The Stabilisation Academy

The Stabilisation Academy Clinical education for health professionals | Movement • Gait • Foot & Ankle Rehabilitation | Understand the WHY behind movement.

04/09/2026

Are we strengthening the foot- or improving how it functions?

The intrinsic muscles of the foot contribute to dynamic support, sensory awareness, balance and the ability to respond to load.

But strengthening them in isolation doesn’t automatically mean a patient will use them effectively during standing, walking or running.

We need to observe the whole movement strategy, interpret what may be driving the compensation, and then choose the most appropriate intervention.

That is exactly what my new From the Feet Up Movement Reasoning Framework™ is designed to support. It’s a clearer, repeatable way to understand movement and make more confident clinical decisions.

Follow Tracy Cooke | Injury & Rehab Podiatrist | Educator as I begin unpacking the framework and showing how it can guide foot and ankle rehabilitation.

28/08/2026

Pain location gives us a starting point- not a complete explanation.

If assessment stops at the symptomatic structure, we may miss the movement strategy, loading pattern or wider context contributing to the presentation.

Start locally. Then deliberately zoom out.

Save this reminder for your next assessment.

23/08/2026

I’ve spent nearly three decades working with feet and lower-limb problems.

But one thing has become increasingly clear throughout my career:

You can’t understand the foot properly if you only look at the foot.

The foot interacts with the ankle.

The ankle with the knee.

The knee with the hip.

The pelvis and trunk influence what happens below whilst the ground influences what happens above.

Movement is interconnected.

That’s why From the Feet Up has become much more than the name of my clinic.

It describes the way I think.

Start at the feet.
Observe the whole person.
Understand the strategy.
Then decide what actually needs to change.

And there’s a lot more coming around this idea.

👉 If you’re a clinician who already finds yourself looking beyond the site of pain, save this post.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to show you more about how I connect what I’m seeing to the clinical decisions I make.

11/08/2026

Two people can walk into the clinic with the same diagnosis.

Same painful area.

Similar symptoms.

Even similar imaging findings.

Yet they may be using completely different movement strategies.

So should they automatically receive the same rehabilitation program?

A diagnosis can help tell us WHAT we may be dealing with.

Movement helps us understand HOW that individual is managing it.

That’s where clinical reasoning becomes so important.

Instead of only asking:

“What hurts?”

I also want to know:

What is this person doing to create movement, stability and load transfer , and WHY?

Because when we understand the individual strategy, our intervention can become much more individual too.

👉 Clinicians :- do you find yourself treating the diagnosis first, or the movement strategy in front of you?

I’d love to hear how you approach it.

10/08/2026

One of the biggest changes in my career wasn’t discovering another exercise.

It was realising I needed to spend more time observing before intervening.

How does someone choose to move?

Where do they find stability?

Where do they lose it?

What changes with speed, load or direction?

And importantly - why?

Every movement gives us information.

The more carefully we observe, the better our questions become, and the better our clinical decisions can become.

Over the coming weeks, I’m going to be sharing more about how I look at movement, rehabilitation and clinical reasoning - and why understanding the WHY has become such an important part of the way I practise and teach.

👉 Next time you watch someone move, don’t immediately think about what you would change. First ask yourself: What am I actually seeing, and why might it be happening?

Save this one and follow along - we’re going to build on this.

17/07/2026

The swelling settles. The pain improves. They can walk again.

But after an ankle sprain…

what exercise do you actually give next?

A calf raise?

Band inversion and eversion?

Single-leg balance?

A wobble board?

Hopping?

And more importantly…

Why that exercise? Why now?

This is where ankle sprain rehab can become far more complex than simply progressing through a standard list of exercises.

Because your patient doesn’t just need a “stronger ankle”.

They need the ability to sense, organise, adapt and stabilise under changing demands.

They need to manage load.

Respond to the ground.

Control movement.

Create stiffness when required.

Allow movement when required.

And eventually transfer all of that into walking, running, landing, changing direction and returning to sport.

So when you choose an exercise after an ankle sprain, the question shouldn’t simply be:

“What ankle exercise should I give?”

It should be:

“What function am I trying to restore?”

Because stability is not the same as strength.

Balance is not the same as control.

And standing on one leg for 30 seconds doesn’t necessarily tell you whether someone is ready to run, cut, land or return to sport.

This is exactly why I created my Understanding & Applying Foot Stabilisation Principles Masterclass for health and movement professionals.

If you’re a physio, podiatrist, osteopath, EP, chiropractor, sports therapist or movement professional and you’ve ever looked at a patient after an ankle sprain and thought…

“What exercise should I actually give them next?”

This masterclass is for you.

👇 Comment “MASTERCLASS” below and I’ll send you the link.

🚨 IF THE SCAN DOESN’T EXPLAIN THE PAIN… WHAT ARE YOU ASSESSING NEXT?This is the question I think more health professiona...
06/07/2026

🚨 IF THE SCAN DOESN’T EXPLAIN THE PAIN… WHAT ARE YOU ASSESSING NEXT?

This is the question I think more health professionals need to be asking.

Because a scan may show structure.

But it doesn’t necessarily show:

🦶 How the foot adapts to the ground
🏃 What happens during running
⚖️ How load is transferred
🧠 How the nervous system organises the task
🦵 Whether movement is available but poorly controlled
👟 Whether footwear is influencing the strategy
⏱️ What changes under fatigue

And this is where we can get stuck.

If imaging is “normal”, do we simply reassure and send them away?

If something appears on imaging, do we automatically assume we’ve found the cause?

Or do we keep assessing?

Because the painful structure is important.

But it may not be the whole story.

My latest blog explores what happens when imaging doesn’t neatly explain the presentation, and why function, load, movement, capacity and clinical reasoning still matter.

For health professionals working with persistent, complex or simply confusing musculoskeletal presentations, this is a conversation worth having.

👇 COMMENT “BLOG” and I’ll send you the link to read it.

04/07/2026

👶 Are kids really becoming more uncoordinated… or are we just accepting it as “normal”?

“I’ll grow out of it.”

“They’re just clumsy.”

“It’s only growing pains.”

These are some of the most common things I hear. But what if they’re actually signs that a child’s movement system isn’t developing as efficiently as it could?

Frequent tripping.
Poor balance.
Reduced coordination.
Difficulty keeping up in sport.
“Osgood’s”, “Sever’s”, recurring ankle sprains or persistent “growing pains”.

These aren’t diagnoses- they’re clues.

As health professionals, we need to stop looking only at where the pain is and start assessing how the child moves.

A comprehensive biomechanical and movement assessment can reveal movement strategies, stability deficits, foot function, developmental movement patterns and compensation that may be contributing to their symptoms long before they become bigger problems.

Pain is often the last thing to appear, not the first.

Let’s help children move better, not simply wait and hope they “grow out of it.”

📍 Are you a parent of a child living in Perth?

If you’ve noticed your child frequently tripping, struggling with balance or coordination, complaining of “growing pains”, or simply not moving as confidently as you’d expect, it may be worth taking a closer look at how their whole body is functioning.

Book a comprehensive biomechanical and movement assessment at From The Feet Up Sports & Podiatry Clinic in Subiaco.

👣 We look beyond just the feet to assess how your child moves, stabilises and coordinates from the ground up.

Excited to be joining the Podiatry Department at the University of Western Australia as a Clinical Supervisor for second...
24/06/2026

Excited to be joining the Podiatry Department at the University of Western Australia as a Clinical Supervisor for second-year podiatry students.

I’ve always loved mentoring students and helping bridge the gap between theory and real-world clinical practice. After nearly 30 years in the profession, it’s a privilege to contribute to the development of the next generation of podiatrists.

15/05/2026

Can your client efficiently transfer from the ground to standing… or are they compensating the whole way up?

One of the most underrated movement assessments in rehab?
The transition from Tripod - high kneeling to standing.

From a Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization perspective, this movement tells us a huge amount about:
✔️ stability
✔️ foot function
✔️ weight transfer
✔️ trunk control
✔️ hip strategy
✔️ nervous system organisation

The body should be able to coordinate this movement efficiently using integrated stabilisation patterns developed through developmental physiology.

But what do we often see instead?

❌ collapsing feet
❌ poor pressure transfer
❌ hip shifting
❌ trunk instability
❌ momentum strategies
❌ compensation through the lumbar spine or knees

Adding a small amount of load during a Czech get-up progression is not just “strength work.”
It becomes a way to assess and facilitate efficient movement organisation through the entire kinetic chain.

This is why rehab should move beyond isolated exercises.

The foot, trunk, pelvis, and nervous system must work together.

Because sometimes the issue isn’t weakness…
It’s poor movement coordination.

Comment MASTERCLASS and I’ll send you the link to my free Foot & Ankle Stabilisation Masterclass.

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