Paulina Hills, MO

Paulina Hills, MO

Don't let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love.

Injury Prevention in Paulina Hills, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, or you just retired and want to dedicate your time to taking ski vacations, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you desire. While our licensed Paulina Hills, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to recover from injury, we are experts in the entire musculoskeletal system who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to guide you through exercises that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location nearest you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Paulina Hills, MO residents. Many of us participate in activities such as playing sports, swimming, and more. Furthermore, keeping an active lifestyle helps stave off serious health problems including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, mental health issues, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Paulina Hills, MO physical therapists help you return to action even stronger after an injury, but our injury prevention experts 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 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 nagging injury that is not getting better with time, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Paulina Hills, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your active lifestyle, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist at your earliest convenience.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Paulina Hills, MO

Injuries typically fall into two categories:

  1. Overuse injuries are injuries that are caused by repetitive movements over time. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes such as baseball or soccer goalies and commonly manifest themselves as joint pain.
  2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen suddenly. Examples include landing on uneven ground or a sudden impact by an object or another person. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, like rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, such as ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, with a sudden impact to the knee.

Injury Prevention Paulina Hills, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Paulina Hills

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Paulina Hills, MO

While injuries can happen in a variety of circumstances, and are sometimes inescapable, they generally occur because your soft tissue, bones, and joints cannot handle the force, torque, or stretching that are required or are possible in a given activity. There are three primary causes of why your body cannot adjust to an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to supporting 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 muscles will become fatigued more quickly, making them more susceptible to injuries. 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. Symptoms include:

Customized injury prevention with our certified physical therapists in Paulina Hills, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance 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 cause injury through:

  • Joint mobility restrictions
  • Muscle imbalance
  • Coordination deficits
  • Reduced balance

When you first visit our injury prevention specialists in Paulina Hills, MO, we’ll go over your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, in tandem with with your doctor or any additional medical professionals involved in your treatment, we’ll come up with a customized plan of attack been proven to work through research and studies to get your movement health to the level you need it to to do what you love.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people with desk jobs. People who play sports and others with active lifestyles can suffer from postural dysfunction when resting, using the computer, or in certain poses necessary for a given activity. Correct posture means proper alignments of your body from your head to your toes in a way that encourages our spine to stay in its natural curves. Poor posture can compress the vertebrae, which disrupts your nervous system and makes it harder to 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 the best practices for posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring muscle balance, range of motion, and that your vertebrae remain in place.



Injury Prevention Best Practices in Paulina Hills, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything possible to prevent one. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are several steps you can take to make sure your body is prepared for your intended activity:

  • Take breaks — Injuries are more common when you do not give your body time to restore itself. 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, take it easy after activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
  • Use protective equipment — Helmets, chin straps, protective eyewear, and other required equipment in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries such as lacerations or head injuries. If you’re returning to activity after an injury, your Paulina Hills, MO doctor or physical therapist may fit you for braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the affected area. Other techniques like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further protection.
  • Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the force and torque your body is put through in sports and other activities. In your personalized injury prevention program with our licensed Paulina Hills, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to build up your body to be able to avoid injury in the activities you love.
  • Enhance 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 the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adapt to more pronounced movements.
    2. It increases circulation, which allows for nourishing blood to flow to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to heal.
    3. It enhances your posture, which we already know is an an important part of injury prevention.

    According to research, sports like soccer that necessitate bouncing and jumping require soft tissue flexible enough to incorporate and exert 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 accepted 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 a head injury, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to use the appropriate muscles. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and educate you on how to improve it.
  • Listen to your body — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, your body is trying to send you a message. If you feel sudden pain, stop immediately 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 an athlete that guts it out through pain, playing with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could exacerbate an existing injury and put you out of commission 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, visiting your doctor, and a series of physical therapy sessions to make sure 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 targeting in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the presence of bike lanes are examples of rules that were adopted to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
  • Consult a professional physical therapist — It’s always advisable 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 knowledgeable physical therapist in Paulina Hills, MO is right for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been proven to help athletes remain healthy, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention Paulina Hills, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Paulina Hills

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Paulina Hills, MO

Falls in the elderly accounted for over 3 million emergency room admissions and over 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates that physical activity is a great method for preventing falls. Other conditions that cause pain like arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be more bearable and take longer to progress 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 ideal posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Paulina Hills, MO include:

Paulina Hills, 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 joy. The knowledgeable Paulina Hills, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to design for you a personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body strong and flexible, and your mind confident that you do not have to fear going back to what 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 reach out to the location nearest you to find out more about what our Paulina Hills, 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
  • 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

Locations

Begin Your Recovery Today

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