Injury Prevention in St. Louis, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or a recent retiree who wants to spend more time camping, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the happy, healthy lifestyle you desire. While our certified St. Louis, 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 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 reach out to the location nearest you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many St. Louis, MO residents. We love activities like playing sports, biking, or other physical activities. Additionally, pursuing an active lifestyle helps prevent chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, eurodegenerative disease, anxiety, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed St. Louis, MO physical therapists allow you to come back and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention experts can help keep you active by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our treatment plans, for both recovery and injury prevention, have been prove to work 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 nagging injury that is not getting better with time, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in St. Louis, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your active lifestyle, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in St. Louis, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

1. Repetitive demand injuries are injuries that occur when a part of the body repeats the same motion time and time again. They are common in overhead athletes such as water polo or volleyball players and typically reveal themselves with joint pain.
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, 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, such as ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, with an immediate impact to or twisting of the knee.

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in St. Louis, 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 main causes of why your body cannot handle an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is crucial to supporting joints and preventing injury. Imbalance can cause an overreliance on one set of muscles, which may cause your body to use it in a way it shouldn’t. It can also lead to poor posture, and the weaker muscles will become fatigued more quickly, increasing the risk of injury. Injuries can be caused by inadequate 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

Customized injury prevention with our experienced physical therapists in St. Louis, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, increasing your risk of injury. It can be caused by many different musculoskeletal issues. It can lead to:

• Joint mobility limitations
• Muscle imbalance
• Coordination deficiency
• Reduced balance

At our initial injury prevention appointment in St. Louis, MO, we’ll go over your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, in concert with with your doctor or any additional providers involved in your treatment, we’ll create a customized game plan based on empirically-backed research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people who sit a lot. People who play sports and other physically active people can be affected by postural dysfunction when resting, sitting, or in specific body positions related to their sport. Optimal posture refers to proper positioning of the different joints and muscles of your body in a way that keeps the spine within 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 attain optimal motion health. It causes injuries through:

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

Good posture is an important part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, flexibility, and that your nervous system can communicate as its intended to.

Keys to Injury Prevention in St. Louis, 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 precautions to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

• Take a rest — 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 signal to your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you have a more moderate activity level, take a break for the few hours after an activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
• Wear protective equipment — Helmets, chest guards, safety pads and guards, and other required equipment in many sports can help prevent injuries like cuts or concussions. If you’ve had a previous injury, your St. Louis, MO physician or physical therapist may recommend braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the injured area. Other measures like tying your athletic footwear tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
• Improve muscle strength — Strengthening your muscles, tendons, and ligaments helps them withstand the force and torque your body is put through in sports and other activities. Our St. Louis, MO injury prevention professionals will work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the often forgotten muscles needed to be able to avoid injury in the activities you love.
• Improve flexibility — Increasing your flexibility contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It improves your range of motion, which allows for your soft tissue to handle more extreme movements.
  2. It enhances blood flow, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your soft tissue, removing waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to heal.
  3. It encourages good posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is is one of the most important factors of injury prevention.

  According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like basketball that require sudden twists and movements require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to perform those movements. Stretching and warm up exercises before games or training further helps prevent injuries.

• Use proper technique — In every physical activity, there are accepted techniques to use. These techniques not only help you perform better but help reduce the risk of injury. 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 slow down your movement and evaluate how to improve it.
• Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If a part of your body is sore, 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, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — While playing through pain is often seen as commendable among competitors, 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 the severity of your injury, you may use methods like the R.I.C.E. method, visiting an emergency room, and rehab with a physical therapist to make sure your body heals naturally and can withstand the activity you want to return to.
• Follow the rules — Depending on the sport or activity and age level of the participants, it likely has special rules to reduce the risk of injury. Penalties for targeting 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 put in place to keep participants safe. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
• Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s always advisable to see a doctor before starting another season or committing yourself to any strenuous activity or training regimen. While there, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a experienced physical therapist in St. Louis, MO is right for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been proven to help athletes remain healthy, and you plan will be completely unique to you and catered to how old you are, your injury history, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention for Older St. Louis, MO Adults

Falls in the elderly accounted for over 3 million emergency room admissions and over 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that being physical active is invaluable in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be effectively managed with physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue and joints healthy. 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 St. Louis, MO include:

• Hip Replacement Physical Therapy
• Workers Comp' Physical Therapy
• Migraine Relief
• Sprain and Strain Treatment
• Geriatric Physical Therapy
• Injury Rehabilitation
• Pain Management Services
• TMJ Treatment
• Herniated Disc Treatment
• Rotator Cuff Tear Treatment

St. Louis, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in one of your favorite activities can create a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same exhilaration. The licensed St. Louis, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to develop your personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body strong and flexible, and your mind at ease that you do not have to fear going back to what you love. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you do not want to lose. Make an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to discover what our St. Louis, MO injury prevention specialists can do for you.