Why we brought the Australian rehabilitation model to Nanjing
Football has put sports injury back in the public conversation in Jiangsu. Behind every professional career is a rehabilitation team.
The Jiangsu football league has filled local timelines this season. What is less visible from the stands is the work that keeps players on the pitch: assessment, load management, rehabilitation after injury, and a structured return to play.
Australia’s high-contact codes — Australian rules football and rugby league among them — have pushed the country’s rehabilitation practice hard for decades. What we value in that system is not any single technique but its integration: sports medicine, rehabilitation therapy and strength and conditioning working as one pathway rather than three separate appointments.
That is the model IRI has brought to Nanjing: Australian-certified rehabilitation therapists, international-standard assessment equipment, and sport-specific programmes for football, basketball and running — for professional athletes and recreational players alike, from acute injury through to persistent pain.
The centre operates from Nanjing Hospital of Chinese Medicine (Nanjing Sports Hospital), where rehabilitation appointments are open.