Tom Trbojevic injury-free for new season thanks to ballet exercises – MASHAHER

Clarke said he was first introduced to the ballet activities when working with a physio at English rugby, who wanted the props to strengthen their feet when packing into scrums.

“Tom has fully bought into a couple of things I’ve suggested after watching him move – he’s been super, super diligent,” Clarke said. “There was a bit going on with Tom’s right ankle and foot. When we dug into it a bit, there was probably an old injury there from a while ago.

“We focused on that initially, and we tweaked a few things. You need control of your toes and feet, and there are basic toe exercises like, ‘Can you leave your big toe in the air while your other four toes are on the ground?’ , or ‘Can you lift your four toes while your big toe is down?’

“When he started it, he had no control or foot strength. I said to him, ‘If your foot isn’t doing its job when it hits the floor, something else up the chain is doing it for it’.

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“We started out with foot-strength work we got from ballerinas in England. Ballerinas have the greatest foot strength in the world.

“Every time we’ve been in, he’s finished a session, then he’ll do an extra 30 or 40 minutes in the gym. He still does it now.”

Trbojevic, who went into last season with a hamstring injury, was restricted to 11 games after tearing a pectoral muscle in Origin I. The year before, he dislocated his shoulder after just seven games.

In 2021, however, a fit Trbojevic dominated rivals, leading Manly to a preliminary final and winning the Dally M on the back of just 18 club games.

This year, Trbojevic was so dominant in his only public pre-season outing, against St George Illawarra, that Dragons coach Shane Flanagan declared on the spot Manly could win the premiership if ‘Turbo’ stayed fit.

“Of course you want to win a comp, and while Flanno can say what he wants, we did only play the Dragons in a scrimmage,” Trbojevic said.

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