Maplewood, MO

Maplewood, MO

Don't let the fear of reinjury keep you from the things what you do best.

Injury Prevention in Maplewood, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or a recent retiree who wants to spend more time being physical fit, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you desire. While our licensed Maplewood, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to heal after an injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to guide you through methods that are proven to reduce the risk of injury by preparing your body for the stressors of your desired activity. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location most convenient for you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Maplewood, MO residents. Many of us participate in active endeavors like playing sports, swimming, and more. Furthermore, committing to an active lifestyle helps prevent significant health problems such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, anxiety, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Maplewood, MO physical therapists allow you to come back even stronger after an injury, 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 healing from and preventing injury, are proven to be effective and are customized for 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 most convenient for you in Maplewood, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your sport or hobby, keep reading or inquire about an appointment at your earliest convenience.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Maplewood, MO

Injuries generally fall into two categories:

  1. Chronic injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. They are common in overhead athletes such as raquetball or soccer goalies, with joint pain usually being the first symptom.
  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, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, like 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 Maplewood, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Maplewood

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Maplewood, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally happen because your muscles, ligaments, tendons, bones, and joints cannot handle the force, torque, or stretching that they are subjected to in a given movement or collision. There are three common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is key to supporting joints and reducing 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 muscles will become tired more quickly, increasing the risk of injury. Injuries can be caused by poor muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or within muscle groups, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Muscle imbalance can cause injury through:

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

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and lead to your body bending in unnatural ways, causing injury. It can be caused by a variety of musculoskeletal issues. Symptoms include:

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

When you initially see our injury prevention specialists in Maplewood, 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 providers treating you, we’ll create a personalized plan of attack been proven to work through research and studies to get your body moving as it should.

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 lying down, driving, or in specific stances they need to be in for a given activity. Healthy posture refers to correct 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 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 causes injuries through:

  • Muscle weakness
  • Muscle imbalance
  • Poor positioning
  • Joint mobility limitations
  • 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 can be improved and maintained, and your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.



How to Prevent Injury in Maplewood, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything possible to reduce that risk. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are precautions 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, one or two rest days a week will encourage your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you have a more modest activity level, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
  • Wear the appropriate equipment — Helmets, shin guards, elbow pads, and other equipment necessary in many sports can help prevent injuries like rashes 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 fit you for stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other measures like tying your shoes tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
  • Increase muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the force and torque necessary for in sports and other activities. Our Maplewood, MO injury prevention experts will work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the often forgotten muscles needed to be able to avoid injury in the activities you want to participate in.
  • Increase flexibility — Stretching accomplishes three critical things for injury prevention:
    1. It increases your range of motion, which lets for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adjust to more extreme positions.
    2. It enhances blood flow, which allows for nourishing blood to flow to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and reinvigorating the muscles.
    3. It encourages good posture, which, as you read earlier, is an essential part of injury prevention.

    According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like basketball that require dynamic activities require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to store and expel the high amount of energy required. 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 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 a certain way to avoid a concussion, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and educate you on how to both improve your performance and prevent injury.
  • 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 isn’t right. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, immediately stop all physical activity and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body isn’t feeling up to a particularly rigorous workout, don’t force it.
  • Don’t play through an injury — While teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate an athlete that plays through pain, playing with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could make that injury worse 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, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, seeing your doctor, and a series of physical therapy sessions 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 to help prevent injury. Penalties for targeting in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the presence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers 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 professional physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to see a doctor before a new season or committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. During your visit, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a experienced physical therapist in Maplewood, MO is a good idea for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated to reduce the risk of injury, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, any previous injuries, and how physically active you wish to be.

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

Injury Prevention for Older Maplewood, MO Adults

Falls in adults over 65 were responsible for over 3 million emergency room visits and over 34,000 deaths. Studies show that being physical active is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions like arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints healthy. While the physical demands for older adults may not be as high as an athlete, healthy strength, stability, flexibility, and optimal posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Maplewood, MO include:

Maplewood, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in something you love doing can lead to a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same freedom. The professional Maplewood, 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 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 do not want to lose. Make an appointment online or call the location nearest you to get started with one of our injury prevention specialists in Maplewood, MO.

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

Antoinette Ghoston
Front Office
John Teepe
Partner, MPT
Jennifer Szydlowski
Clinic Director, PT, CMPT

Locations

Begin Your Recovery Today

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