Video: David Jackson and Tim Stevenson on training Paralympians
A sports coach and Nottingham Rugby legend are behind a pioneering company helping to drive the success of Team GB Paralympians.
David Jackson and Tim Stevenson have helped dozens of athletes win medals thanks to one of the country’s first coaching consultancies to tailor high-level advice for disabled competitors.
Stevenson is a strength and condition coach and Jackson is best known for playing for Nottingham Rugby for 13 years from 2000, scoring 102 tries for the Green-and-Whites.
They are part of the team which created oneathlete to better prepare disabled stars with mental and physical training.
Also involving Paralympic and World Champion sprinter Richard Whitehead, the double amputee athlete from Notts, its staff have already been credited with success at the highest level.
“We were established in 2013 off the back of the London Paralympic Games – we knew they needed more specific training – they just didn’t fit into the able-bodied model of sport,” said Stevenson.
“We needed to know more about training for athletes with cerebral palsy or double amputees.
“We came together to form this very new team with a very specific focus on training Paralympic athletes. It’s grown a lot over the last couple of years particularly through the games. We’ve worked out we contributed to or support ed athletes to win 30 medals at the Paralympics.”
If the company’s influence in medals was an athlete in the Rio medal table, it would have finished ninth, with 11 golds, 11 silver and eight bronze.
Coaches work on increasing strength with techniques including callisthenics – exercises which use someone’s own bodyweight – and mental coaching.
Athletes to have benefited include Whitehead, and swimmers Ollie Hynd and Charlotte Henshaw.
Jackson got involved after he was forced to retire from the sport in 2013 because of a head injury, and works on improving the mindsets and lifestyles of athletes.
“I was coming to the end of my career anyway so I’d already started to think about what I wanted to do when I finished,” said Jackson.
“The club were great and let me stay on for the rest of that year working in the office but I also started working with Tim to get experience.
“I’ve always been interested in training and I ended up just learning from Tim and following him around.”
For more from David Jackson and Tim Stevenson watch the October 5 episode of Sports Week on Notts TV at 7.30pm, or see our catch up service from 8pm, where the entire series is also available on demand.
