Brentwood

Para Powerlifting, Open Water Swimming and Para Triathlon

Hi my name is David; I am a happily married man with 4 children. I got my spinal cord injury in 2006 after an accident at work lifting a 140kg roll of vinyl crushing my Spinal Cord resulting in a 7 hour surgery. Eventually I ended up at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital where I had a 2nd Surgery to secure my spine. In 2013, I had to go to rehab at the Spinal Cord Injury centre Stanmore where they helped me adapt to disabled life.

This is where I met the CEO of Aspire and ended up doing the Instructability Scheme, at this time I suffered severely with depression but I battled through this and eventually became a qualified instructor.

I then went on to do My Level 3 Personal trainer qualification and Level 3 Exercise for Disability whilst working Voluntary at Fitness First Brentwood and University of Herts Strength and Conditioning Dept.

I have now become qualified in Level 4 Lower back Specialist training, Level 3 GP referral exercise Prescription, Olympic Lifting Trainer, Athlefit Instructor and Suspension training.

I attended a Talent Id day with British Weightlifting for Para Powerlifting and got selected onto their Program. I have competed in the UK Championships coming 5th and the British Championships in 2015 coming 7th in the Heavyweight class but 2nd in my weight class. This year due to a minor heart condition I have had to stop heavy lifting. But not being put off I have moved into cardio based sport as recommended and started swimming again. This brought back my love for swimming. Now this has developed into a dream I had of Swimming the Channel when I was a kid, so we are working towards this in 2018 and I will be 1 of a only few disabled people to swim this. I am also now doing Para Triathlon, which includes swimming, handcycling and wheelchair racing.

Sport helped me deal with my injury and gave me purpose again which I lost when I first become disabled. I have met so many amazing people and done things I would never have the opportunity to do if I hadn’t started sport.

Active Essex
Two people playing catch

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