Injury Prevention in St. Peters, MO. Whether you play a sport and are trying to get a shot at the next level, or are entering your golden years and want to dedicate your time to being physical fit, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our licensed St. Peters, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to recover from injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to show you methods that are proven to prevent injury. 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. Peters, MO residents. Many of us participate in active endeavors such as playing sports, biking, or other physical activities. Furthermore, pursuing an active lifestyle reduces the risk of chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, degenerative brain diseases, depression, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed St. Peters, MO physical therapists allow you to come back as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention professionals can help keep you active by improving your overall strength, flexibility, and posture. All of our treatment plans, for both recovery and injury prevention, are based on evidence-backed techniques and are personalized to each client and the activities they want to return to.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a persistent injury that won’t heal on its own, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in St. Peters, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and protect your sport or hobby, keep reading or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

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

Most injuries 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 athletes who use throwing or striking motions, with joint pain usually being the first indicator.
2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, for example rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, for example ACL tears, are almost always the result of trauma, with a sudden impact to the knee.

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in St. Peters, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally occur because your soft tissue, bones, and joints cannot hold up under 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 crucial to maintaining healthy joints and reducing injury. Imbalance can lead to dependency on one set of muscles, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It can also lead to poor posture, and one set of muscles becoming tired sooner, increasing the risk of injury. Injuries can be caused by inadequate muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong hamstring and weak quadriceps, or within muscle groups, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff having different levels of strength. Symptoms include:

• Muscle weakness
• Muscle inflexibility
• Poor muscle recruitment
• Coordination deficiency

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

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can result in poor balance and impede your body’s ability to naturally perform functional movements, 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
• Poor coordination
• Lessened balance

At our first injury prevention appointment in St. Peters, MO, we’ll go over your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, in tandem with with your physician or any additional medical professionals involved in your care, we’ll come up with a tailored game plan been proven to work through research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture is not just an issue for people with desk jobs. People who play sports and others with active lifestyles can have postural dysfunction when at lest, sitting, or in certain stances related to their sport. Correct 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 achieve 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 vertebrae remain in place.

How to Prevent Injury in St. Peters, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything you could 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 a rest — Injuries are more common when you do not give your body time to restore itself. If you have a very high activity level, one or two rest days a week will signal to your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you’re moderately active, take it easy after activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
• Wear protective equipment — Helmets, chin straps, protective eyewear, and other equipment necessary in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries like cuts or head injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or muscle, tendon, or ligament, your St. Peters, MO physician or injury prevention specialist may advise stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other methods like making sure all the equipment is snug offers further protection.
• Increase muscle strength — 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 customized injury prevention program with our licensed St. Peters, 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.
• Increase flexibility — Increasing your flexibility contributes to injury prevention in three way:
  1. It boosts which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which allows for your tendons and ligaments to adjust to more forceful movements.
  2. It increases circulation, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and re-energizing the muscles.
  3. It encourages good posture, which, as we’ve discussed, is an important part of injury prevention.

  According to research, sports like soccer that include dynamic activities require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to store and release the high levels of energy required. Also, it’s important to stretch and warm up before games or training to further reduce the risk of injury.

• Use accepted technique — In every sport, there is an accepted way to position and move your body. These techniques not only improve performance but help reduce the risk of injury. Football players learn to tackle with the shoulder in order to reduce the risk of brain damage, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to make sure their muscles are moving unnaturally. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and analyze how to both be a better athlete and prevent injury.
• 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 isn’t feeling up to a particularly rigorous workout, save it for another day.
• Don’t play through an injury — Even though teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that plays through pain, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could aggravate an existing injury and leave you off the field or court for longer than it originally would have. Depending on the nature of your injury, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, visiting your doctor, and scheduling appointments with a physical therapist to make sure 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 leading with the helmet in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the presence 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 there are penalties for them.
• Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to have a medical evaluation before another season begins or committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. While there, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in St. Peters, MO is a good idea for you. All of our techniques have been demonstrated to help athletes remain healthy, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, any previous injuries, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in St. Peters, MO

Falls in senior citizens accounted for more than 3 million urgent care admissions and more than 34,000 deaths. Research demonstrates that physical activity can go a long way in preventing falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be slowed down by physical therapy exercises that keep your soft tissue 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 can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in St. Peters, MO include:

• Physical Therapy Clinic
• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Treatment
• Sciatica Treatment
• Sports Medicine
• Hand Pain Physical Therapy
• Foot & Ankle Pain Treatment
• Hip Pain Treatment
• Plantar Fasciitis Treatment
• Stroke Rehabilitation
• Hip Replacement Physical Therapy

St. Peters, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in in an activity you prepare and train for and love can lead to a mental block that keeps us from experiencing the same exultation. The experienced St. Peters, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to develop your 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. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits that you once valued so much. Make an appointment online or call the location nearest you to learn more about what our St. Peters, MO injury prevention professionals can do for you.