Aleks Baruksopulo MISSION – to empower athletes of all ages and abilities with the injury prevention knowledge I know now so they can pursue their dreams and personal goals at their healthy, physical best.
Aleks Baruksopulo PASSION – treating runners with foot and lower leg injuries and getting them back running not only pain free but with the knowledge and direction of how to reduce the risk of these injuries coming back.
“Why is this happening to me…..AGAIN!” I can not remember the number of times I said this to myself as a young representative Basketball player. It seemed as though God was playing a cruel trick on me (over dramatic maybe!) and every time I seemed to be on a roll and getting to that “next level” towards achieving my personal goals, some new evil foot or knee or back injury would cruelly stop me in my tracks. Before too long I just couldn’t take being injured anymore and I stopped pursuing my passion and personal basketball goals. To this day it still breaks my heart that I wasn’t able to at least pursue my dreams at my healthy, physical best.
Was it all just bad luck? Was it my body type or foot type? Was it over-training? Was it being lazy or not placing enough importance with the right maintenance exercises? Was it a lack of direction from my treating health professionals at the time? Was it not following through with the treatment plan/s? Or a combination of all of the above?
It is easy in hindsight to say I should have done things in a better way. BUT…. with the intimate knowledge I know now from working with runners and athletes over the past 13+ years I know there are some components that I could have at least controlled to help reduce my injury risk.
I started SportsMed Podiatry after 9 years working and being a partner of both a Sports Podiatry business and a Podiatry running shoe store that practices within Allsports Physiotherapy which is a large Physiotherapy and Sports Medicine chain in Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
Throughout this time I often felt frustrated with the limited time I spent with patients especially during their initial consultation and what I could offer in terms of treatment and ongoing support. I also felt frustrated that as a whole our profession relied too heavily on customised orthotics as the only treatment option for patients and also that we had developed a stigma, especially in the running community, that if you see a Podiatrist you are automatically going to be placed in or given a pair of orthotics.
For more than 5 years now SportsMed Podiatry, working within some of the Gold Coast’s leading Physiotherapy practices, has developed into a comprehensive Sports Podiatry service born from listening to patients needs, personal sports failings and the stigma of Podiatrists over-prescribing orthotics.
We focus on listening to the patient’s needs and goals, accurately diagnosing, finding all the causes of the patient’s pain, educating on causes, implementing hands on treatment, putting in short and long term home treatment plans, collaborating with allied health to address areas out of scope of Podiatry expertise and communicating with accessibility to the Podiatrist along the rehabilitation journey and beyond.
For more information about SportsMed Podiatry or ask to speak directly to a Podiatrist please click on your closest clinic, or complete a request for a callback.
