Sports injuries we commonly see

You do not need to be a professional athlete to benefit from sports physiotherapy.

We work with runners, gym members, recreational athletes and people involved in a wide range of field, court, water and endurance sports.

Common presentations include:

• ACL and other knee ligament injuries
• Meniscus injuries and knee pain
• Hamstring and other muscle strains
• Ankle sprains and ongoing instability
• Achilles and patellar tendon pain
• Hip and groin pain
• Shoulder injuries and instability
• Running-related injuries
• Gym and strength-training injuries
• Post-operative rehabilitation

Your rehabilitation should reflect what you actually want to return to. Preparing someone to run recreationally is different from preparing for football, surfing, netball or heavy strength training.

A proven approach to sports rehabilitation

Getting out of pain is important, but for many sports injuries it is only the first step.

Our aim is to understand what you need to return to, rebuild the capacity you have lost and use objective testing where it adds useful information to your rehabilitation.

Assess

We start by understanding your injury, your sport and what you are currently able to do.

Your assessment may include movement, strength and sport-specific testing depending on the injury and stage of rehabilitation.

Rebuild

Rehabilitation progresses toward restoring the strength, movement and physical capacity you need.

Our onsite gym allows us to build from early-stage exercises through to more demanding strength, running, jumping and sport-specific rehabilitation.

Measure

Where useful, we objectively measure strength, force production, jumping, landing and differences between sides.

This takes away guess work and gives us more information, which can help identify areas that still need work and might otherwise be missed.

Return

As your capacity improves, we progressively reintroduce the demands of your activity or sport.

This may include running, jumping, changing direction, gym training or returning to team training.

The goal is a clear, criteria-based progression back to sport, rather than simply waiting a set number of weeks or stopping rehabilitation as soon as the pain settles.

What happens at your first appointment?

Your first appointment is about understanding the problem and giving you a clear direction forward.

We will usually:

• Discuss the injury and what you want to return to
• Assess relevant movement, strength and physical capacity
• Explain what we think is contributing to the problem
• Discuss whether imaging or further investigation may be useful, and refer for this if appropriate
• Begin appropriate treatment or rehabilitation
• Give you a plan for what you can continue doing and what may need to change

For most new or more complex sports injuries, we recommend a 60-minute initial appointment so there is enough time for a thorough assessment and to begin your rehabilitation.

You do not need a referral to book.

Meet our sports physiotherapists

Our physiotherapists are all experienced, they combine clinical assessment with exercise-based rehabilitation and an understanding of the physical demands involved in returning to sport.

Gym rehabilitation & objective testing

Sports rehabilitation often needs to progress beyond basic treatment-room exercises.

Our onsite gym allows us to progressively increase the demands of rehabilitation as your strength, confidence and physical capacity improve.

Build strength in our onsite gym

Depending on your injury and goals, rehabilitation may include:

• Progressive strength training
• Single-leg exercises
• Squatting and lifting
• Jumping and landing
• Running preparation
• Change-of-direction work
• Sport-specific conditioning

This helps bridge the gap between early rehabilitation and returning to normal training or competition.

Measure strength objectively

Our handheld dynamometry equipment allows us to measure the force produced by specific muscle groups.

This can help answer questions such as:

• Has strength actually returned?
• Is there still a meaningful difference between sides?
• What should we target next?

The numbers do not replace clinical judgement. They give us another way to track progress and make rehabilitation goals clearer.

Assess jumping, landing and force

Our AxIT force plates allow us to assess selected strength, jumping and landing tasks.

They can help us look at how you produce and absorb force, compare sides and monitor changes through rehabilitation.

This can be particularly useful during later-stage lower-limb rehabilitation and when preparing to return to running or field and court sports.

Returning to training, running and sport

One of the harder parts of sports injury rehabilitation is knowing how much to do and when to progress.

You may feel ready to do more but be worried about aggravating the injury. Or you may have returned to activity only to find the same symptoms keep coming back.

We can help progressively adjust things such as:

Load · frequency · speed · range · intensity · complexity

The goal is not necessarily to wait until everything feels perfect before moving forward. It is to gradually build the capacity you need, with clear guidance about what to continue, what to modify and when to progress.

For runners, this may also involve looking at recent running volume, pace, hills, surfaces, strength and recovery between sessions.

Find out more about our Running Assessments →

Get a clear plan for your sports injury

Whether you have recently been injured, are rebuilding after surgery or are unsure how to progress back to full training, we can help you work through the next steps.

At Fitness Physio in Merewether, rehabilitation can progress from assessment and early treatment through to gym-based strengthening, objective testing and a guided return to running, training or sport.