Sports physio in Mount Waverley — for people who actually train.

Most physios open with “rest for six weeks.” That’s not useful advice if you’ve spent years building your fitness and you’re not about to lose it over a sore shoulder.

I’m a physio with a CSCS certification — the same strength and conditioning credential that strength coaches hold. I’ve also trained as an Olympic weightlifter myself. So I’ll treat the injury hands-on, keep you training around it where it’s safe to, then build you back to full load properly — not by guesswork.

Trained as an Olympic weightlifter

Outside of physio and the trades, I’ve trained as an Olympic weightlifter — snatch, clean and jerk, the heavy squats and pulls that go with them.

That matters in this context because Olympic lifting puts the body under loads and joint positions most physios have only read about. When a lifter walks in with shoulder pain from jerks, knee pain from catching front squats, or a tweaky lower back from pulling under tension, I’ve felt the same demands on my own body. I know what the technique should look like, what the loading patterns are, and where things tend to break first when something isn’t quite right.

It’s a layer on top of the CSCS strength and conditioning training — and it shows up most when I’m working with people who lift seriously. CrossFitters, powerlifters, weightlifters, and gym athletes get a physio who actually understands what’s in their program.

• Snatch and clean & jerk — shoulder, wrist, elbow, and lower-back issues from heavy overhead and pulling work
• Front and back squat — knee tracking, hip mobility, ankle dorsiflexion, lumbar position under load
• Pulling movements — deadlifts, RDLs, clean pulls, and the back/hip/hamstring patterns that go with them
• Pressing and overhead — bench, push press, jerks, and shoulder injuries that come with high training volume

What I see most

• Shoulder — bench press, overhead press, swimming, throwing. Often impingement, rotator cuff, or AC joint.
• Knee — runners, lifters, anyone with a load-bearing sport. Patellofemoral pain, IT band issues, meniscal stress, tendon pain.
• Lower back — deadlifts, twisting sports, anyone who lifts heavy or rotates explosively.
• Ankle — sprains that haven’t fully recovered, recurring rolls, post-injury stiffness.
• Hip and groin — runners, footballers, soccer players. Often hip flexor, adductor, or labral involvement.
• Tennis and golfer’s elbow — gym-goers, racquet players, anyone with grip-heavy sport.

Why most sports physio falls short

Two problems show up again and again:

The rest-and-rehab approach.You get told to stop your sport, do some band exercises, come back in six weeks. Meanwhile, your fitness is bleeding out, and you’ve still got no real plan for returning. Most people end up rushing back, re-injuring, and starting over.

The treatment-only approach. You get hands-on work each session, the pain settles, you go back to training — and the injury comes back inside a month because nothing changed about how your body handles load.

A proper job needs both: hands-on treatment to settle the tissue, anda real return-to-sport plan that progressively rebuilds your capacity for the actual demands of your sport. That’s what CSCS training is for. It’s the bridge between rehab and performance.

How I work with athletes

• Hands-on treatment first — manual therapy, dry needling, soft tissue work. Get the pain and the restriction down quickly so you can keep moving.
• Training around the injury where possible — most injuries don’t require complete rest. We work out what you can still do, and what to modify.
• A real return-to-sport plan — load progression, strength benchmarks, sport-specific movement testing. Not “feels okay, you’re cleared.”
• Honest about timelines — some injuries take weeks, some take months. I’ll give you the real picture from session one.

Return-to-sport assessment

For anyone coming back from a significant injury (post-op, hamstring tear, ACL, ankle reconstruction, recurring shoulder issues), a structured assessment is worth doing before you load up again.

Read more about return to sport →