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 taking ski vacations, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our professional 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 show you exercises 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 Des Peres, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in active endeavors like playing sports, swimming, and more. Additionally, keeping an active lifestyle reduces the risk of future health problems including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, eurodegenerative disease, depression, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Des Peres, MO physical therapists help you come back as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention specialists can help you reduce the risk of further injury 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 just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location nearest you in Des Peres, MO for a free injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and protect your active lifestyle, keep reading or inquire about an appointment today.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Des Peres, MO

Injuries generally happen for one of two reasons:

1. Wear-and-tear injuries are injuries that occur when a part of the body repeats the same motion time and time again. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes athletes who use throwing or striking motions, with joint pain usually being the first warning sign.
2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen suddenly. 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 of the injuries we see most frequently, for example rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, like ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Des Peres, MO

While injuries occur for many different reasons, and are sometimes unpreventable, 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 crucial to supporting joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can result in an overreliance on one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also causes posture dysfunction, and the weaker set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher likelihood of injury. Injuries can be caused by inadequate muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong hamstring and weak quadriceps, or in the same muscle group, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Muscle imbalance can result in:

• Muscle weakness
• Muscle inflexibility
• Poor muscle recruitment
• Poor coordination

Customized injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Des Peres, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance 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
• Coordination deficiency
• Reduced balance

When you initially visit our injury prevention professionals in Des Peres, 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 doctor or any additional medical professionals involved in your treatment, we’ll design a tailored treatment plan based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement health to reach its potential.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people with desk jobs. People who play sports and others with active lifestyles can be affected by postural dysfunction when lying down, sitting, or in specific body positions necessary for their sport. Correct posture refers to proper positioning of your body from your head to your toes in a way that encourages our spine to stay in its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the joints in the spine closer together, which interferes with our body’s ability to communicate with itself and reach the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It can also lead to:

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

By helping you understand the best practices for posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring muscle balance, flexibility, and that your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Des Peres, 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 make sure your body is prepared for your intended activity:

• Take breaks — Your body needs time to rest and recover after any moderate to intense activity. If you have a very high activity level, one or two rest days a week will signal to your body to engage in its natural healing processes. If you have a more modest activity level, take a break after activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
• Use the right equipment — Helmets, chin straps, protective eyewear, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries such as cuts or brain injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or muscle, tendon, or ligament, your Des Peres, MO physician or injury prevention expert may suggest braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the affected area. Other methods like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further stabilization.
• Improve muscle strength — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the rigors of heavy activity. Our Des Peres, MO injury prevention professionals will work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the often forgotten muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you want to participate in.
• Improve flexibility — Increasing your flexibility achieves three important things for injury prevention:
  1. It increases your range of motion, which lets for your soft tissue to adapt to more dramatic positions.
  2. It boosts circulation, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and reinvigorating the muscles.
  3. It encourages good posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is an essential part of injury prevention.

  According to research, sports like basketball that necessitate sudden twists and movements require soft tissue with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. Also, it’s important to stretch and warm up before games or training to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use proper technique — In every physical activity, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. These techniques not only improve performance but help reduce the risk of injury. Football players learn to tackle with the shoulder in order to reduce the risk of a concussion, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to make sure their muscles are moving unnaturally. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and evaluate how to both improve your performance and prevent injury.
• Listen to your body — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, that’s your body’s way of telling you something isn’t right. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, immediately withdraw from the activity and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body does not feel well enough for an intense workout, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though gutting it out through pain is often seen as a heroic act among competitors, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could exacerbate a current injury and leave you on the sidelines for longer than it originally would have. Depending on the severity of your injury, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, visiting urgent care, and a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure your body heals properly and can withstand a return to physical activity.
• Play by the rules — Many sports have special rules at different levels to reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for targeting in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the existence of bike lanes are all rules put in place to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Speak a licensed physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to have a medical evaluation before another season begins or starting up a new physical activity. While there, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Des Peres, MO is right for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated to help athletes remain healthy, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, your injury history, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Des Peres, MO

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for over 3 million emergency room visits and over 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that being physical active can go a long way in preventing falls. Other conditions that limit mobility such as arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be more bearable and take longer to progress with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints healthy. While seniors typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, appropriate strength, stability, flexibility, and optimal posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Des Peres, MO include:

• Physical Therapy Clinic
• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Treatment
• Sciatica Treatment
• Sports Medicine
• Hand Pain Physical Therapy
• Foot & Ankle Pain Treatment
• Hip Pain Treatment
• Plantar Fasciitis Treatment
• Stroke Rehabilitation
• Hip Replacement Physical Therapy

Des Peres, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in in an activity you prepare and train for and love causes a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same happiness. The professional Des Peres, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to develop your 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 doing most. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits that you do not want to lose. Schedule an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to discover what our Des Peres, MO injury prevention professionals can do for you.