Profiles
Director Alison Rose MCSP HPC
Alison has just returned from the London 2012 Olympic Games where she has been working with Jessica Ennis. This has been Ali’s fourth Olympic games.
Ali has been working as a physiotherapist in sports for the last nineteen years. She has worked with UK Athletics as a consultant since 2000, working at the Olympics with athletics in 2000, 2004 and 2008, and now 2012. She has also worked at the World Championships in athletics in 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009, and the European Championships in athletics in 2002 and 2006. She has also worked at the World and European Cross Country Championships since 2003.
Ali is the physiotherapist credited with helping to keep Kelly Holmes injury free in the two years leading up to the Athens Olympics in 2004, helping her to double Olympic gold in the 800m and 1500m. She still works with Kelly supporting developing athletes through Kelly’s On Camp With Kelly Scheme, that now has about 45 up and coming younger athletes.
Ali has been working with Jessica Ennis, the 2012 Olympic gold medallist for the last eight years, and helped to rehabilitate her back from a career threatening injury in 2008, to become World Champion a year later, in Berlin in 2009.
Ali has also worked closely with Alistair and Jonny Brownlee since 2005, as their physiotherapist at the time, and also to help improve their running technique, to enable them to become more efficient and help to reduce the risk of injury.
She has also worked with divers in the City of Leeds diving club since 2003, which has included Tandi Gerrard (Olympian 2004, 2008) Rebecca Gallantree (Olympian 2008, 2012) and Sarah Barrow (Olympian 2012). Having worked closely with Tandi and the coaches to learn and understand the sport, Ali has helped to set up a diving specific strengthening program with the coaches to help prevent injury.
Squash World number 1, James Willstrop is another of Ali’s clients, and has been since 2004. James has a gruelling schedule of tournaments and travel, and it is therefore doubly important to ensure that any niggles and potential injuries are ironed out when he is in the UK.
Ali has also spent a number of weeks in 2003 and 2004 warm weather training with Linford Christies’ training group, which included Darren Campbell, Jamie Baulch, Joice Maduaka, Katherine Merry and Daniel Plummer.
In addition to supporting international athletes in athletics, diving, squash, and triathlon, Ali works with a wide variety of sports, including swimming, cycling, football, and rugby.
Ali specialises in working with athletic performance and movement patterning. She is also extremely experienced in working with those individuals with a complex injury history, postural alignment issues and those with chronic musculoskeletal dysfunction preventing normal activities and affecting performance.
Clinical special interests include osteitis pubis and chronic pelvic dysfunction, complex injuries, visceral work and breathing disorders that affect both sporting performance, and normal life.
Ali believes that injury prevention and a full and functional rehabilitation is the key to performance and treating injuries in the long term so that they do not recur. The key to attaining the best recovery is a thorough assessment including muscle balance testing, biomechanical and movement assessment, in addition to visceral and soft tissue testing. This will enable a good treatment and rehabilitation plan to be put together.
Ali raced for Great Britain at the marathon at the World Student Games in 1993, at the European Championships in 1994, the Marathon World Cup in Athens in 1995 and the World Championships in 1995. She ran her PB of 2.42.42 in Athens, and was coached by Malcolm Brown.
Before coming to Leeds in 2003, Ali worked at FASIC in Edinburgh, for the military in Melbourne, Australia, and for a year with Gerard Hartmann in a more residential setting.
In her spare time, Ali still enjoys running, cycling and swimming, and has a new found enjoyment of water skiing. She also loves travelling, learning languages and catching up with friends and family.
Recent Courses
- Integrative manual therapy for chronic pain, module 1 – Haydn Gambling
- Advanced osteopathic spinal techniques with French Osteopath-J.P Barral
- Movement patterning for performance and injury prevention (parts 1-4)- Joanne Elphinston
- Breathing pattern disorders- Leon Chaitow
- Patterns of dysfunction in the lumbar pelvic region
