Valles Mines, MO

Valles Mines, MO

Don't let the fear of reinjury prevent you from participating in the things what you do best.

Injury Prevention in Valles Mines, MO. Whether you play a sport and are trying to get a shot at the next level, 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 deserve. While our certified Valles Mines, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to heal after an injury, we are complete movement health specialists who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move to teach out exercises that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Make an appointment at Axes Physical Therapy today or call the location most convenient for you.

Physical activity is vitally important to many Valles Mines, MO residents. Many of us participate in activities like playing sports, playing golf, and more. Furthermore, pursuing an active lifestyle reduces the risk of significant health problems including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, degenerative brain diseases, mental health issues, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Valles Mines, MO physical therapists allow you to come back and perform even better than before, but our injury prevention experts can help preserve your active lifestyle by optimizing your overall movement health. All of our treatment plans, both when helping restore motion health and when looking to improve it, have been prove to work and are personalized to each client and the level of activity they want to reach.

If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or have a lingering injury that won’t heal on its own, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Valles Mines, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can keep up with your active lifestyle, keep reading or inquire about an appointment at your earliest convenience.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Valles Mines, MO

Injuries generally happen for one of two reasons:

  1. Wear-and-tear injuries are injuries happen gradually as a body part degrades because of repetitive movements. In sports, we see them the most in in overhead athletes athletes who use throwing or striking motions and typically reveal themselves with joint pain.
  2. Acute injuries are sudden and spontaneous. Examples include falling or a sudden impact by an object or another person. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, fractures, and dislocations.

Some of the injuries we see most frequently, for example rotator cuff tears, can result from either overuse or acute trauma. Other injuries, like ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

Injury Prevention Valles Mines, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Valles Mines

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Valles Mines, 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 main causes of why your body cannot adjust to an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is key to maintaining healthy joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can result in dependency on one muscle group, 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 likelihood of injury. Injuries can be caused by insufficient muscle balance between muscle groups, such as having a strong bicep and weak tricep, or in the same muscle group, such as an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Muscle imbalance can result in:

Personalized injury prevention with our knowledgeable physical therapists in Valles Mines, MO will ensure that your muscles are at optimal proportional strength.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and lead to your body bending in unnatural ways, increasing your risk of injury. Neurological issues, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. Symptoms include:

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

When you first visit our injury prevention experts in Valles Mines, MO, we’ll discuss your medical records and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, in tandem with with your physician or any other medical professionals involved in your care, we’ll create a tailored 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 slouched shoulders. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can have postural dysfunction when resting, driving, or in specific stances they need to be in for their sport. Optimal posture means correct positioning of the different joints and muscles of your body in a way that does not remove the spine from its natural curves. Poor posture can compact the bones of the spine, which has a negative affect on our body’s ability to communicate with itself and attain the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It causes injuries through:

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

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



Injury Prevention Techniques in Valles Mines, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything you could to reduce that risk. No one technique is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are things you can do to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your desired activity level:

  • Take a rest — 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 encourage your body to naturally heal any mild pain or soreness. If you’re moderately active, relax for the rest of the day after an activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
  • Wear the correct equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, protective eyewear, and other required equipment 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 soft tissue, your Valles Mines, MO physician or injury prevention expert may recommend 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 of heavy activity. In your tailored injury prevention program with our expert Valles Mines, MO physical therapists, we’ll work to build up your body to safely participate in the activities you love.
  • Improve flexibility — Stretching contributes to injury prevention in three way:
    1. It increases your range of motion, which lets for your tendons and ligaments to adjust to more extreme movements.
    2. It improves circulation, which carries nourishing blood to your muscles, eliminating waste byproduct and fortifying the muscles.
    3. It boosts your posture, which we already know is an an important part of injury prevention.

    According to research, sports like basketball that include sudden twists and movements require soft tissue flexible enough to perform those movements. Also, it’s important to stretch and warm up before games or training to further reduce the risk of injury.

  • Use accepted technique — Through the years, each sport and physical activity develops a consensus of the best techniques to use. These techniques not only help you perform better 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 avoid a head injury, 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.
  • Don’t ignore what your body is telling you — If a part of your body is sore, that’s your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, stop immediately and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body isn’t feeling up to a particularly rigorous training session, save it for another day.
  • Don’t play through an injury — While teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate an athlete that plays through pain, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could make that injury worse and leave you off the field or court for much longer than if you had sat out at the time of the injury. Depending on the severity of your injury, recommended actions may be using 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 — 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 coming from behind in soccer, and even the existence of bike lanes are all rules put in place to prevent injuries to ourselves and others. Those were enacted for a reason, and there’s a reason that there are penalties for them.
  • Consult a professional physical therapist — It’s always advisable to see a doctor before another season begins or starting up a new physical activity. While there, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a knowledgeable physical therapist in Valles Mines, MO is something you should consider. All of our techniques have been demonstrated to help athletes remain healthy, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, your injury history, and how physically active you wish to be.

Injury Prevention Valles Mines, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Valles Mines

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in Valles Mines, MO

Falls in senior citizens accounted for more than 3 million emergency room admissions and more than 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that being physical active can go a long way in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions like arthritis that accumulate over time can be effectively managed 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, the same principles of strength, balance, flexibility, and proper posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Valles Mines, MO include:

Valles Mines, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Being injured in in an activity you prepare and train for and love can create a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same exhilaration. The experienced Valles Mines, 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 can safely return to the activities you love doing most. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Schedule an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to find out more about what our Valles Mines, MO injury prevention professionals can do for you.

Services Offered

Services Offered
  • Physical Therapy
    • Pre/Post Surgical Rehabilitation
    • Acute Injury Management
    • Chronic Injury Management
  • Occupational Therapy
    • Certified Hand Therapy
  • Work Conditioning/Hardening
  • Functional Capacity Evaluations
  • Vestibular Therapy and Post-Concussion Rehabilitation
  • Sports Physical Therapy
  • Trigger Point Dry Needling
  • Pediatric Orthopedic Physical Therapy
  • Geriatric Orthopedic Physical Therapy
  • Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization (IASTYM)
  • Spine Specialty – Manual Therapy Certified
  • Free Injury Screenings
  • Kinesio Taping®
  • Blood Flow Restriction Therapy

Our Team

Stephen Brunjes
OTR/L, CEAS
Mary McKinney
Front Office
Kaila Mikesch
Clinic Director, PT, DPT, CMPT
Eric Meyer
Assistant Clinic Director, PT, DPT, CMPT
Haley Finnegan
OTR/L, CHT
Ernie Goddard
Partner, PT
Natalie Carter
PT, DPT, Astym. Cert.
Emma Witte
PTA, ASTYM Cert.
Kelly Barnes
Physical Therapist
Jennifer Zweigart
Front Office
Shannon Blum
PTA, ATC
Jennifer Chura
Front Office

Locations

Begin Your Recovery Today

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