There are many things that are frustrating about living with a spinal cord injury. That states the obvious. But I tend to group those frustrations into two separate, yet overlapping categories. The first consists of having to deal with the all things, big and small, that the SCI lifestyle brings to the table on a daily basis. For example, that it requires a myriad of accommodations and adaptations to help me do things that I could once do mindlessly. In the second category are the (often high level) frustrations associated with the litany of things that I want to do but am physically incapable of.
Near the top of the list in the second category for me are the frustrations that I perpetually feel trying to work out and stay in shape. When you are a quadriplegic you are typically either sitting in your wheelchair or lying in bed every 24 hour cycle, which by definition means that you live a highly sedentary lifestyle. I read somewhere that in order for an adult male to maintain a healthy lifestyle he needs to get at least thirty minutes of “full body” exercise every day. Even an active and high functioning quad like me, with good upper body and arm strength, is obviously incapable of that.
At the time of my diving accident, the summer before my senior year of high school, I was working out every day. At the least I was doing multiple sets of pushups, pull-ups, and ab crunches, but on average that also included about an hour of weight lifting. The primary reason was that I was determined to have a strong senior swim team season after my junior season was a disappointment (due to recovery from a lung collapse), but shaping up to attract the ladies was a lesser motivation as well. Regardless, working out was a big part of my life.
Over the years I’ve tried many different ways to get in a good workout within my physical means. When I was in rehab out at Craig Hospital in Denver they had a mini-gym with some pretty good adaptive workout equipment. But being a strong quad it wasn’t long before the wrist weights and other related adaptive stuff I could use were less challenging. One day I watched a paraplegic slide from his wheelchair onto the weight bench next to me and start banging out sets of bench press. I remember being SO jealous.
When I moved back home from rehab finding regular access to adaptive workout equipment was difficult. I had some wrist weights but they were hard to use by myself, and were too light anyway. Not having hand grasping power meant that I couldn’t buy free weights for home use. I tried a membership at a local health club but I was limited to just a handful of weight equipment, none of which were designed for wheelchair users. Plus I needed a fair amount of assistance setting them up for my use. Getting that assistance from the fitness staff required purchasing a personal trainer package, which was a few hundred bucks for eight sessions—no thanks. So my workout partner was my then girlfriend, but when we broke up the health club trips ended as well.
Moving to Minneapolis to start law school in 2003 opened my world to much more options though. Ever since then I’ve put together a pretty decent workout regimen piece by piece, which I’ve detailed below. Hopefully, those in similar situations to me who are struggling for adaptive workout ideas can glean something useful.
Courage Center Fitness Center: Every Friday afternoon I have a workout appointment in the Fitness Center at the
Courage Center in Golden Valley, Minnesota. They have adaptive equipment that caters to all types of disabilities. But the marquee piece of equipment I take advantage of is the very wheelchair friendly Paramount, which is a multi-functional weight trainer with weight stacks attached to cable pulleys and adjustable arm positioning. It allows me to do modified bench press, pec fly, and military press with the regular foam handles, and lat pull downs with wrist cuffs. Additionally, they have adaptive leather hand straps with Velcro that tightens my grip onto dumbbells so that I can do bicep curls, tricep kicks, side raises, etc. They also have an UPPERTONE (invented by a quad), hand bikes, and other equipment that SCI clients regularly use. It’s awesome for getting that “hitting the gym” feeling again.
Hand Bike: Much like some of the equipment above, I wanted a table top hand bike when I was still living at home through college but it was too expensive and I didn’t have room for it anyway. But my insurance in Minneapolis covered one since it was considered home rehab equipment so I finally got one in 2004. Because I don’t use a manual chair, my hand bike is the only thing I can use to get some aerobic exercise and really get my heart pumping. At the least, I try to do up to a mile and/or thirty minutes worth every night if I can.
Power Trainer Flex: The best way to describe this piece of equipment is to say that it’s a wheelchair accessible universal gym that has rubber cords of varying weight resistance instead of actual weights. I had it in the garage at home and barely used it because I didn’t always have help, but I try to use it a few times a week with my PCA now. I can do modified bench press, military press, and pec fly pretty easily. But for lat pull downs I need to use a clawed wrist strap to help me grab the weight handles.
Wrist Weights: I still have wrist weights but don’t wrap them around my wrists. I took my two five pounders, connected them with their Velcro strips, and clipped on a foam handle so I can do bicep curls and military press free weight style. It’s not much weight so I do a higher number of reps instead.
Shadow/Air Boxing: I don’t do this anymore but before I had my hand bike I did it fairly often for my aerobic exercise. It sounds silly but if you start punching at the air in front of you for even two straight minutes without a break you’ll start to feel it. You can add wrist weights for a bigger challenge. Obviously, it’s easy to do from a wheelchair.
Standing: A year ago I would have left this off the list but last June a bone mineral density scan revealed that I have severe osteoporosis in my hips and lower spine. I was shocked. But it was explained to me that it was strictly from sitting in a wheelchair for fourteen years. See my EasyStand video for more about that. A regular standing program may not prevent the onset of osteoporosis with SCI but it will definitely help stave it off longer. I now consider standing a part of my fitness regimen.
Of course, doing all that still fades in comparison to what I’d like to do, but it puts me on the right path to staying as fit as I can be considering my unique lifestyle.
What adaptive workouts do you do or recommend? How do you stay healthy?
Work it Shawn, work that body!
Many Stroke, Cerebral Palsy, brain and spinal injury patients experience arm and hand movement impairment which makes daily tasks very difficult. Occupational/ Physical therapists have in their hand therapy repertoire several techniques to maintain and improve the patient’s finger and wrist movement ability including Neuromuscular stimulation and robot-assisted rehabilitation. Additionally an important component in achieving optimal rehabilitation outcome is intensive active movement practice together with task orientated training. The HandTutor is a biofeedback training glove and software that provides customized games and biofeedback to motivate and challenge the patient to do intensive active finger and wrist exercises and to achieve maximal functional recovery. It can be useed even if the patient has very limited hand movement! It has now been purchased by the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine. To put it simply, the HandTutor teaches the patient how to move their hand again.