Strength Therapy Physio & Performance

Strength Therapy Physio & Performance Struggling with pain, injury, or movement issues?

We help people in Bairnsdale recover, move better, and get back to what they love through evidence-based physiotherapy, strength rehab, and pelvic health care.

03/09/2026

Bad squat form is often blamed on weak hips. Usually it is actually weak ankles. 👇

If you cannot get upright depth in a squat, or your knees cave inward at the bottom, your ankle dorsiflexion (the ability to bend your foot upward) is likely the limiting factor.

Here is how to know: try the heel lift test. If your ankles are restricted, your heels will lift off the ground during a squat. Your knees will collapse inward as your body compensates for the lost ankle range.

Your body is smart. When it cannot get the range it needs from the ankle, it shifts the demand somewhere else — usually to your knees, which then collapse under load.

This is not a strength problem. Strength training will not fix it. Mobility work will.

Heel lifts during squats. Ankle stretching. Gradual loading. Within weeks, your squat pattern changes because your ankles now have the range your hips need.

One small assessment. Completely different movement quality. 🔖

Unsure if this is your limiting factor? Send us a DM. We can run through your specific restrictions and show you exactly what to work on. 🙌

Yours in strength & movement,
Marty @ Strength Therapy Physio

02/09/2026

Five tests. No guessing. Here is how to know if you are actually ready to run again. 👇

The question is not "does it hurt when I jog." It is whether your body can handle the load that running places on it — and these five markers give you a much clearer picture than pain alone.

✅ Walk 30 minutes — no pain, no limp
✅ 25 single-leg calf raises — both sides equal
✅ 20 single-leg hops — nothing extra the next day
✅ Single-leg squat to 60° — knee tracking straight
✅ Pain 3/10 or under — settled within 24 hours

All five ticked is a strong sign the body is ready to begin a gradual return. A structured walk-run progression is typically where that starts — but how you progress from there depends on your specific injury and history.

If you want a return-to-run plan built properly around your situation, send us a DM before you start. 💪

Save this in the meantime. 🔖

Yours in strength & movement,
Marty @ Strength Therapy Physio

Most people have never been taught how to breathe during a workout. Here is what actually makes a difference. 👇Holding y...
01/09/2026

Most people have never been taught how to breathe during a workout. Here is what actually makes a difference. 👇

Holding your breath through a rep feels natural — like you are bracing for impact. But that is not the same as breathing with purpose, and the difference matters more than most people realise.

The sequence that actually works:

✅ Breathe in before the rep
✅ Brace hard through the core
✅ Exhale on the effort

That pattern creates intra-abdominal pressure which helps support the spine while you move under load. Breathing wrong does not just affect your performance — it affects how well your spine is supported throughout the rep.

Try the right sequence this session. Save this so you do not forget. 🔖

Questions about your breathing or technique? Send us a DM — we are only a message away. 🙌

See you in the clinic,
Bree & the Strength Therapy Team

31/08/2026

Your pain has a job. It is telling you something. The trick is learning what. 👇

Low-level soreness (0–3)? That is normal training adaptation. Keep going. Your body is getting stronger.

Moderate discomfort (4–6)? Modify the load, not the movement. Scale the weight. Reduce the range. Keep moving. This is where most training happens.

Significant pain (7–10)? Worse with every session, swelling, night pain, instability — these need assessment. Not because you are broken, but because something needs adjusting before you continue.

Training through pain is not about toughness. It is about understanding what that pain means and responding appropriately. Sometimes you train through it. Sometimes you modify it. Sometimes you pause it.

The skill is knowing the difference.

If you are unsure what your pain is telling you, send us a DM. That is what we are here for. 💪

Yours in strength & movement,
Marty @ Strength Therapy Physio

30/08/2026

One of the biggest mistakes in recovery is confusing pain relief with healing completion. 👇

Pain can settle relatively quickly. The underlying tissue — the actual fibres, tendons, ligaments — takes significantly longer to reach full strength and resilience.

Missing this distinction is exactly why re-injuries are so common. People feel better, assume they are ready, and return to activity before the tissue actually is.

Proper recovery is not just about getting out of pain. It is about loading that tissue progressively until it can genuinely handle what you ask of it. That process has a timeline — and it is longer than most people expect.

The good news? Following it actually prevents future problems.

If you are unsure where you sit in your recovery, send us a DM. 🙌

Yours in strength & movement,
Marty @ Strength Therapy Physio

29/08/2026

Perimenopause is not a switch that flips on your fiftieth birthday. For some women, the signs start showing up years — sometimes more than a decade — before they would ever think to connect them. 👇

Joint pain that was not there before. Recovery that takes longer than it used to. Aches that come and go without an obvious cause. Sleep that has quietly become less restorative. Energy that does not quite match what you are putting in.

These are not always random. For some women, they are early signals of a hormonal shift that the body begins navigating well before the word perimenopause ever enters the conversation.

The challenge is that these symptoms overlap with so many other things — stress, training load, lifestyle — which makes them easy to dismiss or attribute elsewhere. And because perimenopause is still widely associated with later life, many women in their thirties and early forties are not even considering it as a factor.

That is exactly why a proper assessment matters. Not to jump to conclusions — but to build an accurate picture of what is actually going on, so the right support can be put in place early rather than after years of managing symptoms in isolation.

Every woman's experience of this transition is different. The earlier that is understood, the better equipped you are to navigate it.

Save this — and send us a DM if any of this resonates. 🔖

See you in the clinic,
Bree & the Strength Therapy Team

28/08/2026

Recovery works best when everything is working together. 👇

At Strength Therapy Physio, that is exactly how it is set up. Physiotherapy here at the clinic, strength training at CrossFit Bairnsdale next door, and sauna recovery — all connected, all in one location.

When treatment and training are coordinated by the same team, the path back to full strength becomes a lot clearer and more efficient.

That is the kind of care we have built here in Bairnsdale.

Send us a DM — we would love to show you what that looks like for your situation. 💪

See you in the clinic,
Bree & the Strength Therapy Team

27/08/2026

Winter training tip that is worth saving. 👇

The stretch you do before training in the cold is not the problem. The warm-up you skip is.

Here is what is actually happening when you train in cold conditions — the tissue is stiffer, blood flow to the muscles is reduced, and the neuromuscular system is slower to fire than it would be in warmer temperatures. None of this is dangerous on its own. But it does mean the body is not ready to perform at full capacity the moment you start moving.

The transition from cold and still to full training intensity needs to be gradual. Not because the body is fragile — but because it needs time to adapt to the demand being placed on it. Tissue that has not been progressively warmed up is simply less prepared to handle load efficiently, and that is often where overuse niggles begin to appear over a winter training block.

Static stretching on cold muscles does not address this effectively. What works is movement — low intensity at first, building progressively over several minutes before the session begins in earnest.

A practical guide that holds across the evidence: the colder the conditions, the longer the warm-up should be. Not dramatically longer — but meaningfully longer than you would need in summer.

Five to ten extra minutes of deliberate preparation before a cold morning session is one of the simplest ways to protect yourself across a winter training block.

Save this. 🔖

Something been flaring up in training lately? Send us a DM — we will help you work out what is driving it. 💪

Yours in strength & movement,
Marty @ Strength Therapy Physio

Spring training feels harder than it should. Here is the real reason why. 👇Every year the same thing happens — the weath...
26/08/2026

Spring training feels harder than it should. Here is the real reason why. 👇

Every year the same thing happens — the weather warms up, motivation returns, and people jump back into training expecting to pick up where they left off. And every year the body has a different answer.

Winter does something quiet to physical capacity. Less daylight means less movement. More sitting means less load going through the body. It accumulates gradually and by the time spring arrives the baseline has shifted — not dramatically, but enough to feel it.

The important thing to understand is that this is not lost fitness. The body has not forgotten. It is simply working from a lower starting point than before winter, and that distinction matters for how you approach coming back.

Jumping straight back to previous intensity is often where niggles start showing up — because the tissue and the cardiovascular system need time to readapt to load before they are ready to handle what they were managing in autumn.

A few weeks of deliberate, gradual ramp-up protects the entire season ahead. Research in sports medicine consistently supports progressive load increase as one of the most effective strategies for staying injury-free when returning to training.

Want help building that ramp-up properly for your situation? Send us a DM — that is exactly what we are here for. 🙌

See you in the clinic,
Bree & the Strength Therapy Team

25/08/2026

Still waiting for it to sort itself out? It might be time for a different approach. 👇

A few weeks of hoping it settles is reasonable. Most people try that first and it makes sense.

But if it has not shifted by now, waiting longer usually just delays the same conversation — with the same starting point, just further down the track.

It is not too late. It just needs a proper plan now rather than later.

Send us a DM — we will help you figure out the next step. 🙌

See you in the clinic,
Bree & the Strength Therapy Team

Address

3 Campbells Drive
Bairnsdale, VIC
3875

Opening Hours

Monday 8:30am - 5:30pm
Tuesday 8:30am - 7:30pm
Wednesday 9am - 5:30pm
Thursday 9am - 5:30pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 9am - 11am

Telephone

+61351417608

Website

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