Bismarck, MO

Bismarck, MO

Don't let a mental block over reinjury keep you from the activities you love.

Injury Prevention in Bismarck, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or you just retired and want to dedicate your time to bike riding, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our professional Bismarck, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others heal after an injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to guide you through measures that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location most convenient for you.

Physical activity is an essential part of many Bismarck, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in activities like playing sports, hiking, or other physical activities. Additionally, keeping an active lifestyle helps stave off chronic conditions 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 Bismarck, MO physical therapists help you return to action and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention specialists can help keep you active by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our treatment plans, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, have been prove to work and are developed uniquely for each client and the level of activity they want to reach.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a persistent injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Bismarck, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can continue with your active lifestyle, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Bismarck, MO

Injuries generally fall into two categories:

  1. Repetitive motion injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes such as softball or basketball players, with joint pain usually being the first indicator.
  2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, for example 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.

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

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Bismarck, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally happen 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 key to maintaining healthy joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can cause overemphasis for one set of muscles, which may cause your body to force it to participate in an activity it shouldn’t. It can also lead to poor posture, and the weaker set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher likelihood of injury. Muscle imbalance applies to poor muscle balance between 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. Muscle imbalance can result in:

Personalized injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Bismarck, 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, increasing your risk of injury. It can be caused by many different musculoskeletal issues. Symptoms include:

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

When you first visit our injury prevention professionals in Bismarck, MO, we’ll discuss your medical history and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, together with your physician or any other medical professionals treating you, we’ll create a personalized treatment plan been proven to work by 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 in the same position. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can be affected by postural dysfunction when resting, sitting, or in certain stances necessary for a given activity. Healthy posture means proper alignments 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 compress the bones of the spine, which disrupts communication between your brain and body and makes it harder to achieve optimal motion health. It can also lead to:

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

Good posture is a necessary part of injury prevention because it ensures you are using the right muscles for the right movements, your flexibility can be improved and maintained, and your spine is in its natural position.



Keys to Injury Prevention in Bismarck, MO

All sports and physical activities can potentially lead to an injury. No one precaution is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are precautions 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 have a very high activity level, make sure to take one or two days off per week to allow 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 you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
  • Use protective equipment — Helmets, chest guards, safety pads and guards, and other equipment necessary in many sports can help prevent injuries such as rashes or brain injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Bismarck, MO doctor or physical therapist may fit you for braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the affected area. Other techniques like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further stabilization.
  • Increase muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the rigors your body is put through in sports and other activities. In your personalized injury prevention program with our knowledgeable Bismarck, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to achieve ideal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you love.
  • Improve flexibility — Stretching achieves three critical things for injury prevention:
    1. It enhances which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for your soft tissue to adjust to more dramatic positions.
    2. It boosts blood flow, which allows for nourishing blood to flow to your soft tissue, removing waste byproduct and fortifying the muscles.
    3. It encourages good posture, which, as you read earlier, is an important part of injury prevention.

    According to studies, sports like football that include sudden twists and movements require soft tissue compliant 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 correct 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 athlete 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 a head injury, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and educate you on how to both improve your performance and reduce your risk of injury.
  • Listen to your body — If a part of your body is bothering you, that’s your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. If you feel a sudden pop or grinding sensation, 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 viewed as a heroic act among competitors, forcing your body to perform with soft tissue or structural damage could make that injury worse and put you out of commission for longer than it originally would have. Depending on the nature of your injury, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, seeing your doctor, and a series of physical therapy sessions to make sure your body heals properly and can handle 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 reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for targeting in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the existence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are examples of rules that were adopted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. Those were enacted for a reason, and there’s a reason that there are penalties for them.
  • Speak a licensed physical therapist — It’s a good idea 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 experienced physical therapist in Bismarck, MO is a good idea for you. All of our techniques have been demonstrated to help athletes remain healthy, and we’ll personalize your program to your age, your injury history, and which activities you want to participate in.

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

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Bismarck, MO

Falls in the elderly accounted for more than 3 million urgent care visits and over 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates that physical activity is invaluable in preventing falls. Other conditions that limit mobility like arthritis that are wear and tear injuries 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, the same principles of strength, stability, flexibility, and optimal posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Bismarck, MO include:

Bismarck, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in in an activity you prepare and train for and love can lead to a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same exhilaration. The experienced Bismarck, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to develop your personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body prepared for the rigors of physical activity, and your mind confident 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 do not want to lose. Make an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to get started with one of our injury prevention experts in Bismarck, MO.

Services Offered

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

Our Team

Stephen Brunjes
OTR/L, CEAS
Cassandra Wadlow
Front Office
Dena Rose
PT, CMPT, CHT
Anthony Meyer
PT, DPT, CMPT
Derrick Wolk
Partner, Clinic Director, MPT, CMPT
Kimberly Helm
Front Office Supervisor
Lisa Bell
Front Office

Locations

Begin Your Recovery Today

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