Brian Prax of Prax Physical Therapy talks Jackson local Amelia Adams, 24, through resistance band exercises in January to help with her shoulder pain. Adams first started going to Prax for physical therapy when she was 16 after injuring her knee for the first time. Since those early days the physical therapist has helped her through multiple injuries.
Prax uses an ultrasound machine on Adams’ shoulder. Adams, a U14 assistant alpine coach for the Jackson Hole Ski and Snowboard Club, said she continues going to Prax for her “longevity.” Prax has been practicing PT in the valley since 1996, when he moved to the area.
Brian Prax stretches 24-year-old Amelia Adams’ shoulder during her session Tuesday, Jan. 25, at Prax Physical Therapy. Prax has been working with Adams since she was 16 years old and has helped her through multiple injuries. Adams grew up in Jackson and is now a U14 assistant alpine coach for the Jackson Hole Ski and Snowboard Club. “My dad said to see a PT instead of a doctor when things hurt,” Adams said while reminiscing on her various injuries.
Brian Prax stretches 24-year-old Amelia Adams’s shoulder in January at Prax Physical Therapy. Prax has been working with Adams since she was 16 and has helped her through multiple injuries.
Brian Prax of Prax Physical Therapy talks Jackson local Amelia Adams, 24, through resistance band exercises in January to help with her shoulder pain. Adams first started going to Prax for physical therapy when she was 16 after injuring her knee for the first time. Since those early days the physical therapist has helped her through multiple injuries.
KATHRYN ZIESIG / NEWS&GUIDE photos
Prax uses an ultrasound machine on Adams’ shoulder. Adams, a U14 assistant alpine coach for the Jackson Hole Ski and Snowboard Club, said she continues going to Prax for her “longevity.” Prax has been practicing PT in the valley since 1996, when he moved to the area.
KATHRYN ZIESIG / NEWS&GUIDE
Brian Prax stretches 24-year-old Amelia Adams’ shoulder during her session Tuesday, Jan. 25, at Prax Physical Therapy. Prax has been working with Adams since she was 16 years old and has helped her through multiple injuries. Adams grew up in Jackson and is now a U14 assistant alpine coach for the Jackson Hole Ski and Snowboard Club. “My dad said to see a PT instead of a doctor when things hurt,” Adams said while reminiscing on her various injuries.
KATHRYN ZIESIG / NEWS&GUIDE
Brian Prax stretches 24-year-old Amelia Adams’s shoulder in January at Prax Physical Therapy. Prax has been working with Adams since she was 16 and has helped her through multiple injuries.
Many youth athletes don’t learn how their most recent injury could have been prevented until they’re sitting in a physical therapy office.
With a number of practices in the valley that work with Jacksonites of all ages, young athletes have the opportunity to remain educated on injury prevention, while staying ahead of accidents that can sideline even the most seasoned competitors.
A quick check-in with a local PT could be the difference between spending your season rehabbing or remaining out on the field in competition.
Enter Brian Prax, owner of Prax Physical Therapy at 185 Powderhorn Lane, who has used the small town setting of Jackson to keep young athletes informed. Prax uses his close ties with coaches and instructors around the valley to arrange seminars with athletic programs, geared toward educating youth athletes on the importance of injury prevention from a young age.
A Minnesota native, Prax spent his early years as a traveling physical therapist, visiting adventure towns across the West for short stints at a time. During his time in Jackson, Prax was particularly struck by local athletes’ growth mentality.
“One of the main reasons I stayed in Jackson was the type of patients I was able to treat here compared to anyone else,” he said. “People here are really motivated to get better.”
While the majority of athletes who seek out his help are in search of a physical remedy to get back on the field, Prax typically saves some time to educate them on how they can prevent injuries from occurring in the first place.
“There’s a little bit of a misconception, especially when you’re looking at youth athletes and physical therapy, because a lot of people blur the line [between] athletic training,” Prax said. “Unfortunately, physical therapy mostly works once an injury occurs. We work with the pathology, the injured state, while with high school or middle school and younger athletics, there’s such a big focus on the preventative side of things.
“Our primary role is getting people from the injured state back to the uninjured state so they can play, function and live their life injury free.”
So how can young athletes stay out ahead of an injury? Expressing early discomfort is a key first step, regardless of the severity, Prax said. Adolescents are much more likely to remain quiet about their pains, as they often haven’t experienced that type of discomfort before and are unsure what is usual and what isn’t for their body.
When in doubt it’s important to get checked out to make sure.
When a youth athlete comes to his practice, Prax not only performs a physical evaluation to create a treatment plan but also examines what happened, how it happened and how the athlete can change his or her routine to ensure a lasting career of athletic pursuits.
“So much of what we do in physical therapy happens not in the clinic,” he said. “If people only came to the clinic and I treated them ... they left and did nothing different in their lifestyle after that, most people wouldn’t get better.
“One of the biggest, most important tools in outpatient orthopedics is having people do the right things and avoid the wrong things for the time that they’re not in the clinic.”
Bones, muscles and tendons continue to develop well into one’s teenage years; it’s important to get out ahead of a nagging injury, so a one-time incident doesn’t create additional problems down the line.
“There’s a lot more potential for some of those injuries in younger athletes to turn into a chronic scenario for the rest of their lives, or something that won’t heal entirely,” Prax said.
The PT industry is on the rise too, and the resources available to providers are drastically different from what existed just a handful of years ago. Prax believes the field will continue to grow as new studies are released.
“As a profession we’re still in the phase of growing significantly over time in both the diagnostic tools that we have, as well as the ways in which we can treat things more effectively with the new research that keeps coming out, and the new treatment techniques that we have to address the problems.”
“It’s constantly evolving,” he said. “It feels like we’re nowhere near the golden age of physical therapy.”
In a valley full of athletes, there is also a plethora of private physical therapy practices including Excel Physical Therapy, Teton Physical Therapy, All Body Therapy, Four Pines Physical Therapy, Peak Physical Therapy and Medicine Wheel Wellness. There’s also PT at St. John’s Health.
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Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Please turn off your CAPS LOCK.
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No political attacks. Refrain from using negative slang when identifying political parties.
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