Des Peres, MO

Des Peres, MO

Don't let a mental block over reinjury keep you from the things what you do best.

Injury Prevention in Des Peres, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or are entering your golden years and want to spend more time being physical fit, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our licensed Des Peres, 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 teach out measures 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 Des Peres, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in active endeavors such as playing sports, hiking, or other physical activities. Additionally, committing to an active lifestyle helps prevent chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, depression, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Des Peres, MO physical therapists allow you to return to action and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention professionals can help preserve your active lifestyle by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our methods, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, are based on evidence-backed techniques and are personalized to each client and the lifestyle they desire.

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 most convenient for you in Des Peres, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can keep up with your sport or hobby, read on below or inquire about an appointment at your earliest convenience.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Des Peres, MO

Injuries generally happen for one of two reasons:

  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 quarterbacks and commonly manifest themselves as joint pain.
  2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen because of a specific and sudden trauma. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, like rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, such as ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, with an immediate impact to or twisting of the knee.

Injury Prevention Des Peres, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Des Peres

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Des Peres, 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 primary causes of why your body cannot handle an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is crucial to supporting joints and reducing injury. Imbalance can lead to overemphasis for 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 set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher likelihood of injury. Muscle imbalance applies to inadequate muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong chest and weak back, or in the same muscle group, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff not having proportionate strength. Muscle imbalance can cause injury through:

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

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, causing injury. Neurological issues, swelling, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can cause injury through:

  • Joint mobility limitations
  • Muscle imbalance
  • Coordination deficiency
  • Reduced balance

When you first see our injury prevention professionals in Des Peres, MO, we’ll discuss your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, in tandem with with your doctor or any additional medical professionals involved in your care, we’ll come up with a tailored game plan 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. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can suffer from postural dysfunction when resting, sitting, or in specific poses they need to be in for their sport. Correct posture refers to correct alignments of your body from your head to your toes in a way that keeps the spine within its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the vertebrae closer together, which has a negative affect on our body’s ability to communicate with itself and achieve optimal motion health. It causes injuries through:

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

By guiding you to ideal posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring you are using the right muscles for the right movements, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your vertebrae remain in place.



Injury Prevention Methods in Des Peres, 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 several steps you can take to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your intended activity:

  • Take a rest — 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 encourage your body to engage in its natural healing and recovery processes. If you’re moderately active, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
  • Use the correct equipment — Helmets, chest guards, safety pads and guards, and other recommended equipment in many sports helps you avoid injuries like cuts or brain injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Des Peres, MO physician or physical therapist 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.
  • Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the rigors necessary for in sports and other activities. In your customized injury prevention program with our professional Des Peres, 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 want to participate in.
  • Improve flexibility — Increasing your flexibility accomplishes three important things for injury prevention:
    1. It improves your range of motion, which lets for your tendons and ligaments to adjust to more drastic movements.
    2. It enhances blood flow, which carries protein-rich blood to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and rebuilding 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 necessitate dynamic movements require muscles and tendons flexible enough to perform those movements. Stretching and warm up exercises before games or training further helps prevent injuries.

  • Use correct technique — In every sport, there are accepted techniques to use. These techniques not only improve performance 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 rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and analyze how to both improve your performance and reduce your risk of injury.
  • Listen to your body — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, your body is trying to send you a message. If you feel sudden pain, stop immediately and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t feeling up to a particularly rigorous workout, don’t force it.
  • Don’t play through an injury — While gritting through pain is often viewed as a courageous act among competitors, forcing your body to perform with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could make that injury worse and leave you on the sidelines for longer than it originally would have. Depending on the severity 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 recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
  • Play by the rules — Depending on the sport or activity and age level of the participants, it likely has special rules in the interest of safety. Penalties for helmet to helmet hits in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the existence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are examples of rules that leagues enacted to keep players 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 committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a experienced physical therapist in Des Peres, MO is right for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been proven to reduce the risk of injury, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, your injury history, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention Des Peres, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Des Peres

Injury Prevention for Older Des Peres, MO Adults

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for over 3 million urgent care admissions and more than 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that physical activity is invaluable in preventing falls. Other conditions that limit mobility such as 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 the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, healthy strength, stability, flexibility, and proper posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Des Peres, MO include:

Des Peres, 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 euphoria. The professional Des Peres, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to guide you through your own personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body strong and flexible, and your mind confident that you can safely return to the activities you love. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you do not want to lose. Request an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to find out more about what our Des Peres, MO injury prevention professionals 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.