James Donnelly: Director & FSI Master Football S&C Coach
I studied BSc Sports Science at University before going on to qualify as an S&C coach and completing both a Diploma and Masters in Football Strength & Conditioning from the Football Science Institute.
As part of this I was within a specialist network of football conditioning coaches and taught directly by sports scientists and nutritionists working at some of the worlds biggest clubs - including Real Madrid, Barcelona and PSG.
As a player, I spent 9 years at English professional club Wycombe Wanderers and represented England Schoolboys before suffering a (what I was told was) a career ending labral tear hip injury at age 19.
I refused to follow my doctors advice and give up on my dream, but at the time could I barely run for 5 minutes without crippling hip pain.
I spent the next 5 years training by myself, studying and experimenting with different training strategies until I finally cracked the code and began to see major progress with my injury.
Within 12 months of mastering my programme, I was able to make a miraculous return to competitive football at the age of 24, playing in Australia and facing the Hyundai A League Champions Brisbane Roar in my first comeback season as captain.
Given that I was told I would never play again and had nobody else to guide me, you can imagine the euphoric feeling I had when I was finally able to step back out on the pitch in that match.
In the space of 12 months, I had gone from unable to jog for 5 minutes...to playing 5 times per week, completely pain free, and getting paid for it - all thanks to what I had learnt through studying Sports Science and Football Specific Strength & Conditioning.
From my personal experience I realised how important it was to teach players from an early age about the critical role that strength and conditioning, nutrition and mindset has in enabling elite performance to become possible (and maintained for an entire career).
So in 2013, I began coaching players my methods 1-1, and due to the incredible progress they were making I built a team of coaches to help spread my message and impact players at a greater scale around the world.
In April 2016 we officially became known as Matchfit (players would always come up to me saying that they wanted my help to get "match fit", and so the name was born!)
We are based in England, UK but train players worldwide online.
To date over 50,000 players from all over the world have followed our programmes and guidance to become standout players in their team, overcome injury issues once and for all and in some cases even step up to pro and international level.
Our mission is to educate footballers about the importance of fitness, nutrition and developing mental resilience in order to reach the highest level.
Every year our goal is to help 100 players sign their first pro contract or get called up to their national team through our training programmes, we would love for you to be our next success story!