Wentzville, MO

Wentzville, MO

Don't let a mental block over reinjury keep you from the activities you love.

Injury Prevention in Wentzville, MO. Whether you’re an athlete and want to up your game, 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 happy, healthy lifestyle you deserve. While our certified Wentzville, MO physical therapists spend much of their time helping athletes and others 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 techniques that are proven to reduce the risk of injury. Request 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 Wentzville, MO people’s lives. Many of us participate in activities such as playing sports, swimming, or other physical activities. Furthermore, committing to an active lifestyle reduces the risk of future health problems such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed Wentzville, MO physical therapists help you 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 methods, for both recovery and injury prevention, are proven to be effective and are customized for each client and the lifestyle they desire.

If you’ve recently sustained an injury, or have a lingering injury that just won’t go away, contact the Axes Physical Therapy location most convenient for you in Wentzville, MO for a complimentary injury screening. To reduce your chance of an injury and ensure that you can continue with your sport or hobby, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist at your earliest convenience.

Injuries Axes PT Can Help Prevent in Wentzville, MO

Injuries typically fall into two categories:

  1. Wear-and-tear 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 use throwing or striking motions and commonly reveal themselves with joint pain.
  2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen in an instant. Examples include landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, twisting joints, broken bones, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, such as 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.

Injury Prevention Wentzville, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Wentzville

What Causes Injuries? | Injury Prevention in Wentzville, MO

While anyone can suffer an injury almost at any time and for numerous different reasons, they generally occur because of dysfunction or instability and your body and between body parts. There are three primary causes of why your body cannot handle an activity:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to maintaining healthy joints and reducing injury. Imbalance can result in dependency on one muscle group, causing it to perform actions it cannot do safely. It also prevents you from having optimal posture, 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 an imbalance between the four muscles of the rotator cuff. Muscle imbalance can result in:

Tailored injury prevention with our professional physical therapists in Wentzville, 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. Neurological issues, inflammation, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can cause injury through:

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

At our initial injury prevention appointment in Wentzville, MO, we’ll go through your medical history and analyze your current movement health, strength, and flexibility. Then, together with your physician or any additional medical professionals involved in your care, we’ll design a customized game plan been proven to work through research and studies to get your body moving as it should.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people with desk jobs. Athletes and others with active lifestyles can have postural dysfunction when lying down, driving, or in certain positions necessary for a given activity. Good posture means proper 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 attain the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It causes injuries through:

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

By helping you understand good posture, we’ll aid in your injury prevention by ensuring you are using the right muscles for the right movements, your flexibility can be improved and maintained, and your vertebrae remain in place.



How to Prevent Injury in Wentzville, MO

You can still suffer an injury even if you did everything you could to reduce that risk. No one precaution is 100% foolproof in injury prevention. However, there are precautions to greatly reduce the risk of injury:

  • Take a rest — Your body needs time to rest and recover after any moderate to intense activity. If you’re heavily active, one or two rest days a week will allow your body to engage in its natural healing and recovery processes. If you have a more moderate activity level, take a break after activity so you don’t overwork your muscles and joints.
  • Use protective equipment — Helmets, mouth guards, elbow pads, and other recommended equipment in many sports can help prevent injuries such as rashes or head injuries. If you’ve already suffered an injury to a joint or soft tissue, your Wentzville, MO physician or injury prevention expert may recommend stabilizing braces or Kinesio Taping®. Other methods like tying your shoes tightly offers further protection.
  • Improve muscle strength — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the force and torque of heavy activity. Our Wentzville, MO injury prevention specialists will work to achieve optimal muscle balance and strengthen the often forgotten muscles needed to be able to stay healthy in the activities you want to participate in.
  • Improve flexibility — Increasing your flexibility contributes to injury prevention in three way:
    1. It enhances your range of motion, which lets for the tendons and ligaments connecting your muscles to your bones to adapt to more extreme movements.
    2. It increases blood flow, which allows for protein-rich blood to flow to your soft tissue, removing waste byproduct and encouraging the muscles to recover.
    3. It encourages good posture, which we already know is an an important part of injury prevention.

    According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like basketball that necessitate dynamic motions require muscles and tendons flexible enough to store and release the high amount of energy required. Also, don’t forget to stretch and warm up before any physical activity to further reduce the risk of injury.

  • Use correct technique — In every sport, there are accepted techniques to use. These techniques not only improve performance but help prevent injuries by not forcing your body into unnatural positions and movements. Football players are taught to tackle a certain way to reduce the risk of a head injury, and rotational athletes like golfers and baseball players learn how to best rotate their body. We utilize DorsaVi video motion analysis to slow down your movement and educate you on how to improve it.
  • 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 isn’t right. If you feel sudden pain, immediately stop all physical activity and get the appropriate medical treatment. If your body isn’t holing up well in a particularly rigorous training session, don’t force it.
  • Don’t play through an injury — Even though teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate a player that plays through pain, forcing your body to perform with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could make that injury worse and leave you on the sidelines for much longer than if you had sat out at the time of the injury. Depending on what caused your injury and how severe it is, recommended actions may be using R.I.C.E. method, visiting your doctor, and a series of physical therapy sessions to make sure your body heals naturally and can handle a return to physical activity.
  • Play by the rules — Depending on the sport or activity and age level of the participants, it likely has special rules to help prevent injury. Penalties for helmet to helmet hits in football, rules against coming from behind in soccer, and even the existence of bike lanes are all rules put in place to keep players 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 in your best interest to see a doctor before a new season or committing yourself to any strenuous physical activity. During your physical, ask your doctor if injury prevention with a professional physical therapist in Wentzville, MO is a good idea for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated to prevent injury, and we’ll personalize your program to how old you are, your injury history, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention Wentzville, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near Wentzville

Injury Prevention for The Elderly in Wentzville, MO

Falls in the elderly were responsible for over 3 million urgent care admissions and more than 34,000 fatalities. Studies show that physical activity is invaluable in preventing falls. Other conditions like arthritis that are wear and tear injuries can be more bearable and take longer to progress 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, healthy strength, balance, flexibility, and optimal posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in Wentzville, MO include:

Wentzville, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in in an activity you prepare and train for and love causes a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same freedom. The knowledgeable Wentzville, 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 confident that you do not have to fear going back to what you love doing most. You deserve to feel the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Schedule an appointment online or call the location nearest you to find out more about what our Wentzville, MO injury prevention specialists can do for you.

Services Offered

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

Our Team

Sara Crain
PT, CEAS, Astym Cert.
Julie Freiner
OTR/L, CHT
Matt Williams
MS, OTR/L, ATC/L, CHT
Brian Freund
Partner, DPT, CMPT, TPS, MBA
Kaysie Cope
Front Office
Lauren Vaughn
PT, DPT, CMPT, Astym Cert.
Kelly Thornton
Clinic Director, PT, DPT
Justin Bridwell
Front Office

Locations

Begin Your Recovery Today

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