Grover, MO

Grover, MO

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

Injury Prevention in Grover, MO. Whether you’re an athlete trying to get a shot at the next level, or a recent retiree who wants to spend more time hiking, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our certified Grover, 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 movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to teach out techniques that are proven to prevent injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location nearest you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Grover, MO residents. Many of us participate in activities such as playing sports, swimming, and more. Additionally, pursuing an active lifestyle helps stave off chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, eurodegenerative disease, depression, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Grover, MO physical therapists allow you to come back and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention professionals 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 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 nearest you in Grover, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To take preventative measures and ensure that you can continue with your active lifestyle, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist at your earliest convenience.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Grover, MO

Injuries typically happen for one of two reasons:

  1. Repetitive demand injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes such as tennis or lacrosse players and typically are accompanied by joint pain.
  2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or a sudden impact by an object or another person. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, such as rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, like ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, with an immediate impact to or twisting of the knee.

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

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Grover, MO

While injuries can happen in a variety of circumstances, and some are unpreventable, they generally happen because your muscles, ligaments, tendons, bones, and joints cannot handle the force, torque, or stretching that are required or are possible in a given activity. There are three chief causes of why your body cannot adjust to an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is key to maintaining healthy joints and reducing injury. Imbalance can lead to overemphasis for one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also prevents you from having good 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 in relation to other 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 lead to:

Personalized injury prevention with our professional physical therapists in Grover, MO will ensure that different muscles and muscle groups are equally strong.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and lead to your body bending in ways it is not designed to, causing injury. It can be caused by a variety of musculoskeletal issues. It can lead to:

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

At our first injury prevention appointment in Grover, MO, we’ll go over your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, alongside with your physician or any other providers treating you, we’ll develop a personalized plan of attack been proven to work by 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 be affected by postural dysfunction when resting, driving, or in specific poses necessary for a given activity. Optimal posture refers to proper positioning 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 interferes with our body’s ability to communicate with itself and achieve the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. Symptoms include:

  • 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 you are using the right muscles for the right movements, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your spine is in its natural position.



How to Prevent Injury in Grover, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything you could to prevent one. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are things you can do to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your intended activity:

  • Take breaks — Injuries are more common in overworked bodies. 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, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
  • Use protective equipment — Helmets, shin guards, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries such as lacerations or concussions. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Grover, MO doctor or injury prevention professional may advise stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other methods like tying your athletic footwear tightly offers further stabilization.
  • Boost muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the force and torque of heavy activity. Our Grover, MO injury prevention specialists will work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you want to participate in.
  • Increase flexibility — Increasing your flexibility contributes to injury prevention in three way:
    1. It increases your range of motion, which lets for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to handle more pronounced positions.
    2. It improves circulation, which allows for nourishing blood to flow to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to restore themselves.
    3. It encourages good posture, which we already know is an an important part of injury prevention.

    According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like soccer that include bouncing and jumping 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 accepted technique — In every sport, there are accepted techniques to use. These techniques not only help you get be the best athlete you can be but help prevent injuries by not forcing your body into unnatural positions and movements. Football players learn to tackle with the shoulder in order to reduce the risk of brain damage, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to make sure their muscles are moving unnaturally. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and evaluate how to improve it.
  • Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, that means that body part is telling your brain that something is wrong. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, immediately stop all physical activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t holing up well in an intense training session, save it for another day.
  • Don’t play through an injury — Even though teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that plays through pain, forcing your body to perform with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could make that injury worse and put you out of commission for longer than it originally would have. Depending on the nature of your injury, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, visiting your doctor, and scheduling appointments with a physical therapist to ensure 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 leading with the helmet in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the presence of bike lanes are all rules that were adopted to keep participants safe. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that there are penalties for them.
  • Speak a professional physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to see a doctor before a new season or committing yourself to any strenuous activity or training regimen. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a experienced physical therapist in Grover, MO is a good idea for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated 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 Grover, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Grover

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Grover, MO

Falls in senior citizens accounted for over 3 million emergency room admissions and more than 34,000 deaths. Studies show that being physical active is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions that limit mobility such as arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints active. While the physical demands for seniors may not be as high as an athlete, appropriate strength, stability, flexibility, and correct posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Grover, MO include:

Grover, 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 elation. The licensed Grover, 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. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Request an appointment online or call the location nearest you to learn more about what our Grover, 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
  • Sports Physical Therapy
  • Pediatric Orthopedic Physical Therapy
  • Geriatric Physical Therapy
  • Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization
  • DorsaVi Video Motion Analysis
  • 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
Lauren Huckstep
Clinic Director, PT, DPT, CSCS, Astym Cert.
Annmarie Koenen
Front Office

Locations

Begin Your Recovery Today

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