Mehlville, MO

Mehlville, MO

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

Injury Prevention in Mehlville, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or are entering your golden years and want to dedicate your time to camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our licensed Mehlville, 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 guide you through exercises that are proven to prevent injury. Request an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location most convenient for you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Mehlville, MO residents. We love activities such as playing sports, biking, or other physical activities. Furthermore, pursuing an active lifestyle reduces the risk of significant health problems like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, anxiety, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Mehlville, MO physical therapists help you come back even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention specialists can help you reduce the risk of further injury by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our treatment plans, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, are based on evidence-backed techniques and are developed uniquely 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 nearest you in Mehlville, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your active lifestyle, read on below or inquire about an appointment at your earliest convenience.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Mehlville, MO

Injuries typically fall into two categories:

  1. Repetitive demand injuries are injuries happen gradually as a body part degrades because of repetitive movements. They are common in overhead athletes such as softball or quarterbacks, with joint pain usually being the first indicator.
  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, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, such as rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, such as ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, with a sudden impact to the knee.

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

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

While injuries can happen in a variety of circumstances, and some are unpreventable, they generally occur because of dysfunction or imbalance and your body and between body parts. There are three main causes of why your body cannot adjust to an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to maintaining healthy joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can lead to dependency on one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It can also lead to poor posture, and one set of muscles becoming fatigued faster, making them more susceptible to injuries. Muscle imbalance applies to inadequate muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or within muscle groups, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff having different levels of strength. Symptoms include:

Tailored injury prevention with our certified physical therapists in Mehlville, MO will ensure that your muscles are at optimal proportional strength.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, causing injury. Neurological issues, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can lead to:

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

At our initial injury prevention appointment in Mehlville, MO, we’ll go over your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, in tandem with with your doctor or any other medical professionals involved in your care, we’ll design a customized plan of attack been proven to work by research and studies to get your movement health to reach its potential.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect 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 certain stances necessary for a given activity. Optimal posture means correct alignments of the neck, torso, pelvis, and extremities in a way that does not remove the spine from its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the vertebrae closer together, which has a negative affect on our body’s ability to communicate with itself and reach optimal movement health. Symptoms include:

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

By guiding you to good posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring you are using your muscles equally, your flexibility is not jeopardized, and your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.



Keys to Injury Prevention in Mehlville, 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 several steps you can take to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

  • 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 encourage your body to engage in its natural healing processes. If you have a more modest activity level, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
  • Wear protective equipment — Helmets, shin guards, protective eyewear, and other required equipment in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries like cuts or brain injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or soft tissue, your Mehlville, MO physician or injury prevention specialist may recommend braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the affected area. Other methods like tying your cleats tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
  • Improve muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the force and torque of heavy activity. In your tailored injury prevention program with our professional Mehlville, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the often forgotten muscles needed 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 which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which allows for your tendons and ligaments to adapt to more extreme movements.
    2. It boosts blood flow, which carries nutrient-rich blood to your soft tissue, eliminating waste byproduct and re-energizing the muscles.
    3. It encourages good posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is an essential part of injury prevention.

    According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like soccer that include sudden twists and movements require soft tissue compliant enough to perform those movements. Also, it’s important to stretch and warm up before any physical activity to further reduce the risk of injury.

  • Use correct technique — Through the years, each sport and physical activity develops a consensus of the best techniques to use. These techniques not only improve performance but help prevent injuries. Football players are taught to tackle a certain way to avoid a head injury, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best apply torque to your body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and educate you on how to improve it.
  • Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, 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 training session, don’t force it.
  • Don’t play through an injury — While gutting it out through pain is often viewed as a heroic act among competitors, 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 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, seeing your doctor, and rehab with a physical therapist to ensure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
  • Play by the rules — Many sports have special rules at different levels to help prevent injury. Penalties for helmet to helmet hits in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the presence of bike lanes are all rules that were adopted 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 a good idea to get a physical before another season begins or committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Mehlville, MO is right 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 how old you are, any previous injuries, and how physically active you wish to be.

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

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Mehlville, MO

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for over 3 million emergency room visits and over 34,000 deaths. Studies show that physical activity can go a long way in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that accumulate over time can be more bearable and take longer to progress with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints active. While seniors typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, the same principles of strength, stability, flexibility, and correct posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Mehlville, MO include:

Mehlville, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in in an activity you prepare and train for and love causes a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same exultation. The professional Mehlville, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to guide you through your own personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body prepared for the rigors of physical activity, and your mind at ease that you can safely return to the activities you love. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Make an appointment online or call the location nearest you to find out more about what our Mehlville, MO injury prevention experts 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
  • Spine Specialty – Certified Manual Therapy
  • Trigger Point Dry Needling
  • Free Injury Screenings
  • Kinesio Taping®
  • Blood Flow Restriction Therapy
  • Certified Wellness Coaching

Our Team

Stephen Brunjes
OTR/L, CEAS
Brian Wahlig
Front Office Supervisor
Sarah Schroeder
MOTR/L, CHT, Astym Cert
Mandy Carter
MSPT, CMPT, ATC, CWC
Ray Bauer
Clinic Director, MSPT, CMPT

Locations

Begin Your Recovery Today

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