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Elite Health and Performance Elite Health and Performance is an allied health hub specialising in sports injury management

16/10/2026

Where your shoulder hurts doesn’t tell us which part of it is injured.

The four rotator cuff muscles, the biceps tendon and the joint itself all sit in a tight space and tend to send pain to the same area, usually the front or outside of the upper arm. Pointing at the sore spot narrows things down far less than people expect.

So the assessment works by ruling things out one layer at a time. Watching you lift your arm first shows what the shoulder does on its own, before anyone has touched it.

Next we move your arm for you while you relax. If it moves freely that way but hurts when you lift it yourself, the problem’s likely in a muscle or tendon. If it’s stiff either way, we look harder at the joint and the tissue around it.

Then each strength test loads one part at a time. We’re looking for pain and for weakness, and they don’t always turn up together. A tendon can be sore and still strong, or test weak simply because it hurts to push.

The labrum and instability checks come last because those problems are less common, but when they’re positive they change the plan more than anything else. A shoulder that’s slipped out before needs a very different approach to an irritated tendon.

That’s how two people pointing at the same sore spot can leave with completely different programs. It’s also why the testing happens at the start of every appointment, before any hands-on work.

If your shoulder’s been grumbling for more than a few weeks, book in through the link in our bio and we’ll work out which part it is.

15/10/2026

A little bit of dry needling never goes amiss 😌

13/10/2026

A stress fracture that keeps coming back isn’t bad luck, it’s bone breaking down faster than it can rebuild.

Every run leaves a small amount of damage in your bones, and that’s normal. Your body clears out the damaged bone and lays new bone down in its place, which is how training makes bone stronger in the first place.

The catch is the order those two steps happen in. The clearing out comes first and the rebuilding follows, so for a few weeks after a jump in training, the bone is a little weaker than it was before. That’s why the load needs to climb steadily rather than spike.

Strength matters for a similar reason. Your calf and thigh muscles absorb a share of the force every time your foot lands, and when they’re weak, or just tired late in a long session, more of that force goes straight through the bone.

Points three and four are closer than they look. When you’re not eating enough to cover your training, carbs especially, your body turns down the hormones that bone relies on to rebuild, and repair falls further behind the damage.

This has a name, relative energy deficiency in sport, and it isn’t just a female athlete issue. Men training for endurance events get it too, often without losing weight or noticing anything obviously wrong.

That’s why a second stress fracture deserves a different response to the first. Time off lets the bone heal, but it won’t change your vitamin D levels, your fuelling or your hormones, so the next training block tends to end the same way.

Everything in this video was learned the hard way. It took two years of repeat fractures before all four were sorted at once, and fixing one while ignoring the rest tends to buy time rather than solve the problem.

If you know a runner or triathlete who’s on their second or third stress fracture, send this their way.

12/10/2026

Rotator cuff pain is rarely one muscle, which is why a proper session works through all four and your pecs as well.

The rotator cuff is four small muscles that work together to keep the ball of your shoulder centred in its socket. When one of them gets irritated, the others pick up the extra work, and that’s often where the next sore spot comes from.

That’s why treatment starts at the front with subscapularis and the pecs, even when the pain is on the top or back of the shoulder. Tight muscles at the front pull the arm into internal rotation and roll the shoulder forward.

Infraspinatus and teres minor sit on the back of the shoulder blade and have to work against that pull to hold the shoulder in position. Over weeks and months that adds up, which is why they’re so often tender by the time someone comes in.

Supraspinatus runs across the top of the shoulder and does a lot of the work as you lift your arm. When the shoulder blade isn’t moving well underneath it, supraspinatus ends up doing more than its share.

Some of these muscles are hard to reach by hand. Subscapularis sits on the underside of the shoulder blade against your ribs, and the deeper parts of supraspinatus sit beneath your upper traps, which is where dry needling earns its place.

If treatment for your shoulder has only ever focused on the spot that hurts, there’s probably more to work on. Pain tends to show up where the overload lands, which isn’t always where it started.

The hands-on work gives you a window where the shoulder moves more freely. Strengthening the cuff through that window is what stops the same muscles getting overloaded again.

If your shoulder’s been nagging for weeks, you can book in at Bowen Hills, Toowong or Coorparoo through the link in bio.

09/10/2026

Turning your feet out in a squat lets you skip the ankle bend you don’t have.

With your feet pointing forward, your knee has to travel straight over your toes, and that takes a fair bit of bend at the ankle. Turn the feet out and the knee can drift forward on an angle instead, which asks far less of the ankle.

It’s an easy habit to miss because the squat still looks reasonable. The trouble is that the range has to come from somewhere, and it’s often your arches rolling in or your knees twisting to follow your feet.

That’s why the knee-to-wall test comes first. Your foot points straight at the wall and your heel has to stay down, so there’s no way around it and the number you get is your ankle on its own.

The two calf stretches are set up differently on purpose. Only one of your calf muscles, the gastroc, crosses the knee, so locking the knee out on the step puts the stretch through the gastroc.

Bending the knee over the box takes the gastroc out of it and moves the stretch lower, into the soleus and the Achilles. Plenty of people only ever do one of these and wonder why their ankle hasn’t changed.

The banded mobilisation is aimed at the joint itself. The band sits below the ankle line so it holds the talus, the bone your shin rests on, back while your knee travels forward.

Where you feel each one tells you which drill matters most for you. A pull through the calf points to the stretches, while a pinch at the front of the ankle points to the band.

Retest the knee-to-wall every couple of weeks instead of judging it by how your squat feels. Save this so you’ve got the test and all three drills on hand.

06/10/2026

Runner's knee often hurts more coming down stairs than it does on the run itself.

The pressure between your kneecap and the groove it runs in climbs steeply as the knee bends. Flat running keeps that angle fairly shallow. Stairs, hills and deep squats don't.

That's also behind the most recognisable sign of it. An hour at a desk or in the car with your knees bent and the thing aches, then the first few steps when you stand up are the worst of the day.

Which tells you it's a tolerance problem at a particular knee angle rather than a mileage problem. That's why plenty of people cut their weekly distance right back and find it no better.

All three of these load the knee in bend, under control, so the joint slowly gets used to the position that currently hurts instead of being protected from it.

The step down and back earns its place especially. It trains controlling the descent, which is the exact demand that stairs and downhills make of you.

If you're pulling something back while you work on it, pull back the downhills before you touch your total distance. Hills are where the load actually spikes, and most people cut the wrong thing first.

Worth hanging onto these three if your knee has started talking to you on the way down.

03/10/2026

Dry needling through the anterior delt, pec and pec minor, then the cuff and rear structures on both sides, with a note about Olympic lifters.

The front of your shoulder is what hurts. The back of it is what's been working overtime.

Most lifters press far more than they pull. Bench, incline, overhead, dips, and all of it loads the front of the shoulder session after session until it sits short and permanently switched on.

While that's happening, your rotator cuff and rear delt are doing a completely different job. They're not moving the weight, they're holding the head of the humerus centred so the joint stays where it should while you press.

That's a handbrake role, rep after rep, and almost nothing in a standard program trains it directly.

So by the time the front is sore enough to complain, the back is quietly cooked too. Treat only the part that hurts and you've left the half that's been compensating exactly as it was, which is why it turns up again the first heavy week back.

It's worse again if you lift overhead. Catching a sn**ch or a jerk asks those back structures to stabilise a loaded bar at end range, which is a far bigger demand than pressing something out in front of you.

The part you can change yourself is the ratio. If you're pressing three times a week and pulling once, that's the thing driving it, and somewhere nearer two pulls for every press will do more than any amount of mobility work.

If pressing has started to actually hurt rather than just feel heavy, get it looked at before you write off another month to deloading.

02/10/2026

That flush is blood arriving somewhere it doesn't usually get much of. Calves, shins, forearms and the outside of the thigh all have a fairly poor blood supply, which is a big part of why they stay stubborn for months.

The tool is there for feel as much as for force. An edge concentrates pressure into a small area so you can work through dense fibrous tissue, and it picks up texture changes a thumb would skate straight over.

That's what's actually being hunted for. The gritty, ropey patches that feel different to everything around them, rather than just running up and down the whole muscle and hoping.

It's also not breaking down scar tissue the way people picture it. The force needed to physically tear fascia is far beyond anything a hand held tool applies.

What's far more likely is that it drives circulation into the area and changes how sensitive the tissue is, which is why range of motion tends to improve within a minute or two rather than over weeks.

Which is exactly why it shouldn't be brutal. Work that leaves you bruised for a week isn't a better treatment, it's just a sorer one, and it usually says more about pressure than technique.

Warm and slightly tender the next day is normal. Properly bruised and sore for days isn't, and it's worth saying so at the time rather than gritting your teeth through it.

01/10/2026

Standing up and feeling a sharp twinge? It could be a disc position issue, and not just tight muscles!

The McKenzie side‑glide is a simple standing move that nudges the vertebrae, encouraging the disc to settle back into its optimal spot. It targets posterior‑lateral bulges that often cause that sting when you rise.

The other key move is the classic McKenzie extension. From a standing or seated posture, you gently lean back, extending the spine to further unload the disc and help the nucleus re‑centre.

By extending and laterally gliding the spine, the exercise creates a gentle vacuum that draws the disc material away from the nerve‑root zone. This reduces compression and eases the pain without heavy equipment.

Doing ten reps each hour isn’t about fatigue – it’s about cumulative micro‑adjustments. Each glide keeps the disc centred, preventing it from slipping back into a bulged position throughout the day.

If you’re an active adult who spends time at a desk or lifts regularly, this routine can be a game‑changer. It’s low‑impact, can be done in a bathroom mirror, and fits into any schedule.

However, if the pain shoots down your leg, is accompanied by numbness, or worsens at night, stop the home routine and book an assessment. Those signs may need a more targeted intervention.

Save this guide for your next break and give your spine the chance to stay aligned, reducing the need for future appointments, and keep you moving through work and workouts.

Tag a mate who could use a pain‑free stand‑up and encourage them to try the side‑glide today, then share your progress for a stronger back tomorrow.

28/09/2026

Are you dealing with shoulder pain? Then you need this treatment.

Active Release Technique stretches the muscle while simultaneously releasing adhesions in the tissue. It is a game changer for getting fast results and real changes in your pain from your very first appointment.

We pair this with dry needling to hit the deep knots that hands alone cannot reach, releasing the tissue and restoring your range of motion.

Then we build a rehab program specific to your injury so you get lasting results, not just a day or two of relief.

If you want to actually get on top of your shoulder pain and start feeling like yourself again, book online today.

Address

24 Edmondstone Road
Bowen Hills, QLD
4006

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Monday 7am - 7pm
Tuesday 7am - 7pm
Wednesday 7am - 7pm
Thursday 7am - 7pm
Friday 7am - 7pm
Saturday 8am - 5pm

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+61738526841

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