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Wheelchair exercise equipment can be costly, tiring and leave you wondering where the money went! Not so here. The simplest way to build strength and independence in and away from your wheelchair world requires only three (maybe 4) things:
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- YOU
- Your Wheelchair
- Your Desire For Independence
- OK – a healthy dose of commitment and motivation always helps!
Wheelchair exercises can mean the difference between a slow decline and steady progress towards strength and independence. With hundreds of exercises out there and just as many gadgets to help you do them, you can narrow your routine down to the three basics that strengthen your entire body. Your ability level, of course determines where you start but including the three basic muscle groups of the legs, chest and back will give you the most success to reach your strength and independence goals.
You’ve simply got to figure out how to push and pull with your arms and push and pull with your legs! That’s it! In a nutshell of course! The rest is up to you! Discover what you’ve been missing. Discover your key to do it yourself rehab at home and start getting stronger today!
Wheelchair exercises should be part of any elderly exercise program who must depend on a wheelchair for a time. Start where you can and don’t stop… remember, if you have the choice to sit it out or dance – I hope you choose to dance – even if it is in your chair for a time!
Push And Pull with your Legs
Wheelchair exercises must include buttock and leg muscle training. Squats are the best way to do this… squats sit you on the toilet and get you off the toilet. They get you in and out of a car, up and down from a couch and up and down steps – and – will get you out of your wheelchair (depending on your prognosis) if you start working on them regularly.
Push with your Arms
If your routine includes pushing muscle exercises, you’ll soon be kneading bread again, pushing a shopping cart, putting clothes on the line or playing with your grandchild. Your pulling muscles tend to succumb to the pull of gravity to stoop us over and haunch our shoulders forward, rounding our back and squishing our lungs making it difficult to breath and taking away our energy. The double whammy comes when our back muscles give in and get weak too!
Pulling with your Arms
Believe it or not, our pulling muscles keep us upright (our glutes help with that too) for the most part, help us to avoid back injury and pain and keep our chest cavity open so that our lungs have plenty of room to expand and contract increasing the amount of oxygen and therefore energy our body receives from the air we breath. Including pulling muscle exercises in your wheelchair exercises is the second most important exercise to do next to sit to stand exercises. But, if your prognosis does not give you the hope of walking again, including pull muscle exercises will greatly enhance your health.
When you narrow it right down, everything we do come from one of these three main muscle groups and often all three of them combined.
Wheelchair exercises should be part of any elderly exercise program who must depend on a wheelchair for a time. Start where you can and don’t stop… remember, if you have the choice to sit it out or dance – I hope you choose to dance – even if it is in your chair for a time!
Our 70+ page e-book is designed to teach you the basics of the best wheelchair exercises you can do no matter what your level of ability. Get your e-book today and start building a stronger, healthier day tomorrow!