About Clifton Bradeley

Clifton Bradeley BIO

Clifton Bradeley was raised in Australia after being born in the UK.  It was whilst in Australia that he discovered a talent for running, which was to change his life. His school athletics career culminated in three All-England Schools titles both on the track and cross-country. This included smashing Steve Cram’s long-standing senior boys 1500m record.

Clifton’s 1985 championship record of 3.45.6 min/sec still stands to this day. He went on to win silver at 1500m in the world schools games and was set to become a senior Great Britain and England international athlete at the age of nineteen often running along side Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe.  He also finished 20th in the World Cross-Country Championships in 1983 in his year in the age group.

Sporting Milestones

Clifton Bradeley will tell you that the greatest moment of his running life was when he was asked to take the place of an injured Sebastian Coe in the England V USA indoor match at Cosford Indoor Arena on March 9th 1985. Coe was the current Olympic champion and wanted to be the first man ever to run a sub-4 minute mile in doors on British soil.

This was one of the last great sporting milestones left to be broken. Clifton Bradeley took his place in the starting line up against Olympic medallist Jim Spivey (USA), James Mays (USA), Bob Verbeke etc. Clifton broke the UK All-Comers record becoming the first man to run sub-4 minute mile on British soil. The first Staffordshire man to run under 4 minutes for the mile and the fastest man in the world at that time.

Clifton will tell you that the greatest moment of his running life was when he was asked to take the place of an injured Sebastian Coe in the England V USA indoor match at Cosford Indoor Arena on March 9th 1985. Coe was the current Olympic champion and wanted to be the first man ever to run a sub-4 minute mile in doors on British soil. This was one of the last great sporting milestones left to be broken. Clifton took his place in the starting line up against Olympic medallist Jim Spivey (USA), James Mays (USA), Bob Verbeke etc. Clifton broke the UK All-Comers record becoming the first man to run sub-4 minute mile on British soil.

The first Staffordshire man to run under 4 minutes for the mile and the fastest man in the world at that time.

Tragedy soon followed. Unknown to Clifton at that time, he had an anatomically long right leg by approximately 7 mm, which meant he was very suited and fast off the bend on an outside running track but should never had run indoors anti-clockwise with the indoor track chambered up to the right. This placed a great deal of stress on his pelvis creating that sadly finished his career.
Two years later and still injured Clifton decided to take up the offer of treatment at Iowa State University where he remained for twelve long months receiving treatment every day.

Clifton developed a strong friendship with Danny Harris (Olympic Silver medallist behind the great Ed Moses in the 1984 Olympic 400m hurdles final). Danny was also injured and it was during the long daily treatment sessions that they became friends. A decision was taken to send Clifton and Danny to see a Sports Podiatrist in New York City who specialised in biomechanics. Clifton received his first set of bespoke functional orthotics for his injury.

On his return to England Clifton was so impressed that he trained to become a Sports Podiatrist himself specialising in biomechanics. He trained intensively at Huddersfield University; Manchester Metropolitan University; Nene College Northampton and is now the clinical lead at Sub-4 Health.

He has treated over 15000 people in his career, giving him a unique insight into what actually causes injury.

His experience has lead him to look after dozens of the worlds top footballers and other sporting hero’s developing a reputation for injury risk prediction and rapid injury solution.  Clifton carries out a two-hour assessment of the abnormal motion patterns that creates injury and has developed a number of medical instruments to help diagnose injury.  He also travels the world as keynote speaker on sports biomechanics when his heavy clinical schedule allows.

About Sub-4

After Clifton trained to become a Sports Podiatrist specialising in biomechanics, where he trained intensively at Huddersfield University; Manchester Metropolitan University; Nene College Northampton he formed the Sub-4 Group of businesses with a passion for his field.

Sub-4 consists of a Musculoskeletal Biomechanics Clinic, Orthotic Manufacturing lab, Medical tool development and manufacturing centre and a Podiatrist/Practitioners Training Centre.

Clifton Bradeley ‘s Commitment to Research & Development

The Sub-4 Group has always been actively engaged in Research and development bringing many award winning products and techniques developed by Clifton who has both a passion running and Musculoskeletal Biomechanics.

Clifton Bradeley conducts his business with the same winning attitude he applied to becoming a World Class athlete. Much of the success of Sub-4 has been due to the continuing commitment to excellence with business development, product development and staff development , all focussed on customer care excellence.

Areas of R & D include:

• A new measuring device for assessing pelvic torsion.
• A carbon fibre plate that may increase power per revolution of the cyclist foot via the pedal mechanism.
• Clifton is currently studying for his PhD, researching the effects of leg length inequality on pelvic mechanics.
• Clinical assessment techniques.
• Shoe testing for a major sports brand.

Articles and Research Papers