West Alton, MO

West Alton, MO

Don't let a mental block over reinjury keep you from the things what you do best.

Injury Prevention in West Alton, MO. Whether you play a sport and are hoping for an opportunity at the next level, or a recent retiree who wants to dedicate your time to taking ski vacations, don’t let the fear of reinjury keep you from the activities you love. While our licensed West Alton, MO physical therapists work extensively with athletes and others to recover from injury, we are experts in the entire musculoskeletal system who can evaluate your body’s current condition and how you move 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 nearest you.

Being physically active is an essential part of many West Alton, MO people’s lives. We love active endeavors like playing sports, swimming, or other physical activities. Furthermore, keeping an active lifestyle helps prevent chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, eurodegenerative disease, depression, and many types of cancers. Not only can physical therapy with one of Axes’ licensed West Alton, MO physical therapists help you return to action as fierce as ever, but our injury prevention professionals 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 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 nearest you in West Alton, MO for a no-risk, no-obligation injury screening. To take preventative measures and protect your sport or hobby, read on below or call to speak to a physical therapist today.

Types of Injuries We Prevent Prevent in West Alton, MO

Most injuries happen for one of two reasons:

  1. Repetitive motion 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 such as water polo or volleyball players and commonly are accompanied by joint pain.
  2. Acute injuries are injuries that happen because of a specific and sudden trauma. Examples include landing on uneven ground or receiving a blow. These can result in bruises, sprains and strains, fractures, and dislocations.

Some common injuries, such as rotator cuff tears, can either develop over time or occur suddenly. Other injuries, such as ACL tears, almost always occur spontaneously, such as receiving a direct blow to the knee.

Injury Prevention West Alton, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near West Alton

Why Do Injuries Happen? | Injury Prevention in West Alton, MO

While injuries occur for many different reasons, and are sometimes inescapable, they generally occur because of dysfunction or instability and your body and between body parts. There are three common dysfunctions that lead to injury:

Muscle Imbalance

Muscle balance is essential to maintaining healthy joints and staving off injury. Imbalance can result in an overreliance on one set of muscles, which may cause your body to use it in a way it shouldn’t. 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 insufficient muscle balance in relation to other muscle groups, such as having a strong hamstring and weak quadriceps, or within muscle groups, such as the four muscles in the rotator cuff not having proportionate strength. Muscle imbalance can lead to:

Customized injury prevention with our professional physical therapists in West Alton, MO will ensure that your muscles are at optimal proportional strength.

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. Problems in your nervous system, swelling, previous injuries, and muscle imbalance call all contribute to movement dysfunction. It can cause injury through:

  • Joint mobility limitations
  • Muscle imbalance
  • Poor coordination
  • Reduced balance

When you initially visit our injury prevention specialists in West Alton, MO, we’ll go over your medical records and perform a base evaluation to identify the root causes of your movement dysfunction. Then, together with your doctor or any additional providers treating you, we’ll design a tailored plan of attack been proven to work by research and studies to get your movement health to reach its potential.

Posture Dysfunction

Bad posture doesn’t just affect people with slouched shoulders. Athletes and other physically active people can have postural dysfunction when resting, using the computer, or in specific poses related to a given activity. Correct posture refers to correct positioning of the neck, torso, pelvis, and extremities in a way that keeps the spine within its natural curves. Poor posture can compress the joints in the spine, which interferes with our body’s ability to communicate with itself and achieve the strength and range of motion you need to achieve. It can also lead to:

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

Good posture is a necessary part of injury prevention because it ensures muscle balance, flexibility, and that your vertebrae remain in place.



How to Prevent Injury in West Alton, MO

All sports and physical activities carry an inherent risk of injury. We cannot promise that our injury prevention program completely negates the risk of injury. However, there are things you can do 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, 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, rest for the rest of the day after an activity so your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints become too fatigued.
  • Use protective equipment — Helmets, chest guards, protective eyewear, and other recommended equipment in sports and other activities can help prevent injuries such as lacerations or head injuries. If you’ve had a previous injury, your West Alton, MO physician or injury prevention specialist may advise braces or Kinesio Taping® to stabilize a joint. Other measures like tying your cleats tightly can further help injury prevention by stabilizing your joints.
  • Improve muscle strength — Strengthening soft tissue helps it withstand the rigors of heavy activity. Our West Alton, MO injury prevention specialists 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 achieves three important things for injury prevention:
    1. It improves which movements you can make and how far you can extend them, which lets for your tendons and ligaments to handle more extreme movements.
    2. It boosts circulation, which allows for nutrient-rich blood to flow to your soft tissue, removing waste byproduct and revitalizing the muscles.
    3. It improves your posture, which we already know is an an important part of injury prevention.

    According to a peer-reviewed sports medicine paper, sports like football that include dynamic motions require soft tissue compliant enough to incorporate and release the high amount of energy required. Also, don’t forget 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 improve performance but help prevent injuries. Football players are taught to tackle with the shoulder in order to avoid brain damage, 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 improve your performance and reduce your risk of injury.
  • Listen to your body — If you feel pain in a muscle or joint, that’s your body’s way of telling you something is wrong. If you feel a sudden pop or grinding sensation, stop immediately and seek proportional medical care. If your body isn’t feeling up to an intense workout, don’t force it.
  • Don’t play through an injury — While teammates, competitors, and fans appreciate an athlete that guts it out through pain, playing with an injury to a muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament could exacerbate a current injury and leave you off the field or court 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 your doctor, and rehab with a physical therapist to ensure your recovery and return to action go as well as possible.
  • Follow 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 all rules that were adopted to keep participants safe. Those were enacted for a reason, and there’s a reason that there are penalties for them.
  • Consult a licensed physical therapist — It’s a good idea to get a physical before another season begins or committing yourself to any strenuous activity or training regimen. During your visit, inquire with your doctor if injury prevention with a knowledgeable physical therapist in West Alton, MO is right for you. Every treatment plan we employ has been demonstrated to prevent injury, and you plan will be completely unique to you and catered to how old you are, any previous injuries, and which activities you want to participate in.

Injury Prevention West Alton, MO | Sports Therapy | Physical Therapy Near West Alton

Injury Prevention for Senior Citizens in West Alton, MO

Falls in senior citizens were responsible for over 3 million emergency room admissions and over 34,000 fatalities. Research demonstrates that being physical active can go a long way in reducing the risk of falls. Other conditions such as arthritis that develop over the course of several years can be more bearable and take longer to progress with 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 optimal posture are great agents in injury prevention.

Other services we offer in West Alton, MO include:

West Alton, MO Injury Prevention | Axes Physical Therapy

Suffering in injury in one of your favorite activities can create a mental block that won’t allow us to experience the same happiness. The knowledgeable West Alton, MO physical therapists at Axes are here to design for you a personalized injury prevention program that will keep your body as safe and healthy as can be, and your mind confident that you do not have to fear going back to what you love. We will aid you in feeling the physical and mental health benefits of doing what you do best. Request an appointment online or call the location nearest you to start your program with one of our injury prevention specialists in West Alton, MO.

Services Offered

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

Our Team

Sara Crain
PT, CEAS, Astym Cert.
Candace Cunningham
Clinic Director, PT, DPT
Abigail Alsmeyer
Front Office
Justin Bridwell
Front Office

Locations

Begin Your Recovery Today

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