Niamh Tinman, former Welsh rugby and football international, has joined the SW7 Academy team as its Client Success Manager and Performance Coach.
Niamh, who predominately played football all her life, going through the Welsh Academy and representing Wales at Under 17 and 19 level, started playing rugby when she studied her undergraduate degree at the University of South Wales.
Since taking up rugby, she has gone on to represent the Cardiff Metropolitan Women’s University Team in the BUCS 1 League as well as the Wales Development XV team.
Niamh’s appointment at the Academy will see her join the team which consists of former Lions and Wales Captain, Sam Warburton, Head of Performance, Chris Tombs and co-founder of SW7, Josh Davies.
The SW7 Academy, set up by Sam and his business partner Josh, is an online training platform created to help maximise athletic performance through advanced strength and conditioning programmes.
Niamh will be heavily involved in the Female Performance Academy, which is aimed at women who wish to lose weight, gain muscle or improve their athletic performance within their sport.
When the role was advertised, Niamh knew it was perfect for her as it was orientated around strength and conditioning which is one of her main passions in life.
She attended the University of South Wales where she studied Strength and Conditioning and was taught by lecturer and now current colleague, Chris Tombs.
Niamh then went on to complete her Masters in Strength and Conditioning at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Her previous role was geared towards rugby coaching, but Niamh knew she wanted to be involved in strength and conditioning.
After seeing the job advertised at SW7 Academy, she contacted Chris Tombs, who she has kept in contact with since university, and he encouraged her to apply for it.
On her appointment as Client Success Manager and Performance Coach, Niamh said she is really looking forward to the future with SW7 and has already had a lot of involvement in just a few weeks of her starting her new role.
Niamh said: “I’m so excited to be a part of the SW7 Academy and it’s a massive opportunity for me. There’s so much I’m looking forward to and there’s a lot we can do here at SW7.
“I’m a very energetic person and I’m quite creative. I love bringing new ideas to the table. SW7 Academy is somewhere I can grow and as the company is quite new, I can grow with it too.
“There’s lots of exciting projects coming up that I can’t wait to get stuck into. I’m currently in the process of setting up a project focusing on female rugby players and have some great names joining us for this including Emma Cantrell who plays for USA under 23’s and is the current BUCS 1 Cardiff Metropolitan Women’s 1st Team Captain, Emma Swords who represents Ireland and Trailfinders Women, ex Scotland international, Lisa Martin, and Laura Delgado Dueñas who is a Spanish international and Gloucester Hartpury Women player.”
As this project continues to grow, we will then look at branching out to more female athletes who play in a variety of other sports.
It’s an exciting time for women’s sport in general with the England Football Team reaching the World Cup Final and the Welsh Rugby Team starting their new pool against Southern Hemisphere teams.”
“My main aim is to get more females involved at SW7 Academy and I want to get the message out there that the academy is for people of all levels and abilities.
The SW7 Academy is programmed for individuals who are looking to develop strength and power across different points in their sporting season or for those who want to lose or increase muscle gain.
We also have our performance academy where bespoke programming is provided to meet training goals of the individual,” Niamh added.
SW7 Academy was established in 2019 after Sam and Josh identified a space in the market for athletes competing at all levels and in all kinds of sporting environments to gain access to the kind of elite level coaching and expertise normally reserved for professionals.
Its online training app, developed by the SW7 team, also offers the same level of strength and conditioning coaching to anyone wishing to join the Academy virtually, who get to benefit from a full range of training programmes, video demonstrations, a personalised nutrition programme and more as a result.
For more information on the SW7 Academy, visit www.sw7academy.com