Optima Female Performance
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About​.

Our Goal

To better serve our female athletes. Period.

We aim to bridge the gap between women's health and high performance sporting environments by providing education, team/athlete screenings, and individualised treatment and management plans for optimising female health, performance and injury prevention.

Our Why

Having worked in elite sport at the professional and Olympic level with both male and female athletes and teams, we have seen first hand the differences in resources that can be available to both male and female sports.
"Despite the growing representation and success of females in all sports from grass roots to elite, female athletes do not always have the same access to sports science and medical care as their male counterparts."

Working in both Sports and Women's Health physiotherapy roles, we have also experienced the gap in female specific healthcare and awareness that exists across the board from athletes through to their support teams.
"Historically women's health specialists and sports clinicians haven't always worked together in sports medical care models."

We should all be aware that a historical gap in female specific medical research exists, particularly in performance.
"Females were traditionally excluded from research because of the reported difficulties in studying data due to female hormonal fluctuations."

 We should realise that despite recent increases in emerging female specific performance research, momentum must be maintained to reduce the usual lag time between research findings being released and implemented in the field.
"It takes on average 17 years for research evidence to reach clinical practice."

​Finally, we should all understand that sport has a great ability to break down barriers (gender, race, ethnicity), and hence watching females perform at their best can be a powerful tool.
"Our female athlete's can't be successful unless they're at full health." 

Our How

We consult to athletes, teams, and their support networks on best evidence based practice regarding management of female specific health and sport/performance issues and their relation to optimal performance.

We provide system implementation based around education, team/athlete screenings, and individualised treatments and management plans with regards to the menstrual cycle, menstrual dysfunctions, hormonal contraception options, sex differences in injuries (incidence and prognosis), and pelvic floor health (continence, pain, and involvement with musculoskeletal dysfunctions).

Our services are tailored to the individual needs of each client and we aim to offer compatible sport specific solutions for each unique high performance environment.

Our Team

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Jess Cunningham 
APA Titled Sports & Exercise Physiotherapist
Women's Health & Performance Physiotherapist

Jess has been fortunate to work with a wide variety of professional athletes and high performance settings. She has travelled extensively with winter athletes and national teams from Australia, NZ, and the US, and was Australian park and pipe team physio at the Sochi Winter Olympics. She has also worked with the Australian Sailing Team, GWS Giants AFL Team, and ASP (now WSL) and WQS surfing tours in Hawaii. 

Jess' clinical interest in women's health and complex lumbo-pelvic and hip issues mirrors her own (endo) journey, and clinical observations from working with female athletes with menstrual and pelvic floor dysfunctions and interlinked musculoskeletal issues. 

Jess is passionate about supporting, educating and empowering female athletes (and their support teams) to better understand their own unique physiology, and its interconnection with optimal health and performance.
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Kay Robinson 
Performance Physiotherapist
​Educator

Kay has a passion for sport and assisting athletes to reach their optimal performance from grass routes through to Olympic podiums. Her diverse background in elite sport both within Australian and abroad, ranges from supporting Great Britain’s Skeleton team through to the Sochi Winter Olympics, to working with Australian Equestrian, Netball, Hockey, Sailing and the GWS Giants AFLW Team.

Kay has also been involved in teaching on masters courses at Edith Cowan University and University of Melbourne, and enjoys combining her passion for education, clinical skill, and knowledge of performance sport to further improve the development of female athletes.

Throughout her career, Kay has developed an increasing interest in the impact of menstrual symptoms on performance after witnessing the often significant gap in knowledge and education of athletes and staff.
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