Michael Cox

A Bit About Michael

Michael is a Newcastle boy through and through. He loves his beautiful wife Mil, his son Harrison, and his giant fur baby Murphy. He’s from a family full of doctors, nurses and physios, so a passion for looking after the health of others is in his blood. A lifetime of devotion to the Knights is a blessing and a curse at times.

Personal Life

Michael attends Hunter Christian church and runs a young adult’s group there where he mentors youngsters navigating this weird world and trying to be the best versions of themselves. He loves spending time with friends and family, taking his roles as Rad Dad and Funcle very seriously.

Sporting Background and Goals

Sports addict is putting it mildly. If you can win, he’s in. He will challenge you to a game of marbles if there is nothing else to play. Along with an unhealthy relationship with the Newcastle Knights, Michael endures more torture as a Manchester United tragic. Don’t hold it against him.

Soccer has been his main passion; he has played at a semi-professional level in the state league competition locally for years as central midfielder. Long distance running is a passion, an excuse to get out in nature, and is weirdly relaxing for him. An ACL reconstruction in 2021 and Dad life has put a few competitions on hold but Michael’s goal for next year is to run a half-marathon in under an hour and 40 minutes.

Career

Michael Graduated in 2014 from the University of Newcastle. He never had a doubt about the type of physio he wanted to be or who he wanted to help, so naturally went straight into private practice. He worked at a practice in Maitland for 2-3 years and gained experience working with kids through to adults, weekend warriors through to athletes. He has 8 years of experience working with high level local Rugby, Cricket and for the most part, State League Football sides (Up the Weston Bears!). In the last 3 years he has worked with the Newcastle Knights from their Harold Matthews team through to their NSW Cup team.

Assessment with Michael will usually include a combination of assessment tools such as Selective Functional Movement Assessment to screen how your body moves. The concept is to not just treat the symptoms and get to the root of the problem, but living by the mantra of helping people “Move well, then move often”. He is skilled in using our Axit System from Strength by Numbers which allows our Physiotherapists to test overall strength in movements, compare your symmetry of strength, and see how strength matches up with the expected ‘normative data’, or compare you to athletes.

Keen Interests
While he loves the challenge of figuring out the puzzle of why someone has an issue in any part of their body, he admits he does have a special interest in working with runners like himself, and with ACL patients after going through his own journey from injury to returning to sport.

Imaging
As with all Physio’s at Next Gen Physio, Michael can refer you for most scans such as Xray, Ultrasound, MRI, though sometimes this is best done through a specialist for expert interpretation. He will help you navigate what you need or when/if you need these.

Holistic
While we aren’t experts in mental health, Michael takes the ‘therapist’ part of being a physiotherapist seriously, and will go out of his way to make sure you feel heard, educated, and supported in your physical and mental recovery. Having been through a 12 month+ recovery from his knee injury last year, he has experienced the challenges involved with a long-term injury, as well has having a passion for improving the quality of life of his patients with chronic pain.

Manual Therapy
Michael is highly trained and experienced with dry needling, trained under the GEMT dry needling courses and years of experience. While Michael acknowledges that dry needling is a short-term symptom management strategy, needling is also an efficient way to confirm diagnosis, and also provide much needed relief before getting down to the long-term solutions. Michael is a wizard at strapping, and can prescribe & fit braces of all shapes and sizes.