About

Jake Shannon was born in Melbourne, Australia, and has younger twin sisters. Surrounded by a large extended family with a range of sporting talents, Jake developed a love and a passion for all sports growing up. He was heavily influenced from a young age by one of his uncles who was an excellent sportsman and helped Jake hone his skills in several sports and more importantly introduced him to the fitness lifestyle and its importance on sports performance.

During high school, Jake knew from a relatively early age that he wanted to go to university to study sports science with the goal of working in sport for a career.

Education

Jake attended The University of Ballarat, in Victoria, Australia (now named Federation University) and graduated with an undergraduate degree in Human Movement and Sport Science in 2005.

Experience

After graduating Jake worked in Melbourne in several fitness and strength and conditioning roles until he was presented with an opportunity to play cricket in Manchester, England. Upon returning to Australia in late 2007 Jake relocated to Darwin in the north of Australia in early 2008 where he began working as a strength and conditioning coach in a private facility. Over the next 6 years, he worked for himself and for other various strength and conditioning facilities while also moving around and living in several locations in Australia. By 2014 Jake returned to sunny Darwin and was lucky enough to find himself in the same original role he was in in 2008. At this point, Jake became a Level 2 Australian Strength and Conditioning Coach and a Level 2 Australian Weightlifting Federation Coach. By mid-2015 Jake decided to pursue a master’s degree in Strength and Conditioning at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia. While this was supposed to take a year and a half to complete, it took Jake closer to 5 years to complete with a multitude of things slowing the process until graduating in 2020. The biggest reason was a career move to Shenzhen, China in December 2017 to take up a role with TopSupport Sports and Rehabilitation Centre as the Head of Performance. Jake remains in this same role currently, while now situated in Guangzhou at the Guangdong Olympic Training Centre where he manages two assistant coaches. Jake works closely with his translator to provide strength and conditioning to three professional sports teams whilst simultaneously overseeing the services provided to a further four teams. In 2021 Jake also became a member of the Professional Coaches Accreditation Scheme as part of the Australian Strength and Conditioning Association at the Professional Level.