Grantwood Village, MO

Grantwood Village, MO

Don't let a mental block over reinjury keep you from the activities you love.

Injury Prevention in Grantwood Village, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or you just retired and want to dedicate your time to being physical fit, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our licensed Grantwood Village, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others recover from injury, we are experts in the entire musculoskeletal system who can evaluate your movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to show you techniques that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location most convenient for you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Grantwood Village, MO residents. We love activities such as playing sports, hiking, or other physical activities. Additionally, pursuing an active lifestyle helps prevent chronic conditions including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Grantwood Village, MO physical therapists allow you to come back as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention professionals can help you reduce the risk of further injury by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our methods, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, have been prove to work and are personalized to each client and the activities they want to return to.

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 Grantwood Village, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can continue with your sport or hobby, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Grantwood Village, MO

Injuries typically 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 athletes who are required to repeat throwing or striking motions, with joint pain usually being the first warning sign.
  2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. 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, like ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

Injury Prevention Grantwood Village, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Grantwood Village

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Grantwood Village, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, 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 staving off injury. Imbalance can cause an overreliance on one muscle group, which may cause your body to force it to participate in an activity 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 can refer to insufficient muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or in the same muscle group, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Symptoms include:

Customized injury prevention with our professional physical therapists in Grantwood Village, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and lead to your body moving in ways it is not designed to, causing injury. It can be caused by a variety of musculoskeletal issues. It can cause injury through:

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

When you first see our injury prevention professionals in Grantwood Village, MO, we’ll go through your medical history and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, alongside with your doctor or any other medical professionals involved in your care, we’ll create a personalized plan of attack based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your body moving as it should.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people who sit a lot. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can suffer from postural dysfunction when at lest, using the computer, or in certain body positions related to their sport. Healthy posture means proper positioning of the neck, torso, pelvis, and extremities in a way that encourages our spine to stay in its natural curves. Poor posture can compact the joints in the spine, which disrupts our body’s internal communications and makes it challenging to reach the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It causes injuries through:

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

By guiding you to ideal posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring muscle balance, flexibility, and that your spine is in its natural position.



Keys to Injury Prevention in Grantwood Village, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. No one safety tip is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are several steps you can take to make sure your body is prepared for your desired activity level:

  • 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 signal to your body to engage in its natural healing 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.
  • Wear the right equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, elbow pads, and other recommended equipment in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries such as rashes or brain injuries. If you’ve had a previous injury, your Grantwood Village, MO physician or injury prevention expert may fit you for braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the affected area. Other methods like tying your athletic footwear tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
  • Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the force and torque of heavy activity. Our Grantwood Village, MO injury prevention specialists will work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you want to participate in.
  • Improve flexibility — Increasing your flexibility contributes to injury prevention in three way:
    1. It improves which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which allows for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to handle more forceful positions.
    2. It increases circulation, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and re-energizing the muscles.
    3. It enhances your posture, which we already know is an is one of the most important factors of injury prevention.

    According to studies, sports like basketball that necessitate sudden twists and movements require muscles and tendons flexible enough to perform those movements. Also, remember to stretch and warm up before games or training to further reduce the risk of injury.

  • 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 learn to tackle with the shoulder in order 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 slow down your movement and educate you on how to improve it.
  • Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If a part of your body is bothering you, your body is trying to send you a message. 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 — While teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate an athlete that guts it out through pain, playing with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could aggravate an existing injury and leave you off the field or court for much longer than you would have been sitting out. Depending on what caused your injury and how severe it is, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, seeing your doctor, and scheduling appointments with a physical therapist to ensure your body heals naturally and can withstand 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 to help prevent injury. Penalties for leading with the helmet in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the existence of bike lanes are all rules that leagues enacted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. 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 get a physical before starting another season or committing yourself to any strenuous activity or training regimen. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Grantwood Village, MO is right for you. All of our techniques have been demonstrated to prevent injury, and we’ll personalize your program to your age, your injury history, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention Grantwood Village, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Grantwood Village

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Grantwood Village, MO

Falls in the elderly were responsible for over 3 million emergency room admissions and more than 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that physical activity is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions that limit mobility such as arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints active. While the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, the same principles of strength, balance, flexibility, and correct posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Grantwood Village, MO include:

Grantwood Village, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in one of your favorite activities causes a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same joy. The professional Grantwood Village, 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. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Schedule an appointment online or reach out to the location nearest you to see what our Grantwood Village, 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

Stephen Brunjes
OTR/L, CEAS
Scott Gallant
PT, FAAOMPT, BDN
Stacey Collins
Clinic Director, PT, DPT, CMPT
Stephanie Heubi
Front Office

Locations

Begin Your Recovery Today

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