Brentwood, MO

Brentwood, MO

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

Injury Prevention in Brentwood, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or you just retired and want to spend more time bike riding, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our professional Brentwood, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others heal after an injury, we are experts in the entire musculoskeletal system who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to teach out exercises that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location nearest you.

Physical activity is an essential part of many Brentwood, MO people’s lives. We love active endeavors like playing sports, biking, and more. Additionally, keeping an active lifestyle helps prevent future health problems like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, degenerative brain diseases, mental health issues, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Brentwood, MO physical therapists help you return to action even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention specialists can help keep you active by improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. All of our methods, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, are proven to be effective and are customized for each client and the level of activity they want to reach.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a lingering injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Brentwood, MO for a free injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your sport or hobby, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist at your earliest convenience.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Brentwood, MO

Injuries generally happen for one of two reasons:

  1. Chronic injuries are injuries happen gradually as a body part degrades because of repetitive movements. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes such as tennis or volleyball players, with joint pain usually being the first warning sign.
  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, twisting joints, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, like rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, such as ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, with a sudden impact to the knee.

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

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Brentwood, MO

While injuries occur for many different reasons, and some are unpreventable, they generally happen because of dysfunction or imbalance and your body and between body parts. There are three main causes of why your body cannot handle an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is key to supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can lead to an overreliance on one set of muscles, which may cause your body to use it in a way it shouldn’t. It also causes posture dysfunction, and the weaker muscles will become fatigued faster, making them more susceptible to injuries. Injuries can be caused by insufficient muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or in the same muscle group, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff not having proportionate strength. Muscle imbalance can result in:

Customized injury prevention with our experienced physical therapists in Brentwood, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and lead to your body moving in ways it is not designed to, causing injury. It can be caused by numerous musculoskeletal issues. It can cause injury through:

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

When you first see our injury prevention professionals in Brentwood, MO, we’ll discuss your medical history and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, alongside with your doctor or any additional providers involved in your care, we’ll come up with a personalized game plan based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your body moving as it should.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people who sit a lot. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can have postural dysfunction when resting, sitting, or in specific body positions they need to be in for their sport. Good posture refers to correct 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 compact the joints in the spine, which has a negative affect on our body’s ability to communicate with itself and achieve the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. 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 muscle balance, range of motion, and that your vertebrae remain in place.



Keys to Injury Prevention in Brentwood, 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 things you can do to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your desired activity level:

  • Take breaks — Your body needs time to rest and recover after any moderate to intense activity. If you’re heavily active, 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 have a more moderate activity level, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
  • Use the correct equipment — Helmets, shin guards, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries such as contusions or brain injuries. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Brentwood, MO physician or injury prevention expert may fit you for braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the injured area. Other measures like making sure all the equipment is snug can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
  • Strengthen muscles — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the rigors of heavy activity. In your customized injury prevention program with our professional Brentwood, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to achieve ideal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to be able to stay healthy in the activities you love.
  • Improve flexibility — Stretching achieves three critical things for injury prevention:
    1. It boosts 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 pronounced positions.
    2. It boosts blood flow, which carries protein-rich blood to your soft tissue, removing waste byproduct and re-energizing the muscles.
    3. It increases your posture, which we already know is an is one of the most important factors of injury prevention.

    According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like soccer that necessitate dynamic motions require muscles and tendons compliant enough to incorporate and exert the high amount of energy required. Also, remember to stretch and warm up before any physical activity to further reduce the risk of injury.

  • Use proper technique — Through the years, each sport and physical activity develops a consensus of the best techniques to use. These techniques not only help you perform better but help prevent injuries. Football players are taught to tackle a certain way to reduce the risk of a concussion, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best apply torque to your body. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and evaluate how to improve it.
  • Listen to your body — If a part of your body is bothering you, that means that body part is telling your brain that something is wrong. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, stop immediately and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t feeling up to a particularly rigorous training session, don’t force it.
  • Don’t play through an injury — While teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that plays through pain, playing with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could aggravate an existing injury and leave you on the sidelines for much longer than if you had sat out at the time of the injury. Depending on the nature of your injury, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, visiting an emergency room, and rehab with a physical therapist to make sure 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 head-first sliding in baseball, and even the presence of bike lanes are all rules put in place to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. Those were enacted 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. During your appointment, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a experienced physical therapist in Brentwood, MO is something you should consider. Every treatment plan we employ has been proven to help athletes remain healthy, and you plan will be completely unique to you and catered to how old you are, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.

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

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Brentwood, MO

Falls in adults over 65 were responsible for more than 3 million urgent care admissions and over 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that physical activity can go a long way in preventing falls. Other conditions that cause pain such as arthritis that accumulate over time can be slowed down by physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints healthy. While the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, appropriate strength, balance, flexibility, and correct posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Brentwood, MO include:

Brentwood, 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 won’t allow us to experience the same exhilaration. The licensed Brentwood, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to develop your 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 of doing what you do best. Request an appointment online or call the location nearest you to see what our Brentwood, MO injury prevention specialists can do for you.

Services Offered

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

Our Team

Antoinette Ghoston
Front Office
John Teepe
Partner, MPT
Jennifer Szydlowski
Clinic Director, PT, CMPT

Locations

Begin Your Recovery Today

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