Lara Elger is a physiotherapist with 19 years of clinical experience, working from the Cabarita clinic. She graduated with a Bachelor of Physiotherapy with First Class Honours from the University of Queensland in 2006 and has since developed particular expertise in hip, shoulder, foot and ankle conditions, neck pain and headaches.
Lara brings a thoughtful, big-picture approach to each patient — taking time to understand not just the injury, but the person and their life. She recognises that pain rarely exists in isolation from stress, load and lifestyle, and her treatment reflects this.
She is experienced across all ages and stages of life, with particular interest in over-50 adults and adolescent sporting injuries.
Lara listens first. Her initial assessment is thorough and unhurried — she wants to understand the full picture of a person’s injury, lifestyle, stress levels and goals before developing a treatment plan.
Her clinical framework is built around the concept of capacity versus load: most injuries occur when the demands placed on a structure exceed what it can currently handle. Treatment focuses on settling acute pain, then systematically building capacity through targeted rehabilitation.
Lara combines hands-on techniques with specific exercise prescription and lifestyle modification. She corrects one of the most common misconceptions she sees: that stretching alone will resolve pain. Often, underlying weakness is the real driver — and building strength is what produces lasting change.
