Optimise Sports Physiotherapy & Performance

23/07/2025

It was an absolute honour being head physiotherapist for the 4th consecutive year for at the 2025 Emerging Socceroos/Matildas Championships ⚽️ 

Like usual, there was an unreal display of talent from the players, and incredible coaching staff with a wealth of knowledge that always makes the tournament such a rewarding experience 🙌🏼 

Shout out to our medical team through for their amazing work throughout the 2 weeks!

29/05/2025

The Seated Isometric Calf Raise is an important test to measure your calf (plantarflexion) strength and asymmetries.

If you are rehabbing a calf injury, the minimum target should be at least 1.7 x Bodyweight of force. For example, in my case, I typically weigh 84kg, so should be aiming for a minimum of 143kg (1402 Newtons)

Ideally, to further reduce injury risk long term, you want to be hitting about 2.0 x bodyweight. For me, that would be 168kg (1650 Newtons)

My score of 209kg (2053 Newtons) means I hit about 2.49 x BW, however I’m 18.6% stronger on the right. The aim should be at least under 15% difference so this needs to be rectified!

Based on this score, the calves are producing a good amount of force, but more time should be spent doing single leg strength work to rectify the asymmetry before ramping up running volumes which would further expose it

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15/05/2025

ANKLE INJURY PREVENTION ��

After your first lateral ankle sprain, just strapping your ankle on return to sport for the next 6 months reduces your risk by 62%. If you do proper, consistent rehab in the background as well, you will reduce this risk even more. I have put together some exercises that target 5 different capacities your ankles need to reduce injury risk, and improve your physical performance 💪

1️⃣ MOBILITY (Example - PB ankle mobs 10-20 repetitions). Swelling and stiffness can reduce your ankle mobility. You need to build this back up to reduce the risk of overloading other structures like your achilles/calf. Your ankle ‘Knee to Wall’ test should be ideally 10cm, or your mobility needs work

2️⃣ PROPRIOCEPTION (Example - DB Rotating SL Balance, 5-10kg, x10 reps Clockwise, x10 reps Counterclockwise). Your balance, coordination, and motor control can be impaired when injuring your ankle ligaments. You need to re train this with specific exercises to start appropriately engaging the intricate muscles, tendons and ligaments of your foot/ankle complex��

3️⃣ POWER (Example - SL Hops in a box 3x10-20 seconds). After an ankle injury, it is inevitable that you will lose explosiveness, particularly in the early stages when avoiding plyometrics to let the injury settle. Once you have enough strength, it’s time to start moving at faster speeds and building your springiness again��

4️⃣ STRENGTH (Example - Seated SL Calf Raise 3x8 - aiming for at least 1/2 your bodyweight overtime). As you allow your ankle to recover in the early stages, you will potentially lose strength and muscle mass during this process of healing. Load up your exercises as pain permits, and stop getting comfortable doing bodyweight exercises only or you’ll never get strong enough!��

5️⃣ EXPOSURE (Example - Inverted Walking - 4x8-10 metres). This is more a psychological thing. If you are apprehensive loading up in the position you hurt yourself in, or are scared to do it, you probably aren’t ready to return to competitive sport. If you are comfortable doing this, and pain free, it will be reassuring that you can expose yourself to this vulnerable position

08/07/2024

Had a fantastic week at the Girls National Youth Chanpionships 2024 in Melbourne representing Football NSW as head physio for a 3rd year running. Congrats to the Metro NSW Girls u15s & 16s who were crowned NYC Champions🏆 🥇

Thanks to the 🐐 NSW Medical team for an amazing week. It was a pleasure working with you all!

12/12/2023

Over the past two weeks I had the privilege of presenting to parents of players in the Football NSW Boys Talent Support Program.

The presentation was done on injury trends & management in youth male footballers, and my thoughts around athletic development.

Youth athletic development is multi factorial, but we can go a long way in reducing injury risk, and building athletic capacities through regular and progressive exposure to strength, speed, plyometric and endurance training to compliment the sport. Along with this, exposure to different sports/activities in younger athletes will only help further develop their athletic potential, as well as reducing risk of burn out and overuse injuries.

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28/11/2023

I recently wrote a blog on Maximal Aerobic Speed (MAS) Runs for aerobic development in the off season (see bio to access the link) 🏃‍♂️

A lot of athletes particularly in the amateur/semi-professional space tend to prioritise long slow runs in the off season to build their aerobic base. I don't think this always needs to be scrutinised by practitioners. There should be some leniency as to how off-season training is approached from athlete to athlete regarding what they need to train vs what they want to train. However, I do get that there are better options. In the case of MAS runs, the athlete would probably get a bit more out of it considering they're going to save more time doing it.

MAS runs are also a nice way of doing a little bit more targeted aerobic work specific to the athletes fitness. Of course, there is a bit of maths involved, but worst case scenario you could always choose a set distance and just role with it, and play around with the sets/reps from there!

Shoot me a DM if this is something you are interested in!

https://optimisesportsphysio.com.au/off-season-aerobic-conditioning-for-sport/

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13/11/2023

Plyometric Training – Don’t Sleep on Skipping!
Skipping is a plyometric exercise that can easily be utilised to great effect. A study by Garcia-Pinillos et al., 2020, showed that incorporating skipping 4 times a week for 5 minutes each time within a warm-up improved foot arch stiffness, counter movement jumps, squat jumps, reactive strength, running efficiency and it improved runners 3km running time! All you need to do is follow this protocol for a minimum of 8 weeks!
To spice things up, you can also go beyond standard skipping within this 5-minute period, and make it multi directional and more dynamic, so it is more specific to your sport. At the end of the day, you get more bang for your buck by training hops and jumps in all directions to condition your body better for the rigors of sport, but also to improve your fitness, coordination, and agility.
See the link below, or in our bio for our full article on plyometric training:
https://optimisesportsphysio.com.au/plyometric-training-dont-sleep-on-skipping/
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26/10/2023

When training for speed, I often find that people get impatient with recovery and do their next sprint too quickly! 😅

If you are training for endurance, this is fine. However, if you truly want to develop your speed, you need to be going at 90% max velocity minimum. The only way that will happen, is if you are fresh and recovered for the sprint🏃‍♀️

See the photo for a basic guide on recovery times depending on the distance sprinted. So essentially, every 10 metres you add, increase your recovery by 30 seconds 👌

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17/10/2023

The Counter Movement Jump (CMJ) is a test used to measure lower body power in athletes 🦵

Prior to the 2023 Boys National Youth Championships (NYC), I tested the Football NSW Boys U15s & U16s to see what the average jump height was for each team, and who scored the highest. The tests were done using ForceDecks for valid and reliable data on each player’s jump height ⚽️🙌🏼

👉In the U15s (See 2nd photo), the average jump height was 32.7cm, and the max was 42.9cm.

👉In the U16s (See 3rd photo), the average jump height was 34.9cm, and the max was 47.5cm.

I have a lot of athlete’s asking me how their score compares to others. The scores listed can now be used as benchmarks for football players, who want to compare themselves to youth footballers representing their state in Australia.

If you are interested in testing for strength & power this off season, leave us a DM to find out how!

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19/09/2023

Another football season comes to an end! It has been an absolute privilege being so involved as a sports physiotherapist and S&C coach in football, and the many opportunities it has opened up.

Through my work with Football NSW, I have had the honour of being involved in so many great opportunities:

•Head physiotherapist and S&C Coach for the FNSW Institute Program in the 2023 NPL1 season, and also managing a team of 6 sport science placement students

•Physiotherapist for the NSW U18s at the 2023 NTC Challenge in Melbourne

•Head Physio/S&C Coach for the U16s FNSW Select in Japan for the 2023 Balcom BMW Cup

•Last but not least, we still have the National Youth Championships for both boys and girls to look forward to where I will be leading the medical teams.

To top it all off, my business Optimise Sports Physiotherapy became an official physiotherapy and S&C provider for Football NSW!

Having opened my clinic in November last year, it has been challenging juggling all these roles. However, as the famous CR7 once quoted “Football takes me many places”, and I have loved every bit of it! ⚽️ 🙌🏼

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03/08/2023

Thanks for the write up Duck Man TV 🙏⚽️

26/07/2023

I'm pleased to announce my physiotherapy clinic Optimise Sports Physiotherapy & Performance has partnered with Football NSW!

To celebrate the partnership, all registered Football NSW participants will receive a 10% discount on initial consultations until the end of September.

Football NSW has announced Optimise Sports Physiotherapy & Performance as its Official Physiotherapy and Strength & Conditioning Services Supplier. Owned and founded by Football NSW Institute and Talent Support Program Head Physiotherapist, Chris El-Hayek, Optimise operates out of the Charles Valent...