Wheelchair Fitness.

Wheelchair Exercises and Fitness – If you spend long hours in a wheelchair you know it can lead to uneasiness and be very uncomfortable, which is true for anyone who is disabled. Keeping the body moving as much as possible in your wheelchair should be a regular part of your daily fitness program. Wheelchair exercise testing dates back to the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. However, this was not evident in the UK until the 1980’s when Lakomy and co–workers (1987) were the first to develop a system that allowed wheelchair athletes to perform exercise on a treadmill. Wheelchair exercise was performed on treadmill, and loaded velocity was preferred, and loaded slope were 0% and 6%. During wheelchair exercise with the optimum handlimb diameter, RPE and HR were lowest. Wheelchair athletes were tested on their racing wheelchairs that were fixed on a treadmill (this time while doing research in Germany) with a mobile lever arm. Exercise protocol started at a speed of 10 km/h and eventually reached an inclination of 0.7%.

Some advice for the individual is to start slowly and work up to more weight and then to more challenging exercises. An upper body workout would include exercises for the arms, torso, neck, and shoulders. Begin with 1-2 pound weights and work your way up from there. Starting from the head, one needs to touch their chins repeatedly to the chest and then proceed to doing head turns and head tilts to improve flexibility and strength in the neck. The number of repetitions is determined by the individual, keeping in mind not to overexert while doing any of the exercises.

Wheelchair equipment and accessories for home fitness, electric scooters, wheelchair scooters can be found anywhere on the web (including here). Most common are wheelchair lifts, wheelchair ramps, handicap walkers, scooter ramps, shower chairs, and pool lifts. Wheel chair lifts facilitate the movement of people making it easy, fast, and convenient. Among the different models of wheelchair lifts, the most popular are inclined platform lifts; vertical platform lifts; and portable wheel chair lifts.