Barnhart, MO

Barnhart, MO

Don't let the fear of reinjury keep you from the things what you do best.

Injury Prevention in Barnhart, MO. Whether you play a sport and are trying to get an opportunity at the next stage, or you just retired and want to dedicate your time to hiking, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our licensed Barnhart, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to recover from injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility 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.

Physical activity is an essential part of many Barnhart, MO people’s lives. We love activities such as playing sports, kayaking, and more. Additionally, committing to an active lifestyle helps prevent chronic conditions including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, depression, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Barnhart, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention experts can help you reduce the risk of further injury 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 won’t heal on its own, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Barnhart, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation 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 Barnhart, MO

Injuries typically fall into two categories:

  1. Overuse 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 baseball or volleyball players and commonly reveal themselves with joint pain.
  2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen in an instant. 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 common injuries, such as 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.

Injury Prevention Barnhart, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Barnhart

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Barnhart, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally occur because of dysfunction or instability and your body and between body parts. There are three common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is crucial to supporting joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can cause an overreliance on one muscle group, which may cause your body to use it in a way it shouldn’t. It can also lead to poor posture, and one set of muscles becoming fatigued sooner, increasing the risk of injury. Injuries can be caused by insufficient muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong chest and weak back, or within muscle groups, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Symptoms include:

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

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and lead to your body moving in ways it is not designed to, causing injury. Neurological issues, swelling, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can lead to:

  • Joint mobility limitations
  • Muscle imbalance
  • Coordination deficits
  • Decreased balance

When you first see our injury prevention specialists in Barnhart, MO, we’ll evaluate your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, together with your physician or any additional providers involved in your treatment, we’ll create a tailored game plan based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people with desk jobs. Athletes and other physically active people can have postural dysfunction when resting, sitting, or in specific poses related to a given activity. Correct posture means correct positioning 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 attain the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. Symptoms include:

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

Good posture is a vital part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, flexibility, and that your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.



How to Prevent Injury in Barnhart, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. No one precaution is guaranteed to be effective in injury prevention. However, there are precautions to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough 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, rest for the rest of the day after an activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
  • Use the correct equipment — Helmets, chin straps, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in many sports helps you avoid injuries like bruises or brain injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or muscle, tendon, or ligament, your Barnhart, MO physician or physical therapist may recommend stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other techniques like tying your athletic footwear tightly offers further protection.
  • Strengthen muscles — Strengthening soft tissue helps it stand up to the force and torque your body is put through in sports and other activities. Our Barnhart, MO injury prevention specialists will work to achieve ideal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to be able to avoid injury in the activities you love.
  • Increase flexibility — Increasing your flexibility accomplishes three important 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 drastic movements.
    2. It boosts circulation, which carries nutrient-rich blood to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and fortifying the muscles.
    3. It encourages good 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 require bouncing and jumping require soft tissue flexible enough to perform those movements. Also, don’t forget to stretch and warm up before games or training to further reduce the risk of injury.

  • Use accepted technique — In every physical activity, there are accepted techniques to use. These techniques not only help you get be the best athlete you can be but help reduce the risk of injury. Football players are taught to tackle a certain way to reduce the risk of a head injury, 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 evaluate how to improve it.
  • Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If a part of your body is bothering you, your body is trying to send you a message. If you feel sudden pain, immediately withdraw from the activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t holing up well in a particularly rigorous workout, save it for another day.
  • Don’t play through an injury — Even though gritting through pain is often viewed as commendable among competitors, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could make that injury worse and put you out of commission for much longer than if you had sat out at the time of the injury. Depending on the nature of your injury, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, visiting your doctor, and scheduling appointments with a physical therapist to make sure your body heals properly and can handle the activity you want to return to.
  • Follow the rules — Most sports have special rules at different levels to reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for leading with the helmet in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the presence of bike lanes are examples of rules put in place to keep players 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 in your best interest to see a doctor before starting another season or starting up a new activity or training regimen. While there, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Barnhart, MO is something you should consider. Every treatment plan we employ has been proven to reduce the risk of 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 Barnhart, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Barnhart

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Barnhart, MO

Falls in the elderly were responsible for more than 3 million emergency room visits and more than 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that physical activity can go a long way in preventing falls. Other conditions like arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be more bearable and take longer to progress with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints healthy. While older adults typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, healthy strength, stability, flexibility, and correct posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Barnhart, MO include:

Barnhart, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in in an activity you prepare and train for and love can lead to a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same freedom. The experienced Barnhart, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to guide you through your own personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body as safe and healthy as can be, and your mind confident that you can safely return to the activities you love doing most. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you do not want to lose. Make an appointment online or call the location nearest you to learn more about what our Barnhart, MO injury prevention experts can do for you.

Services Offered

Services Offered
  • Physical Therapy
    • Pre/Post Surgical Rehabilitation
    • Acute Injury Management
    • Chronic Injury Management
  • Occupational Therapy
  • Advanced Work Rehabilitation
  • Work Conditioning/Hardening
  • Functional Capacity Evaluations
  • Certified Hand Therapy
  • Vestibular Therapy/Concussion Management
  • Trigger Point Dry Needling
  • Sports Physical Therapy
  • Pediatric Orthopedic Physical Therapy
  • Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization
  • Spine Specialty – Certified Manual Therapy
  • Free Injury Screenings
  • Kinesio Taping®
  • Blood Flow Restriction Therapy

Our Team

Stephen Brunjes
OTR/L, CEAS
Mary McKinney
Front Office
Kaila Mikesch
Clinic Director, PT, DPT, CMPT
Eric Meyer
Assistant Clinic Director, PT, DPT, CMPT
Ernie Goddard
Partner, PT
Natalie Carter
PT, DPT, Astym. Cert.
Emma Witte
PTA, ASTYM Cert.
Kelly Barnes
Physical Therapist
Jennifer Zweigart
Front Office
Shannon Blum
PTA, ATC

Locations

Begin Your Recovery Today

Injuries and pain shouldn’t keep you from moving and doing the things you love.