About

About

Who this is for
Podiatrists and physiotherapists who want a practical, repeatable framework for assessment, diagnosis, and management across common foot and ankle presentations, and who want to build genuine expertise in the lower limb.

Course overview

• Foot and ankle presentations can look similar on the surface, but the right questions, the right tests, and a clear clinical framework usually makes the diagnosis and plan much clearer. This course focuses on building clinical reasoning that holds up in the real world, from first consult through to return to sport.

The day is delivered in a cycle: learn the concept, practise it immediately, then build complexity. You will work through hands on palpation and surface anatomy, demonstration of key tests, and guided practice to improve confidence with assessment and decision making.

Learning objectives
By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Apply a simple framework to move from presentation to diagnosis, contributing factors, and management.
• Ask more targeted subjective questions to improve diagnostic confidence and identify red flags.
• Perform key below knee assessment tests and interpret findings to guide decision making.
• Differentiate common tendon presentations and understand how this changes loading advice.
• Classify suspected bone stress injuries (high risk vs low risk), choose appropriate imaging pathways, and plan staged unloading and return to activity.
• Make practical footwear and orthoses decisions, including how prescriptions change across shoe types and patient goals.
• Build progressive rehabilitation plans, including load management, running specific considerations, and readiness testing for return to sport.
• Communicate plans clearly to patients and other health professionals, including costs, expectations, and review strategy.

Core topics
The core topics below are the building blocks of becoming a confident lower limb clinician, with each section taught through a short theory block followed by practical application.

Core principles

• Frameworks for clinical practice and complex cases: A step-by-step structure to reduce guesswork and improve consistency in complex presentations.
• Minimum effective dose: Understand dosing across MSK care, from footwear to rehab to running load.
• Understanding pain: Translate pain science into practical communication, expectations, and progression decisions.
• Seeking and providing second opinions: Know when to escalate, what to ask for, and how to present a clear clinical question.
• Collaborative MSK care and communicating podiatry’s role: Communicate your value clearly within a multidisciplinary team to improve outcomes and referrals.
• Translating lower limb biomechanics into practical decisions: Use biomechanics to guide choices, not create noise, linking findings to action.

Communication and coaching

• Communication and coaching

• Communicating effectively with someone in pain: Improve adherence by explaining the why in plain language.
• In depth subjective questioning for diagnostic clarity: Ask targeted questions that narrow differentials and identify drivers early.
• Communicating with GPs, sports doctors, and orthopaedic surgeons.
• Discussing treatment plans, costs, and value with confidence: Set clear expectations around timelines, reviews, and what success looks like.

Assessment and diagnosis (practical stations)

• Thorough subjective history: Build a history that directly informs your testing plan and working diagnosis.
• Recognising and differentiating tendon presentations.
• Hands on palpation and surface anatomy refresher (shin, ankle, medial foot, lateral foot): Improve localisation and confidence with real anatomy, not textbook diagrams.
• Key clinical tests and how to interpret results: Learn what each test is actually telling you, including common pitfalls.
• Linking subjective findings to testing choices: Stop doing every test and start doing the right test for the right reason.

Bone stress management

• Imaging principles for stress fractures and other pathology: Choose imaging based on risk, timeline, and what will change management.
• Diagnostic tests for bone stress: Use clinical signs to guide probability, urgency, and referral decisions.
• Staged unloading and return to activity: Build a plan that protects the bone while maintaining overall fitness and function.
• High risk vs low risk classification: Classify correctly so you do not miss injuries that need strict protection.
• Rehabilitation specifics: Progress strength and impact in a way that matches bone healing and training goals.

Condition focused discussions

• Plantar heel pain: Make decisions around load, footwear, and strength with fewer trial and error detours.
• Patellofemoral pain: Connect below knee mechanics, strength, and training load to a practical plan.
• Osteoarthritis: Balance symptom relief with capacity building and long-term joint confidence.
• Medial tendon pain (including tibialis posterior): Differentiate tendon vs joint drivers and build a staged plan for walking and running tolerance.
• Lateral tendon pain (peroneals and lateral ankle complex): Identify when it is tendon overload, instability, or impingement, and manage accordingly.
• Ankle joint pain: Clarify joint driven pain patterns, key tests, and practical management including mobility, strength, and load modification.
• Forefoot pain: Work through common presentations (metatarsalgia, plantar plate, sesamoids, stress related pain) and match management to the likely structure and load driver.

Footwear and orthoses

• Matching footwear features to presentations (including running shoes and open-toed options): Prescribe features that match the problem.
• How orthoses interact with footwear and how prescriptions change across shoe types: Avoid common mismatch errors that lead to discomfort.
• Using foot orthoses for patella femoral pain. Who will respond best?
• The Running Company Ballarat will be showcasing footwear and have the ability to try it on.
• Advanced options: customised prefabricated devices, Richie braces, carbon plates, AFOs, aero spring style devices: Know when to escalate and how to choose the right tool.
• Fit, review appointments, and patient understanding of orthoses: Improve comfort, outcomes, and retention with a better review process.

Running assessment

• How to conduct a running assessment: A simple, repeatable process you can run in clinic, including what to film, what angles to use, and what to look for first.

• Interpreting running biomechanics: Understand what the movement patterns might mean for load distribution and symptom behaviour, and what is just normal variation.

• When gait change is worthwhile: Clear indicators for when changing running form is likely to help, and when it is unlikely to move the needle.

• How to change running gait safely: Practical cues, progressions, and how to dose change without triggering new problems.

• Current literature on running assessment: What the evidence supports, what it does not, and how to apply it without overpromising.

Rehabilitation and return to activity

• Rehabilitation and return to activity

• Load management and progression: Build capacity without flare-ups using clear progression rules.
• Rehab Principles for the Foot and Ankle - We don’t need to overcomplicate it.
• Exercise ideas to load the lower limb
• Return to volume and intensity, testing and readiness to return: Use simple readiness checks and staged exposure to reduce setbacks.
• How to write a runnuing program

Evidence-based practice. Is that really a thing and how can we have an integrated approach?

• Tendon, pain, bone, and joint specific rehabilitation: What current evidence suggests about tissue adaptation
• Case discussion and Q&A: Bring real cases and leave with clearer next steps you can use immediately.
• Return to volume and intensity, testing and readiness to return: Use simple readiness checks and staged exposure to reduce setbacks.

Date

Location

Get directions

North Ballarat Sports Club (Mars Stadium)
Wendouree VIC 3355

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