A 28-year-old former Worcester Warriors player, from Cradley, has invented a piece of fitness equipment which he hopes will prevent life-changing spine injuries.

Douglas Higgins, an Imperial College mechanical engineering graduate, developed his machine after meeting with former Leicester Tigers star Matt Hampson, who was paralysed from the neck down during training with the squad five years ago.

Mr Higgins realised that there was no kit available to develop the unique strength in the neck and back which contact sport enthusiasts like rugby players needed.

He pitched the idea as his Masters thesis and began his research, trialling the equipment from top club and school players, particularly those involved with the scrum.

After several years of fine tuning and building prototypes in the Stourbridge factory, where his family run their environmental engineering business Jones and Attwood, Mr Higgins launched a school and club player’s version of the machine, known as ‘the Beast’ at last week’s Rugby Expo in London.

He said: “We’re seeing increasing numbers of severe injuries from tackles and when scrums collapse like the heartbreaking one that left Matt Hampson paralysed. Players are more competitive than ever before. Experienced players develop strength in their neck and spine muscles through going in scrums over several years but at present there’s nothing in the gym to condition you for this. Young players often don’t get enough game time to develop these muscles so our equipment helps strengthen them in gym before going onto pitch.”

Mr Higgins is now working on a professional player’s version of his equipment, called Beast-Pro and has already committed three per cent of his profits to the Matt Hampson Trust which helps those who suffer spinal injuries in the game. He is also teaming up with the England RFU to run further clinical trials to evaluate the product at the Biodynamics Department of Imperial College.

“Meeting Matt Hampson crystallised my ambition to produce really effective spine strengthening equipment,” he added. “That was when I decided to go for it 100 per cent - and if we manage to prevent many other players going through what Matt’s suffered, all this hard work and fine tuning will have been worthwhile.”