NDIS return to sport physiotherapy, Sydney
Getting back to your sport after injury or surgery, with the decision made on what you can do rather than how many weeks have passed.
Returning to sport is the part of rehabilitation that most often gets rushed or abandoned. For NDIS participants it is also the part most likely to be left out of a plan altogether, because the funding conversation tends to stop at daily function.
If your goal is competing, training or playing, that belongs in your plan. This is the work between being discharged from treatment and being ready to play.
Discharged is not the same as ready
Most people are sent on their way when the pain settles and they can move normally. Sport asks for considerably more than that.
Speed and change of direction
Sprinting, decelerating and cutting are where injuries recur. They need exposure under control before they are met at full pace in a game.
Under fatigue
Movement that holds together fresh often falls apart late in a session. Testing and training tired is part of the work, not an optional extra.
Both sides measured
We test each limb separately. A bilateral test lets the stronger side carry the weaker one, which is exactly how a deficit gets missed.
Confidence
Fear of reinjury is a real limiter and it responds to graded exposure rather than reassurance. It is worth naming as a goal in its own right.
Criteria, not the calendar
Time since surgery tells you what tissue has had the chance to heal. It does not tell you whether you are ready. We use objective testing, so the conversation about returning is held against numbers you can see rather than a date in a diary.
What gets tested
- Strength on each side separately, using force plates and dynamometry at Five Dock.
- Hop and jump testing, comparing the two limbs.
- Movement quality at speed and under fatigue, not only when fresh.
- The demands of your own sport, which differ considerably between wheelchair rugby, snowboarding and community football.
Field and court based rehab
The last stage does not belong in a treatment room. We run sessions on grass and court to rebuild running mechanics, change of direction and match intensity conditioning, because that gap is where a clean gym result stops meaning very much.
Adaptive sport
Three of our clinicians have worked in Paralympic and adaptive sport, including wheelchair rugby, Paralympic football and Paralympic volleyball. Classification, equipment and the demands of a seated athlete change what the testing should be, and that is worth having in the room.
The decision to return is yours and your treating team's. What we provide is the information to make it with, and a programme that gets you to the point of being able to.
Questions we get asked
Will the NDIS fund a return to sport goal?
How long does a return to sport programme take?
Do you work with adaptive and para sport?
Find out what is between you and playing
Book a free 15 minute call. We will talk through your sport, your injury and what testing would tell you.
Plan managed and self managed welcome · No referral needed · Five Dock & Gladesville