Injury Prevention in Maplewood, MO. Whether you’re an athlete hoping for a shot at the next stage, or are entering your golden years 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 professional Maplewood, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to recover from 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 by preparing your body for the stressors of your desired activity. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or contact the location most convenient for you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Maplewood, MO residents. Many of us participate in activities like playing sports, swimming, and more. Additionally, pursuing an active lifestyle reduces the risk of chronic conditions including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, eurodegenerative disease, depression, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Maplewood, MO physical therapists allow you to come back and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention professionals can help preserve your active lifestyle by improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. All of our treatment plans, for both recovery and injury prevention, are based on evidence-backed techniques and are personalized to 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 nearest you in Maplewood, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can continue with your active lifestyle, read on below or inquire about an appointment at your earliest convenience.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Maplewood, MO

Injuries generally happen for one of two reasons:

1. Repetitive motion 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 such as raquetball or volleyball players, with joint pain usually being the first indicator.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, for example 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.

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in Maplewood, 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 common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to maintaining healthy joints and reducing injury. Imbalance can result in an overreliance on one set of muscles, which may cause your body to force it to participate in an activity it shouldn’t. It also prevents you from having ideal posture, and the weaker set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher probability of injury. Muscle imbalance can refer to poor muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong chest and weak back, or within muscle groups, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff not having proportionate strength. Muscle imbalance can result in:

• Muscle weakness
• Muscle inflexibility
• Poor muscle recruitment
• Coordination deficiency

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

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and lead to your body bending in unnatural ways, increasing your risk of injury. It can be caused by a variety of musculoskeletal issues. It can lead to:

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

When you first see our injury prevention professionals in Maplewood, MO, we’ll go over your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, together with your physician or any additional providers involved in your care, we’ll come up with a tailored plan of attack been proven to work through research and studies to get your movement health to reach its potential.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people who spend a lot of time doing the same activity. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can have postural dysfunction when at lest, using the computer, or in specific stances they need to be in for a given activity. Healthy posture refers to proper positioning of the different joints and muscles of your body 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 has a negative affect on our body’s ability to communicate with itself and achieve ideal movement health. Symptoms include:

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

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

Injury Prevention Techniques in Maplewood, 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 things you can do to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• Take breaks — 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 allow your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you’re moderately active, rest for the rest of the day after an activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
• Use the appropriate equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries such as bruises or head injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or muscle, tendon, or ligament, your Maplewood, MO physician or physical therapist may suggest stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other methods like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further protection.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the rigors of heavy activity. Our Maplewood, MO injury prevention experts will work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you want to participate in.
• Enhance flexibility — Stretching achieves three important things for injury prevention:
  1. It boosts which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which allows for your soft tissue to handle more drastic positions.
  2. It enhances circulation, which allows for nourishing blood to flow to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and fortifying the muscles.
  3. It encourages good posture, which we already know is an is one of the most important factors of injury prevention.

  According to studies, sports like soccer that include dynamic motions require soft tissue flexible enough to perform those movements. Stretching and warm up exercises before games or training further helps prevent injuries.

• Use correct technique — In every physical activity, there are accepted techniques to use. These techniques not only help you get be the best player you can be but help prevent injuries by not forcing your body into unnatural positions and movements. Football players are taught to tackle with the shoulder in order to reduce the risk of brain damage, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and educate you on how to both improve your performance and prevent injury.
• Listen to your body — If a part of your body is sore, that’s your body’s way of telling you something isn’t right. If you feel a sudden pop or grinding sensation, stop immediately and seek proportional medical care. If your body does not feel well enough for an intense training session, don’t force it.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that plays through pain, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could make that injury worse and leave you on the sidelines for much longer than if you had sat out at the time of the injury. Depending on what caused your injury and how severe it is, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, visiting your doctor, and a series of physical therapy sessions to ensure your body heals naturally and can withstand a return to physical activity.
• Follow the rules — Many sports have special rules at different levels 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 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 always advisable to have a medical evaluation before a new season or starting up a new physical activity. During your appointment, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a expert physical therapist in Maplewood, MO is a good idea for you. All of our techniques have been proven to help athletes remain healthy, and you plan will be completely unique to you and catered to your age, your injury history, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Maplewood, MO

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for more than 3 million urgent care admissions and more than 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that being physical active can go a long way in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions like 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 soft tissue and joints healthy. While older adults typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, appropriate strength, balance, flexibility, and optimal posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Maplewood, 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

Maplewood, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury 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 licensed Maplewood, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to guide you through your own personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body as safe and healthy as can be, and your mind confident that you can safely return to the activities you love doing most. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Request an appointment online or call the location nearest you to find out more about what our Maplewood, MO injury prevention experts can do for you.