Injury Prevention in Saint Paul, MO. Whether you play a sport and are hoping for a shot at the next level, or a recent retiree who wants to spend more time taking ski vacations, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our licensed Saint Paul, 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 movement, muscle and joint strength, and flexibility to teach out exercises that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Schedule an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or reach out to the location most convenient for you.

Being physically active is an essential part of many Saint Paul, MO people’s lives. We love active endeavors like playing sports, playing golf, and more. Additionally, pursuing an active lifestyle helps prevent significant health problems such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, degenerative brain diseases, mental health issues, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Saint Paul, MO physical therapists help you come back and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention experts can help you reduce the risk of further injury by improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. 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 level of activity they want to reach.

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 Saint Paul, MO for a free injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your active lifestyle, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in Saint Paul, MO

Injuries generally fall into two categories:

1. Repetitive motion injuries are injuries that occur when a part of the body repeats the same motion time and time again. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes athletes who are required to repeat throwing or striking motions, with joint pain usually being the first warning sign.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, broken bones, and dislocations.

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

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Saint Paul, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally occur 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 common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can cause overemphasis for one set of muscles, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also causes posture dysfunction, and the weaker set of muscles will be pushed past its limit, resulting in failure and a higher probability of injury. Injuries can be caused by poor muscle balance between 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 having different levels of strength. Symptoms include:

• Muscle weakness
• Muscle inflexibility
• Poor muscle recruitment
• Poor coordination

Tailored injury prevention with our licensed physical therapists in Saint Paul, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and lead to your body moving in ways it is not designed to, increasing your risk of injury. It can be caused by many different musculoskeletal issues. It can cause injury through:

• Joint mobility limitations
• Muscle imbalance
• Coordination deficits
• Decreased balance

At our first injury prevention appointment in Saint Paul, MO, we’ll go through your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, in concert with with your physician or any additional providers involved in your treatment, we’ll devise a personalized treatment plan based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people with desk jobs. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can be affected by postural dysfunction when lying down, using the computer, or in specific body positions necessary for a given activity. Good posture means correct positioning 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 compact the bones of the spine, which disrupts communication between your brain and body and makes it challenging to attain ideal motion health. It causes injuries through:

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

By guiding you to correct posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring muscle balance, flexibility, and that your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.

How to Prevent Injury in Saint Paul, 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 things you can do to make sure your body is prepared for your intended activity:

• 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 signal to your body to engage in its natural healing processes. If you’re moderately active, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so your body doesn’t become too fatigued.
• Use the right equipment — Helmets, chin straps, elbow pads, and other recommended equipment in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries like contusions or concussions. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or soft tissue, your Saint Paul, MO doctor or injury prevention expert may fit you for stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other methods like tying your shoes tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Strengthen muscles — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them stand up to the rigors of heavy activity. In your personalized injury prevention program with our experienced Saint Paul, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to achieve ideal muscle balance and strengthen the often forgotten muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you love.
• Improve flexibility — Stretching accomplishes three important things for injury prevention:
  1. It boosts which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adjust to more forceful movements.
  2. It boosts circulation, which carries nourishing blood to your muscles, removing waste byproduct and rebuilding the muscles.
  3. It boosts your posture, which we already know is an is one of the most important aspects of injury prevention.

  According to research, sports like soccer that include dynamic movements require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to incorporate and expel the high levels of energy required. Also, don’t forget to stretch and warm up before any physical activity 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 athlete you can be but help reduce the risk of injury. Football players learn to tackle a certain way to reduce the risk of a concussion, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to capture how you move and analyze how to both improve your performance and reduce your risk of injury.
• Listen to your body — 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 withdraw from the 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 gritting through pain is often viewed as a heroic act among competitors, playing with soft tissue or structural damage 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 the nature of your injury, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, seeing urgent care, and scheduling appointments with a physical therapist to ensure your body heals naturally and can handle a return to physical activity.
• Play by the rules — Most sports have special rules at different levels to reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for leading with the helmet in football, rules against slide-tackling in soccer, and even the existence of special lanes on the street and sidewalk for bikers are examples of rules that leagues enacted to keep participants safe. 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 activity or training regimen. While there, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a expert physical therapist in Saint Paul, 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 your age, any previous injuries, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for Older Saint Paul, MO Adults

Falls in the elderly accounted 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 effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints healthy. While seniors typically do not exert themselves as much as an athlete does, healthy strength, stability, flexibility, and good posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Saint Paul, MO include:

• Shin Splint Treatment
• Direct Access Physical Therapy
• Gait Analysis
• Pelvic Floor Therapy
• Dry Needling Near Me
• Tendonitis Treatment
• Manual Physical Therapy
• Orthopedic Rehab Near Me
• Beginner Running Program
• Chronic Pain Treatment

Saint Paul, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in one of your favorite activities causes a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same exultation. The professional Saint Paul, 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 at ease 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 contact the location nearest you to see what our Saint Paul, MO injury prevention professionals can do for you.