Liz Bayley

Specialist dance / foot and ankle physiotherapist

Liz Bayley (Specialist Dance / Foot and Ankle Physiotherapist) MSc MCSP HCPC

Liz is a specialist dance physio with ‘Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance’ in London and was the head physio on Disney’s ‘The Lion King’, from 2021-2024 in London’s West End. Outside of dance, she has worked with Middlesbrough Football club, Harlequins Rugby, Chelsea Football Academy, players from the UAE Pro League, and the National Basketball Association in the USA. Her special interests are the foot and ankle, injury reduction, stretching and flexibility, hypermobility, and return-to-sport/dance rehabilitation. She teaches international courses on the foot and ankle, and dance specific physiotherapy. In January 2025, she was a speaker at Sports Kongres in Copenhagen, talking about hypermobility and injury prevention in dancers. She is a visiting lecturer for Hertfordshire University, teaching on the Lower Quadrant Module.

Liz has worked in private sports injury clinics, falls prevention services, and is a qualified DMA Clinical Pilates instructor. She has written articles on dance injury prevention for ‘The Stage’ and has been a guest with many different podcasts and conferences, talking about her work with performers, and feet! 2023 marked her third consecutive year of speaking for ‘Therapy Live’ with Physio Matters. She wrote the section on ‘Posterior Ankle Impingement’ for the new edition of ‘Clinical Sports Medicine’, which will be released in 2026. Liz also visits dance companies and schools as a consultant physio, seeing their more complex foot and ankle injuries, having worked with Elmhurst and the English National Ballet in this capacity. She works with professional dancers in London, in shows such as ‘Mary Poppins’, ‘Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake’, and ‘Back to the Future’. She manages injuries in dancers around the world via telehealth, including European Ballet companies and world champion Irish Dancers, returning them to competition level.

Sesamoiditis – a dance physio’s perspective

  • What is sesamoiditis?
  • Why is it such a tricky condition to work with?
  • Why does it become chronic?
  • What are the ‘not to miss’ differentials in these patients?
  • How do we get them back to their activity successfully?