Professional Background
Tim Schleiger is the Founder and Director of The Sports Clinic Melbourne. He holds the crucial responsibility of coordinating The Sports Clinic’s wide range of services through his professional team of physiotherapists, exercise physiologists, corrective exercise trainers, physical therapists, masseurs, acupuncturists, and sports scientists.
The Sports Clinic has a comprehensive history that spans over two decades as one of Melbourne’s leading rehabilitation facilities. The duo of Tim Schleiger and Peter Ellis founded the company in 1996 with the goal of creating a unique holistic approach to rehabilitative and functional performance that integrated many disciplines. This has grown into one of Melbourne’s foremost exercise-based rehabilitation centers, serving a diverse spectrum of clients such as professional athletes, corporate executives, weekend warriors, and a variety of pre and post-operative patients.
The Sports Clinic is proud of these foundations, as well as the fact that it has expanded organically over the past 20+ years to currently include a well-respected staff of physiotherapists, performance coaches, exercise physiologists, myotherapists, Pilates teachers, and strength and conditioning coaches.
The goal at the Sports Clinic is to guarantee that clients not only return to physical activity but also have the tools they need to fulfill their maximum physical potential. The Sports Clinic has the ability to draw out a holistic but personalised rehabilitation plan, so it’s not just about the treatment. When combined with the work of the Physiotherapists, The Sports Clinic ensures that the customers receive the best outcomes possible. The facility ensures that everyone’s rehab and subsequent training program is personalized to their exact individual needs by cooperating with their surgeons, doctors, athletic clubs, and player representatives.
Expertise
Tim has a breadth of practical expertise in human movement, biomechanics, applied science, sports massage, and as a strength and conditioning coach. He also possesses a variety of university certifications in these areas. Tim has advised outstanding international athletes and top sporting organizations in soccer, cricket, AFL, tennis, snow sports, and a variety of summer Olympic sports during the course of his 25-year career. He has also worked as an AFL conditioning coach to many of the league’s top stars.
Tim Schleiger is also a co-founder of the Train 247 Fitness clubs and VIC Active, a collection of industry veterans with over 100 years of experience that own and runs fitness facilities in Victoria (metro & regional). Government relations and policy advocacy experts back the group, which is supported by prominent medical advisors in epidemiology, infectious diseases, and community medicine.
Life Story
Tim was born in a Melbourne suburb. Doncaster, Fawkner, and South Melbourne Hellas were his junior soccer clubs. He represented Victoria at the junior level for several years before moving on to the South Melbourne Youth Team. In his dedication to the game, as well as in the determination and self-sacrifice necessary to thrive at it, his passion for the sport was always apparent to everyone. In addition to a loan spell at Croydon City, he made a few senior team outings with Southend United.
Tim was forced to retire at the young age of 22 due to severe ailments. For most, this would be the end of their sporting career; however, for Tim, this was only a stumbling block, and from what the man has achieved after his career, the tale is only going to get better from here. He went on to pursue a career in physical therapy and as a strength and conditioning coach in Melbourne. With the help of his own physiotherapy clinic and top sports consultancy company, he was able to go back into soccer.
He worked as a Melbourne strength and conditioning coach and consultant for the Melbourne Heart in the club’s early years, and he also had one-on-one sessions with many of the club’s Golden Generation players, including John Aloisi, Harry Kewell, Vince Grella, Marco Bresciano, and Carl Valeri, among others.
The responsibility of getting strength training recognized falls on strength coaches like Tim. If strength training is to gain the recognition it deserves, strength coaches must show the benefits of strength training through evidence Tim’s role with The Sports Clinic Melbourne includes strength and conditioning programs for athletes as well as developmental strength training programs designed especially for children and adolescents. As a strength coach to The Sports Clinic Melbourne, Tim‘s strength training programs don’t just focus on one sport or one type of athlete but are general strength conditioning programs that cover a wide range of sports and athletes.
“Every strength training program is tailored to the athlete,” says Tim. “It’s a program that involves strength, speed, agility, flexibility, and power in all types of sports.” This includes strength training for cricket bowlers, strength training for AFL players as well as strength and conditioning programs for elite athletes in other sports. Each session lasts 30 minutes and is designed to cover strength, speed, and agility.
While strength endurance and strength resistance are the most important aspects of strength training, Tim recommends that coaches consider this: “Most strength training happens outside the gym so you need to look at strength conditioning in terms of sports performance.”
Strength training involves a combination of strength endurance – which means being able to repeatedly do strength training exercises – and strength resistance, which involves strength training for specific strength tasks.
Tim’s training programs have also been designed for teenagers, who can find strength training particularly challenging – especially if they come from a sports background where strength is not valued.
There are also strength sessions specifically designed for children and adolescents as well as strength and conditioning programs that involve a team of athletes from different sports. In this way, strength coaches can involve strength training for soccer, strength conditioning for tennis, strength exercises for basketball, and strength programs for track and field athletes.
These strength programs are not strictly aimed at developing strength power – which is demonstrated by sport-specific strength tasks such as a vertical jump or standing high jump but instead focus on strength endurance and strength resistance.
Resources:
LinkedIn/Tim-Schleiger
LinkedIn/the-sports-clinic-of-melbourne
The Sports Clinic of Melbourne website
VIC Active website
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