Bonne Terre, MO

Bonne Terre, MO

Don't let a mental block over reinjury prevent you from participating in the activities you love.

Injury Prevention in Bonne Terre, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or you just retired and want to spend more time camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you desire. While our certified Bonne Terre, 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 movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to guide you through methods 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 vitally important to many Bonne Terre, MO residents. Many of us participate in active endeavors like playing sports, hiking, or other physical activities. Furthermore, pursuing an active lifestyle helps stave off chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, degenerative brain diseases, depression, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Bonne Terre, MO physical therapists help you return to action and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention specialists can help preserve your active lifestyle by improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. All of our methods, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, have been prove to work and are customized for each client and the lifestyle they desire.

If you’ve recently sustained 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 Bonne Terre, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can keep up with your active lifestyle, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist at your earliest convenience.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Bonne Terre, MO

Most injuries fall into two categories:

  1. Chronic injuries are injuries happen gradually as a body part degrades because of repetitive movements. They are common in overhead athletes athletes who are required to repeat throwing or striking motions and commonly manifest themselves as joint pain.
  2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, for example rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, like ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, with an immediate impact to or twisting of the knee.

Injury Prevention Bonne Terre, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Bonne Terre

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Bonne Terre, MO

While injuries occur for many different reasons, and some are inescapable, 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 key 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 the weaker muscles will become tired more quickly, increasing the risk of injury. Muscle imbalance applies to insufficient muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or within muscle groups, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Muscle imbalance can cause injury through:

Tailored injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Bonne Terre, 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, causing injury. Problems in your nervous system, swelling, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. Symptoms include:

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

At our first injury prevention appointment in Bonne Terre, MO, we’ll go over your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, together with your physician or any other medical professionals involved in your care, we’ll design a personalized plan of attack been proven to work through research and studies to get your body moving as it should.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people with slouched shoulders. People who play sports and other physically active people can be affected by postural dysfunction when at lest, driving, or in certain stances they need to be in for a given activity. Optimal posture means correct alignments of the different joints and muscles of your body in a way that encourages our spine to stay in its natural curves. Poor posture can compress the vertebrae, which disrupts your nervous system and makes it difficult to reach optimal motion health. Symptoms include:

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

Good posture is an important part of injury prevention because it ensures you are using your muscles equally, your flexibility can be improved and maintained, and your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.



How to Prevent Injury in Bonne Terre, MO

All sports and physical activities can potentially lead to an injury. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are several steps you can take to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

  • Take breaks — Injuries are more common in overworked bodies. If you have a very high activity level, 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 have a more moderate activity level, rest for the rest of the day after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
  • Wear protective equipment — Helmets, chin straps, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries such as lacerations or brain injuries. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Bonne Terre, MO doctor or injury prevention expert may fit you for stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other methods like making sure all the equipment is snug can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
  • Improve muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the force and torque your body is put through in sports and other activities. Our Bonne Terre, MO injury prevention professionals will work to build up your body to be able to stay healthy in the activities you want to participate in.
  • Enhance flexibility — Increasing your flexibility contributes to injury prevention in three way:
    1. It improves your range of motion, which lets for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to handle more drastic movements.
    2. It boosts blood flow, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to heal.
    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 soccer that necessitate bouncing and jumping require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility 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 proper technique — In every sport, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. These techniques not only help you get be the best athlete you can be but help reduce the risk of injury. Football players learn to tackle a certain way to avoid a concussion, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and educate you on how to both be a better athlete and prevent injury.
  • Listen to your body — If a part of your body is bothering you, your body is trying to send you a message. If you feel sudden pain, stop immediately and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body isn’t holing up well in an intense workout, don’t force it.
  • Don’t play through an injury — While gritting through pain is often seen as commendable 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 much longer than if you had sat out at the time of the injury. Depending on what caused your injury and how severe it is, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, visiting urgent care, and a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
  • Follow the rules — Most sports have special rules at different levels to help prevent injury. Penalties for targeting in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the presence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are all rules that leagues enacted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
  • Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s always advisable to get a physical before starting another season or starting up a new physical activity. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a licensed physical therapist in Bonne Terre, MO is something you should consider. All of our techniques have been proven to reduce the risk of injury, and you plan will be completely unique to you and catered to your age, your injury history, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention Bonne Terre, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Bonne Terre

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Bonne Terre, MO

Falls in the elderly accounted for over 3 million urgent care visits and over 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates that physical activity is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions that cause pain like arthritis that accumulate over time can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints strong. While older adults typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, the same principles of strength, stability, flexibility, and correct posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Bonne Terre, MO include:

Bonne Terre, 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 elation. The knowledgeable Bonne Terre, 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 can safely return to the activities you love. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Schedule an appointment online or call the location nearest you to see what our Bonne Terre, MO injury prevention specialists can do for you.

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.