Villa Ridge, MO

Villa Ridge, MO

Don't let a mental block over reinjury prevent you from participating in the activities you love.

Injury Prevention in Villa Ridge, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to improve your performance, or a recent retiree who wants to dedicate your time to being physical fit, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our certified Villa Ridge, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to recover from injury, we are complete movement health specialists 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 contact the location most convenient for you.

Being physically active is vitally important to many Villa Ridge, MO residents. We love activities like playing sports, swimming, and more. Additionally, pursuing an active lifestyle reduces the risk of significant health problems like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, degenerative brain diseases, mental health issues, and certain cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Villa Ridge, MO physical therapists help you return to action as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention specialists 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, 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 lingering injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Villa Ridge, 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 at your earliest convenience.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Villa Ridge, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

  1. Repetitive motion injuries are injuries happen gradually as a body part degrades because of repetitive movements. They are common in overhead athletes such as tennis or quarterbacks, with joint pain usually being the first warning sign.
  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, broken bones, and dislocations.

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

Injury Prevention Villa Ridge, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Villa Ridge

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Villa Ridge, MO

While injuries can happen in a variety of circumstances, and are sometimes inescapable, they generally occur because of dysfunction or imbalance and your body and between body parts. There are three chief causes of why your body cannot handle an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to maintaining healthy joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can lead to dependency 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 one set of muscles becoming tired more quickly, increasing the risk of injury. Injuries can be caused by insufficient 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 cause injury through:

Tailored injury prevention with our knowledgeable physical therapists in Villa Ridge, MO will bring balance to your muscles.

Movement Dysfunction

Movement dysfunction can impact your stability and lead to your body bending in unnatural ways, increasing your risk of injury. It can be caused by numerous musculoskeletal issues. It can cause injury through:

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

When you first see our injury prevention professionals in Villa Ridge, 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 providers treating you, we’ll devise a customized plan of attack been proven to work by research and studies to get your movement back on track.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect 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 a given activity. Optimal posture refers to proper positioning of the neck, torso, pelvis, and extremities in a way that encourages our spine to stay in its natural curves. Poor posture can bring the bones of the spine closer together, which disrupts our body’s internal communications and makes it challenging to reach the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It can also lead to:

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

Good posture is a vital part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, flexibility, and that your spine is in its natural position.



Injury Prevention Methods in Villa Ridge, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything you could to prevent one. No one precaution is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are precautions to make sure your body is strong and flexible enough for your intended activity:

  • Take a rest — 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 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 muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
  • Use the right equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, protective eyewear, and other required equipment in sports and other activities helps you avoid injuries such as contusions or head injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or muscle, tendon, or ligament, your Villa Ridge, MO physician or physical therapist may recommend braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize the affected area. Other techniques like tying your athletic footwear tightly offers further stabilization.
  • Strengthen muscles — Strengthening soft tissue helps it stand up to the rigors your body is put through in sports and other activities. Our Villa Ridge, MO injury prevention professionals will work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the smaller muscles needed to safely participate in the activities you love.
  • Improve flexibility — Increasing your flexibility achieves three important things for injury prevention:
    1. It improves your range of motion, which allows for your soft tissue to adapt to more extreme movements.
    2. It boosts 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 we already know is an an essential part of injury prevention.

    According to research, sports like basketball that necessitate bouncing and jumping require muscles and tendons with sufficient flexibility to store and expel the high amount of energy required. 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 with the shoulder in order to reduce the risk of a concussion, and swimmers learn the proper strokes to make sure their muscles are moving unnaturally. We use DorsaVi video motion analysis to break down your movement and evaluate 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, that’s your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. If you feel something suddenly that doesn’t feel right, immediately withdraw from the activity and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t holing up well in 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 guts it out through pain, playing with soft tissue or structural damage could aggravate an existing injury and put you out of commission for longer than it originally would have. Depending on what caused your injury and how severe it is, 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 properly and can withstand a return to physical activity.
  • 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 helmet to helmet hits in football, rules against head-first sliding in baseball, and even the presence of bike lanes are examples of rules that were adopted to keep players safe. There’s a reason those rules exist, and a reason that violations of those rules are punished.
  • Speak a professional physical therapist — It’s in your best interest to get a physical before another season begins or starting up a new activity or training regimen. During your appointment, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Villa Ridge, MO is a good idea for you. All of our techniques have been proven to reduce the risk of injury, and we’ll personalize your program to your age, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention Villa Ridge, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Villa Ridge

Injury Prevention for Older Villa Ridge, MO Adults

Falls in the elderly accounted for over 3 million emergency room visits and more than 34,000 deaths. Studies show that physical activity is invaluable in preventing falls. Other conditions that limit mobility such as arthritis that are wear and tear injuries 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, appropriate strength, balance, flexibility, and correct posture can greatly aid in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Villa Ridge, MO include:

Villa Ridge, 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 exhilaration. The knowledgeable Villa Ridge, 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 doing most. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Make an appointment online or contact the location nearest you to discover what our Villa Ridge, MO injury prevention professionals can do for you.

Services Offered

Services Offered
  • Physical Therapy
    • Pre/Post Surgical Rehabilitation
    • Acute Injury Management
    • Chronic Injury Management
  • Certified Hand Therapy
  • Advanced Work Rehabilitation
  • Functional Capacity Evaluations
  • Sports Physical Therapy
  • Pediatric Orthopedic Physical Therapy
  • Geriatric Physical Therapy
  • Vestibular Therapy
  • Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization
  • Spine Specialty – Certified Manual Therapy
  • Free Injury Screenings
  • Kinesio Taping®
  • Blood Flow Restriction Therapy (BFR)

Our Team

Stephen Brunjes
OTR/L, CEAS
Danielle O’Rando
Front Office
Sharon Titter
Clinic Director, MPT

Locations

Begin Your Recovery Today

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