Lebanon’s movement therapist behind elite athletes

John Haddad runs a biomechanics and movement therapy practice in Beirut, but his client list stretches far beyond Lebanon. Known globally as "The Fix," Haddad has spent more than a decade building a method that has made him a trusted figure behind Norwegian striker Erling Haaland, supporting one of football's biggest stars through some of the toughest stretches of his career. His path there started with a regular gym.

From fitness center to founder

"I started my center at around 2010," Haddad told The Beiruter. "In the beginning, it had nothing to do with what I do right now. It was a basic fitness center.”

What changed everything was watching clients walk away. “I started noticing that a lot of people were dealing with injuries and significant pain. They would leave and never come back because they already had so much going on in their lives,” he explained. “Eventually, they would just become demotivated.”

That frustration pushed him to search for a different approach, one that did not yet exist in the way he envisioned it. “I started taking different courses, and I realized that the theoretical part was supposed to lead into the practical application. But what I had in my head looked completely different from what was actually being taught,” he says. “I remember thinking, ‘I must be stupid.’”

Haddad became convinced the field itself was outdated. "Our profession is so far behind," he said. "We're still using anatomy that was taught to us 150 years ago. Something had to change.”

Building a method

Haddad started testing his own ideas, working first with amateur athletes in Lebanon. "I started to receive good results," he recalled. The real turning point came through a chance introduction. "I got lucky. I met Erling Haaland through a mutual friend. He was my first footballer, funny enough," Haddad said of the professional player who became his first athlete client. "And then from there it was history."

Haddad’s nickname came a few years later, during a 2021 podcast appearance. "The interviewer gave me the nickname 'the fix' and it stuck," Haddad said. "I liked the nickname. I thought it depicted who I am”

Today that nickname travels with him into locker rooms most therapists never see. Haddad has worked with Haaland since Haaland's Borussia Dortmund days, supporting him through several stages of his career and especially through challenging injury periods. He helped Haaland recover from a hip issue and return to the pitch faster than expected, a partnership that has since carried over to Manchester City. Haddad’s method centers on treating the root cause of an injury rather than chasing symptoms.

Staying grounded, staying in Beirut

Despite the star-studded client list, which extends to MMA fighters and Olympians alongside top footballers, Haddad insists none of it changes how he works. "For me, it's all the same," he said. "I think that's actually good for my work, because you wouldn't want to get starstruck when you're working with somebody. I think it would take a little bit out of the professionalism."

He has also never left Beirut, and does not plan to. " I am still in Beirut and I would never leave," he said. "I think Lebanon really builds character. I know we go through a lot of hard stuff, but it teaches us how to troubleshoot... how to get away from difficult situations when things can go sideways very quickly."

He is blunt about the gap between opportunity and talent at home. "Lebanon has overlooked a lot of professions," he said, though he's hopeful, "Me and like-minded people will rebuild this country into what it's supposed to look like." As for what separates athletes who make it from those who don't, he keeps it simple, "if you own a shop, you do whatever you can to take care of your shop... your body and your health is this shop. It should be a priority all the time.”

Looking back at years in the field, Haddad said the biggest shift has been in his instincts. " I'm much more confident now in what I do," he said. "In the beginning my work was a thought process, people could see me thinking about it. Now it happens a lot quicker, it's kind of more like on autopilot."

As founder of Level 8, his Beirut-based school for biomechanics and movement therapy, Haddad has spent years turning that instinct into something teachable, training practitioners from around the world in a method built, as he put it, on figuring out why the body breaks down in the first place, not just patching it back together.