Sports Injury Physiotherapy in Sydney CBD

Manual therapy, otherwise known as  ‘hands on techniques’, has been a well-known part of physiotherapy since the beginning of the profession. We can provide a range of techniques according to individual presentations, including dry needling, massage and joint mobilisations.

Manual therapy has traditionally been known for its ability to improve muscular and joint pain, tension and stiffness. It is helpful in conjunction to exercise in the early stages of rehabilitation. 

Benefits of manual therapy:

• Desensitises the nervous system
• Relaxes tight or overactive structures to help improve movement
• Increases blood circulation locally to reduce the feeling of “tightness”

Across our clinics, our physiotherapists often utilise a camera to capture movement patterns from various angles to analyse motion. Analysing the movement patterns of quick motions like running, jumping, throwing would be ineffective without a slow-motion camera. 

For example, running is a full body activity that challenges posture, stability, core strength, leg strength and joint control. With many moving parts in play, any mismatch can contribute to injury or pain. However, finding these mismatches often require an observation of different joints, their alignment, their symmetry and many other components – too many details for the naked eye.

Benefits of filming for motion analysis:

• Playback in slow-motion allows assessment joint alignment and symmetry
• Pausing is helpful for viewing posture, stride-length and foot strike
• Re-playing for further analysis, rather than having someone repeat the movement many times
• Saving the video is useful for future movement analysis comparisons
• Useful for educational purposes where you can view yourself

Exercise is the heart of physiotherapy. Across our 2 clinics, we offer a range of different exercise therapies, including equipment pilates and gym-based strengthening. Programs are adapted to your individual goals, whether that be rehabilitating an injury or building strength to prevent pain.

Exercise is important because it improves how all your body’s systems work, from muscles and joints to your brain and nervous system. When an injury is present, the exercise your body needs becomes a bit more niche, and that is where our expertise comes into play.

Benefits of physiotherapist-led/ prescribed exercise:

• Specific to your body’s needs and abilities
• Prevents further or recurrent injury when you are already in pain
• Initial focus on focus on pain relief 
• Focuses on a functional end-goal

Each of our clinics is equipped with a shockwave therapy machine. This technology is helpful for treating chronic tendon pathologies like plantar fasciitis, achilles tendinopathy, tennis elbow and many more.

Shockwave therapy is the delivery of acoustic waves to stimulate injured tissue and facilitate pain relief and healing. Alongside exercise, shockwave has been proven to have great long-term benefits to tendon injuries. Focused shockwave therapy and extracorporeal shockwave therapy share the same role and principles, but have different ways of delivering acoustic energy to tissue.

Shockwave therapy is most often used in the early stages of rehabilitation for its role in providing immediate pain relief.

Benefits of focused and extracorporeal shockwave therapy:

• Improves blood flow to trigger a healing response in tendons which have poor blood supply
• Reduces pain in chronic tendon and fascia conditions
• Along with exercise, improves function without masking pain

Our physiotherapists are all knowledgeable in taping, and both our clinics have common wrist and knee braces, and ankle boots on deck. If you require a brace that we do not have, we can advise you on what is needed and where to get it. 

Taping techniques can be helpful at providing pain relief, supporting movement and improving muscular control during activity. Although taping doesn’t aim to “fix the injury”, it can be a big help in improving or returning a person’s function

Benefits of taping:

• External support can reduce stress on injured tissue
• Helps improve proprioception, which can improve movement and control
• Can offload painful structures while an individual continues exercise

Bracing is another method of immobilising or protecting an injured joint while it heals. a joint for pain reduction, 

Benefits of bracing:

• Can limit excessive movement after an injury for protection against further injury
• Provides a strong, longer-lasting reduction of load to painful structures
• Helps boost the sense of stability when returning to activity
• Can be worn for longer periods of time than tape without causing skin irritation

Both our clinics are equipped with various pre-fabricated shoe inserts, including arch supports, heel lifts and talar domes. 

Prefabricated orthotics are often used in our management of foot, heel or leg pain. It is typically utilised alongside rehabilitative exercise to settle or support irritated structures and improve function. 

Benefits of prefabricated orthotics:

• Provides immediate biomechanical support to improve gait and pain-free function
• An affordable option for pain relief as it is much cheaper than custom-made orthotics

• A source of trial and error to guide podiatrist customised orthotics later
• Can be used immediately upon purchase without long manufacturing wait times

Both of our clinics are equipped with VALD DynaMo strength and mobility testing devices. This device measures how strong an individual is and how well they move. VALD devices use sensors and software to turn movement into precise numbers that can be tracked.

Measuring strength and mobility is important at every stage of rehab to track progress and re-organise goals. It helps you understand the track you’re on and allows us to decide what exercises will be most valuable to you.

Benefits of using VALD DynaMo and Force Plates:

• Excellent reliability when in comes to strength testing
• Performs over a hundred different strength and range-of-motion tests
• Directly integrates with a software that tracks progress, symmetry, and return-to-sport benchmarks.