. It can lead to:

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

At our first injury prevention appointment in Affton, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, alongside with your doctor or any additional providers treating you, we’ll devise a tailored plan of attack based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your body moving as it should.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people who spend a lot of time doing the same activity. Athletes and other physically active people can be affected by postural dysfunction when at lest, driving, or in certain body positions related to their sport. Optimal posture means correct alignments of the different joints and muscles of your body in a way that does not remove the spine from its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the vertebrae closer together, which disrupts your nervous system and makes it difficult to achieve the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It causes injuries through:

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

By helping you understand correct posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring muscle balance, flexibility, and that your vertebrae remain in place.

Injury Prevention Methods in Affton, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. 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’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’re moderately active, take a break for the few hours after an activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
• Wear the appropriate equipment — Helmets, chest guards, protective eyewear, and other recommended equipment in many sports helps you avoid injuries like rashes or brain injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or soft tissue, your Affton, MO physician or physical therapist may suggest braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the affected area. Other techniques like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further stabilization.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the force and torque of heavy activity. Our Affton, MO injury prevention specialists will work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the often forgotten muscles needed to be able to avoid injury in the activities you want to participate in.
• Enhance flexibility — Stretching accomplishes three critical things for injury prevention:
  1. It improves which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adapt to more forceful positions.
  2. It enhances circulation, which carries protein-rich blood to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and fortifying the muscles.
  3. It encourages good posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is an essential part of injury prevention.

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

• Use accepted technique — Through the years, each sport and physical activity develops a consensus of the best techniques to use. These techniques not only help you get be the best player you can be but help prevent injuries by not forcing your body into unnatural positions and movements. Football players are taught to tackle a certain way to reduce the risk of brain damage, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to make sure their muscles are moving unnaturally. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and educate you on 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 a sudden pop or grinding sensation, immediately stop all physical activity and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body isn’t feeling up to a particularly rigorous workout, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though gritting through pain is often viewed as a valiant act among competitors, forcing your body to perform with soft tissue or structural damage could exacerbate a current injury and put you out of commission for much longer than you would have been sitting out. Depending on the severity of your injury, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, visiting your doctor, and rehab with a physical therapist to ensure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
• Follow the rules — Most sports have special rules at different levels in the interest of safety. Penalties for targeting in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the existence of bike lanes are all rules that were adopted to keep participants 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 another season begins or starting up a new physical activity. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a licensed physical therapist in Affton, MO is a good idea for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been proven to prevent 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 Affton, MO

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for over 3 million urgent care visits and more than 34,000 deaths. Studies show that being physical active is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions that limit mobility such as arthritis that accumulate over time can be more bearable and take longer to progress 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, healthy strength, stability, flexibility, and good posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Affton, 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

Affton, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in something you love doing can lead to a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same happiness. The professional Affton, 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 confident that you can safely return to the activities you love. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Make an appointment online or call the location nearest you to get started with one of our injury prevention experts in Affton, MO.