Injury Prevention in Florissant, MO. Whether you’re an athlete trying to get an opportunity at the next level, or you just retired and want to dedicate your time to taking ski vacations, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our licensed Florissant, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others recover from injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to teach out methods that are proven to prevent injury. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location nearest you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Florissant, MO residents. We love activities like playing sports, biking, and more. Additionally, pursuing an active lifestyle reduces the risk of future health problems such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, degenerative brain diseases, depression, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Florissant, MO physical therapists allow you to come back and perform even better than before, 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 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 most convenient for you in Florissant, 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, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist at your earliest convenience.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Florissant, 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 such as softball or basketball players and typically reveal themselves with 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, like rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, for example ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Florissant, 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 chief causes of why your body cannot handle an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to supporting joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can result in overemphasis for one set of muscles, 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 fatigued sooner, increasing the risk of injury. Muscle imbalance can refer 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 having different levels of strength. Symptoms include:

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

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

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and lead to your body moving in ways it is not designed to, increasing your risk of injury. Problems in your nervous system, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can lead to:

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

When you initially visit our injury prevention specialists in Florissant, MO, we’ll discuss your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, alongside with your doctor or any additional medical professionals involved in your treatment, we’ll create a customized treatment 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. People who play sports and others with active lifestyles can have postural dysfunction when lying down, sitting, or in certain positions related to a given activity. Optimal posture means 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 bones of the spine closer together, which interferes with our body’s ability to communicate with itself and achieve optimal motion health. It can also lead to:

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

Good posture is an important part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, range of motion, and that your vertebrae remain in place.

Keys to Injury Prevention in Florissant, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything you could to prevent one. No one technique is guaranteed to be effective in injury prevention. However, there are several steps you can take 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, take it easy after activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Use the appropriate equipment — Helmets, chin straps, protective eyewear, and other recommended equipment in many sports can help prevent injuries like cuts or concussions. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Florissant, MO doctor or physical therapist may advise stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other techniques like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further stabilization.
• 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. In your tailored injury prevention program with our experienced Florissant, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to be able to avoid injury in the activities you love.
• Boost flexibility — Stretching achieves three important things for injury prevention:
  1. It increases which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for your tendons and ligaments to adjust to more dramatic movements.
  2. It enhances blood flow, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and rebuilding the muscles.
  3. It enhances your posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is an important part of injury prevention.

  According to studies, sports like basketball that include dynamic movements require soft tissue compliant enough to perform those movements. Stretching and warm up exercises before activities further helps prevent injuries.

• Use proper technique — Through the years, each sport and physical activity develops a consensus of the best ways to position and move your body. These techniques not only help you get be the best player you can be but help prevent injuries. Football players are taught to tackle with the shoulder in order to avoid brain damage, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best apply torque to your body. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and educate you on how to improve it.
• 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 sudden pain, 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 — Even though playing through pain is often seen as a valiant act among competitors, forcing your body to perform with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could aggravate an existing injury and leave you on the sidelines for longer than it originally would have. Depending on the nature of your injury, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, visiting an emergency room, and a series of physical therapy sessions to make sure your body heals naturally and can handle the activity you want to return to.
• Follow 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 leading with the helmet in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the presence of bike lanes are examples of rules that leagues enacted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. Those are in place for a reason, and there’s a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Consult a professional physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to get a physical before starting another season or starting up a new physical activity. During your visit, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a experienced physical therapist in Florissant, MO is something you should consider. All of our techniques have been demonstrated 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 for Older Florissant, MO Adults

Falls in the elderly accounted for more than 3 million urgent care visits and over 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that physical activity is invaluable in preventing falls. Other conditions like arthritis that accumulate over time can be effectively managed 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, appropriate strength, balance, flexibility, and proper posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Florissant, 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

Florissant, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in something you love doing causes a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same euphoria. The experienced Florissant, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to design for you a personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body as safe and healthy as can be, and your mind at ease 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. Make an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to start your program with one of our injury prevention professionals in Florissant, MO.