This Roofer Was Told His Knees Were Finished at 38. At 41 He’s in the Best Shape of His Life
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Readtime: 5 min
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Tommy Alsop was 38 when a specialist told him he had severe arthritis in both knees and would have to learn to manage it. He already had two knee surgeries behind him and 24 years in the roofing trade, plus a wife, two daughters and a roofing business he’d built from nothing on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
What struck him later was what didn’t happen. Nobody measured anything. No blood work, no questions about what he ate, how he slept, how he recovered or what his hormones and inflammatory markers were doing. He got a scan, a sentence and a word for his condition, when what he needed was a number. That gap is the reason PEAK HEALTH exists.
From the Roof to a Clinic
Over the next three years Alsop rebuilt himself on data instead of opinions. Bloods, body composition, VO2 max, sleep and recovery were measured, the inputs were changed, and then everything was measured again. He’s 41 now, with the same knees and, in his own account, a completely different body.
Then he looked at the industry he’d spent his working life in and realised his experience wasn’t unusual. It was the standard experience of almost every man on almost every site in the country. So he systemised the roofing business, stepped back from running it day to day, and built PEAK HEALTH instead, with a stated mission of getting 100,000 Australians living optimally by 2030. Alsop is the founder and a coach. All clinical care is delivered by AHPRA-registered doctors and nurse practitioners.
- Founder: Tommy Alsop, founder and coach, and a roofer for 24 years
- Starting point: A mandatory baseline blood panel through an Australian pathology partner
- Clinical care: AHPRA-registered doctors and nurse practitioners under formal clinical governance
- Consults: By video, nationwide, booked early, late or in a break
- Optional testing: VO2 max, DEXA body composition, strength, gait, spirometry and ECG in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane
- Pricing: Confirmed on enquiry
Why Tradies Are the Least Measured Workers in Australia
There are roughly 1.2 million Australians working in construction and the trades, and according to PEAK HEALTH they carry some of the worst health outcomes and the least screening of any workforce in the country. The absence figures back that up. Construction workers take an average of 8.9 sick days a year, against a national average of 6.8 and 4.6 in professional services, according to 2024 ABS figures cited by the brand.
The cost is national, too. Deloitte Access Economics modelling for Safe Work Australia (Safer, Healthier, Wealthier, 2022) put the cost of work-related injury and illness at $28.6 billion a year, the equivalent of 185,500 full-time jobs.
These are the people who service the ute every 10,000 kilometres and go 20 years without a blood test. Most of them aren’t chasing a longer life. They want to stop feeling flat by 3pm, stop waking up tired after eight hours, and still be able to carry a grandkid up the stairs at 70.
How the PEAK HEALTH Model Works
The rule is simple: bloods first, always. Every patient starts with a mandatory baseline pathology panel, and there’s no consult without it. Nobody gets a plan off a five-minute questionnaire.
Results come back as a written summary you can actually read, not a printout of reference ranges. Where clinical review is needed, it goes to an AHPRA-registered doctor or nurse practitioner. From there, a plan covering nutrition, training, sleep, recovery and supplementation is built around your own numbers.
The PEAK HEALTH app then tracks your markers over time, connects to your wearables, holds your plan and carries the support between consults. Scheduled reviews and repeat pathology show whether any of it is working, and longer programs run 12 weeks and up.
Every consult happens by video, which is the point. Needing a day off work is one of the biggest reasons this workforce never gets tested, so a tradie in Dubbo gets the same clinic as one in Dee Why, with no waiting room and nobody on site any the wiser.
PEAK HEALTH FAQs
PEAK HEALTH was founded by Tommy Alsop, a roofer of 24 years from Sydney's Northern Beaches. He is the founder and a coach; all clinical care is provided by AHPRA-registered doctors and nurse practitioners.
Every patient starts with a mandatory baseline blood panel through an Australian pathology partner. Results are explained in a written summary, reviewed clinically where needed, and used to build a plan covering nutrition, training, sleep, recovery and supplementation.
No. Every consult is a video call that can be booked early, late or in a break, and the service is available nationwide. Optional physical testing such as VO2 max and DEXA scans is available in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
No. The trades are where the founder came from, but the service is also built for business owners, high performers who already train, and women 40 and over.
If you’ve been told you’re fine and feel nothing like it, the first step is finding out where you actually stand. PEAK HEALTH starts with your bloods, by video, around your working day.
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