Trying to a documentary about a weight lifter who had a spinal injury

On a flight (British Airways I think) between 2005-2008 I watched. It was about a man (might have been German of Russian who was a weight lifter and hurt his back and was paralysed. By staring at his legs for weeks he learnt to move his limbs by thinking about it and looking at them. If he was walking and the lights went out he’d collapse in a heap. He baffled doctors and scientists. He had developed some way of his brain communicating to his muscles without using his nervous system. Can’t for the life of me find it by any conventional searches