Olympians: Top 7 Australian Physios that are also

Although a whole bunch of your peers headed to the Olympics as to help keep athletes fighting fit, here’s 7 physio Olympians that have competed at 1 or more Olympiads as athletes.

7. Samuel Beltz

Is a former lightweight rower and 15 time national champion. Samuel competed across two summer Olympic games in 2008 and 2012. After winning gold in the 2011 lightweight mens four Beltz finished 4th with his crew in London 2012. Samuel is the Director/Workplace Rehab Consultant at Total Workfit Solutions.

6. Fiona Milne

Australian based physiotherapist originally from Canada, Fiona competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and again in 2004 in Athens as a Rower for the Canadian team. she now works as a physio for Spinrg Physio Gym in Malvern Vic.

5. Krystal Weir

A late bloomer to sailing Krystal fought her way to the top and 7 national titles later managed to compete at the 2004 and 2008 summer Olympics. Krystal is now the director of K2 Health Physio and Pilates  in Brighton Vic.

4. Jessica Trengrove

Nicknamed Trenny, Jessica was born in Naracoorte, SA where she also attended primary school and high school before attending Annesley College. Jessica has competed for Australia in distances from 5000m to Marathon and competed in the 2012 and 2016 Olympic games. Jess works as a physio in Adelaide at Physio Smart.

3. Rachel Neylan

Professional road cyclist and 2016 Rio Olympian, Rachel is a former world road race silver medallist. In 2007 as a 25 year old Rachel was working as a phyio for the Australian rowing team when she realised that she too wanted to chase the dream of becoming a professional athlete. She move from Sydney to Adelaide immediately and 5 years later was on the world championship podium.

2. Anna Wood

Anna is a dutch born Australian Sprint Canoeist who competed in an astonishingly high number of games including 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000 summer Olympic games. Anna won bronze in the K2-500m events at both Seoul (1988) and Atlanta (1996). Anna works as a physio in Tugun QLD and as an AIS coach for the canoe kayak program.

1. Alicia Quirk OAM

Olympic gold medallist and professional 7s rugby union player Alicia Quirk tops the list of Olympian physios. After a strong campaign in the rugby 7s debut competition in Rio, the Australians managed a hard fought win over the New Zealand team in the gold medal match. The team was one of only eight Australian gold medal winning teams or individuals at these games. Alicia studied Bachelor of Physiotherapy at Charles Sturt university, Albury-Wodonga in 2013. Alicia currently works at Eastern Suburbs Sports medicine centre in Bondi Junction, NSW.

 

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Fasciitis Fighter: Fighting For Balance with Hamish Vickerman- Hamish The Physio, innovator and father

Today we chatted to physiotherapist, Fasciitis Fighter creator, father of one and absolute legend Hamish Vickerman about work life balance, innovation and changing the way physios work.

Q – Tell us a little bit about what your current work week looks like?

Hamish – At the moment I’m working 4 full days treating clients and have Wednesdays off to spend time with my daughter Nina. I also work some shifts as a locum in orthopaedic rehabilitation on a regular basis. I spend most of my time between clients, working on the Fasciitis Fighter and on social media sharing relevant, up to date content for likeminded HCP’s (Health Care Professionals).

Q – We used to work together in a private practice, what made you want to take the next step into doing your own thing?

Hamish – The flexibility to be able to live a life that I enjoy was certainly a key driving force behind it. I was confident I could get out of the 9-5 (physio world 8-7 grind) and still make the same money as a full time physio so I jumped into it. I have been lucky enough to have the time to focus on developing the Fasciitis Fighter, which was an idea of mine from a few years ago that I’ve finally been able to commercialise now that I have the time.

Q – Speaking of the Fasciitis Fighter, it’s been wildly popular since you launched it only a few short weeks ago with huge uptake and support from some of the most renowned health professionals on social media. How are you handling the uptake? I notice you are already out of stock it must be a wild ride?

Hamish – It’s been great with support from Whiteley Healthcare and Briggate Medical in Australia with distribution and huge support from health professionals around the world. Its crazy seeing my product reach all corners of the earth. I’ve recently sold a bunch to an NBA team in the US and NRL team in Australia too, which is fantastic. I have a great supply chain and manufacturing partner and we will be getting the Fasciitis Fighter back into the hands of clinicians early next week. I definitely did not expect there to be such a demand so quickly but am grateful that it has been. Ultimately, selling too much stock is a great problem to have.

Q – It’s great to see you’ve been able to accomplish so much with this work flexibility. What do you think the future holds for you?

Hamish – I love helping people, solving issues and connecting with like-minded individuals around the world through social media. Whether it’s seeing clients in clinic, helping people improve their foot pain around the world with the Fasciitis Fighter or working to see the physio profession grow, I’m confident I’ll still be in this industry for years to come and hopefully enjoying it more than ever.

What a pleasure it was speaking to the man himself. Make sure to follow Hamish on he’s social media handles through the links below. Keep an eye out for our next weekly interview at Lokko.

Instagram.com/hamishthephysio

Instagram.com/fasciitisfighter

Facebook.com/hamishthephysio

Fasciitisfighter.com.au

Hamishthephysio.com.au

The lifestyle physio – The rise of part time, freelance and contract work

There’s something special about waking up every morning knowing that you will be helping someone today. Out of all the hundreds of fields you could have studied in, you chose physio. You are inherently a person that enjoys improving the wellbeing of others and you have empathy.

But after 8-10 years of worrying about everyone else, the creeping realisation that you may be stuck in a career that is failing to look after you like you are looking after your patients starts to burden you. Your thumbs and your back are becoming tired and you hate yourself for not putting in the same effort as you once had. According to research the highest rate of physiotherapist attrition is between 5-15 years post-graduation. So strangely from an outsider’s point of view this seems weird (study 4-5 years to drop out of the profession in almost the same amount of time). But digging a little deeper its easy to see the industry is riddled with false promises, underpaid (sometimes illegally) staff, dead ends and burn out.

Beneath all the altruism and empathy is a person, a professional in need of something more. career goals and ambition outside of merit increases and promotions by length of stay not level of performance. And a resultant vector (if you will) is the absolute and total saturation of private practices in the community. In most parts of Australia there are as many private physiotherapy practices as there are GP practices. So, we are left with what? An oversaturated market with overcapitalised business owners, hardly any consumer demand and high level of confusion in the difference between a highly trained evidence-based practitioner and their non-category competitors like Osteo and Chiro.

And all physios, sort of know that this is the case but continue the cycle and buy into this struggle of a life as a physio and then, as it seems, drop out and start something new. My biggest question to you today is what are you doing about it? More often than not we like to accept life as it is and the market dictates our behaviour. The average wage for a physio in Australia is $64 000 annually and the top 10% only are making over $90 000 per year (payscale.com). Let that sink in for a little bit.

Now I know that we don’t do everything for just financial reward, but we also need to put food on the table, pay the mortgage etc. As a physio there are plenty of ways to make more if that’s really what you want to do and to be fair most full-time jobs in other industries aren’t exactly 9-5 so you could do overtime, work weekends etc. But what if you could dictate the terms of how you work in this landscape? What if you didn’t need to get stuck in a system of brutal billing targets every single day of the year? Or fight for a spot at a hospital to then realise your 4-5 years of training really doesn’t put you anywhere on the food chain? What if you could completely redesign the experience of working as a physio? What if you could make the same money, work less and learn more than you ever have or will across multiple workplaces?

Introducing you! The Lifestyle Physio. Reimagine yourself waking up now, but instead of thinking about how quickly you need to throw on your polo shirt and running shoes to get to the private practice (where you are clearly underpaid), think about the long breakfast you’ll have with your son, your daughter, your husband, your wife, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your dog, your pet mouse. Think about how good the surf is this morning and that you’ll be out there. Think about how good it feels to be at the top of the mountain after a long morning bike ride. Think about how good it is to sleep in after whisky tasting night at the hipster AF bar you went to last night. Think about how great it is that you are waking up in another city because you are travelling Australia (and potentially the world) working as a physio. Think about the days you’ll have free to spend with family, work on yourself (professionally and personally), design that physio product you think needs to exist, arranging bouquets or baking wedding cakes because that’s your absolute love and passion. Think about how you’ll constantly be engaged working across multiple fields and will always be learning. Think about that, just for a second, and download the Lokko app. You will not look back.

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