Dr. Matthew Hwu

PT, DPT, OCS, CSCS · Founder

Dr. Matthew Hwu earned his Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Western University of Health Sciences and completed an Orthopedic Physical Therapy residency through Kaiser Permanente in Southern California, where he developed a deep clinical foundation in musculoskeletal and overuse injuries.

Matt grew up gaming, and the combination of that background with his clinical training gave him an early and clear-eyed view of a problem the healthcare system was largely ignoring. Professional gamers were spending 8 to 12 hours a day performing repetitive, high-demand work with their hands, with little understanding of how to take care of themselves and even less support when injuries arose. What struck Matt was not just that the injuries were common, it was that they were being mismanaged and misdiagnosed at every level, cutting careers short when the conditions themselves were entirely treatable. That gap is what drove him to start 1HP and begin a deep dive into the research and treatment of repetitive strain injuries.

It all began in 2015 at IEM San Jose, where Matt attended with a simple pitch: that esports organizations needed comprehensive physical health support for their players. The grassroots atmosphere of the event gave him direct access to owners, coaches, and players, and one person said yes. The owner of Counter Logic Gaming was looking for a personal trainer. Matt told him he was better than that and started working for free. From there it snowballed. Immortals. Dignitas. Golden Guardians. FlyQuest. Evil Geniuses. 100 Thieves. The LA Valiant, Guangzhou Charge, and LA Gladiators in the Overwatch League. Multiple championship titles across multiple esports titles.

Alongside that clinical work, Matt built a research and publication record that helped legitimize the field. He co-authored More Than a Game: Musculoskeletal Injuries and a Key Role for the Physical Therapist in Esports, published in the Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy in 2021, and contributed three chapters to Conditioning for Esports published by Human Kinetics, covering corrective exercise, physical training guidelines, and programming for esports teams. In 2023 he co-authored research on how coaches and support staff influence the sleep habits of professional and semi-professional esports athletes, published in the Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports. He has presented at the American Physical Therapy Association and the National Athletic Trainers Association, and his work has been featured by ESPN, the Washington Post, Red Bull, Riot Games, Razer, and Sports Illustrated, among others. In 2025, he co-authored Game Strong: The Science of Esports Physical Therapy, published by McGraw Hill.

As 1HP expanded into online consultations for the broader gaming community, a pattern became impossible to ignore. Many of the people reaching out were not just competitive players but software engineers, programmers, and STEM professionals who gamed as a hobby. They were arriving with the same wrist and hand injuries, the same stories of being dismissed by their doctors, and the same absence of real answers. The healthcare system had failed them in exactly the same way it had failed esports athletes for years.

That realization, combined with a deeper understanding of pain science and tendon biology, shaped what 1HP has become today. Matt and Elliot built out a specialized online coaching platform designed to fill the gap the medical system had left wide open, an evidence-based approach to repetitive strain injuries that meets people where they are, takes their pain seriously, and gives them a genuine path to recovery. For Matt, it is the natural extension of everything that started at a grassroots esports event in 2015: the belief that the people who use their hands the most deserve far better support than they have been getting.

Credentials

• Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT)
• Physical Therapist (PT)
• Orthopaedic Clinical Specialist (OCS)
• Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS)
• Western University of Health Sciences

Dr. Matthew Hwu on LinkedIn

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