Fitness & Sports

Get fit and healthy and live the life you want.

“When it comes to fitness, we need to use equipment in different ways to make sure we can get maximum benefit without having to spend lots of money.”

Ben Clark is a quadriplegic personal trainer from the United Kingdom who runs Adapt To Perform, a popular YouTube channel dedicated to health and fitness for wheelchair users. Over the past 10 years he has come up with many creative ways for wheelchair users to get fit and and healthy.

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As wheelchair users, keeping fit and healthy is more important than just looking and feeling good — it can help us live a happy, independent life. However, the fitness industry isn’t geared toward people with disabilities as much as we’d like. That’s why when it comes to fitness, we need to be a bit more creative and think outside the box. This requires using equipment in different ways to make sure we can get maximum benefit without having to spend lots of money.

Following is what I consider essential gym equipment that can be used at home or in conjunction with conventional gym equipment to help you get fit and healthy and live the life you want. I have tried to avoid things that are unnecessarily expensive and instead focus on what I think is truly essential.

Active Hands

Active Hands gripping aids are go-to pieces of equipment for anybody that has any limitations in their hands. Founded by quadriplegic Rob Smith who needed a way to lift weights in the gym, the company offers various products to allow exercises that would otherwise be difficult to do.

I first came across Active Hands a decade ago, just 10 months after my accident. When I met Rob at a sports event, he showed me the gripping aids and explained how they worked. I knew instantly they were a game changer for me. I lived in the gym pre-injury, but until finding the Active Hands, I didn’t know how I was going to manage now that I was a quadriplegic.

Since then, the team at Active Hands has made a variety of aids to help in different circumstances. My personal favorite are the D-Rings as they’re a great way to connect to the cable machine — my favorite gym equipment — allowing me to do almost every exercise I need.

My recommendation to anyone who needs that extra grip is to always get the gripping aids first, as combined with a set of dumbbells you can do so much from your own home. Then after that, purchase the D-Rings if you have access to a gym or cable machine.

• Active Hands: activehands.com

Resistance Bands

Going to the gym isn’t always an option, whether that’s because your local one isn’t accessible, you’re away on holiday or you simply do not like going. This doesn’t mean you have to give up on fitness altogether — nor does it mean you have to compromise.

Resistance bands are fantastic and probably the most underrated pieces of fitness equipment. So what’s so special about them? They have all the functionality of a cable machine but can fit in your pocket. I always have one when I’m traveling so I never have the excuse to skip my exercises

I can tie a resistance band to a table leg, bed post, door handle, my wheelchair or even just get my girlfriend to hold the end. Then I have the ability to work all my muscle groups. This means I’m not reliant on anything else, and I don’t have to transport weights around.

Resistance bands come in multiple forms, but my favorite is the looped version. The main reason is that they’re easy to tie on securely, which gives me peace of mind, but the loops also allow me to get some strong resistances ideal for certain exercises. I personally don’t like TheraBands as they usually break easily and don’t attach well, despite every physical therapist ever giving them out like candy.

• Resistance band options: tinyurl.com/y3rxfrhf

Broom Handle

When coming up with cardio workouts for wheelchair users, most avenues lead to either pushing a wheelchair or using a handcycle of some sort. However, this isn’t for everyone, and if you don’t use a manual wheelchair, it might not even be an option.

I had a client who uses a power wheelchair a few years ago who was in a situation whereby they couldn’t access a handcycle. Therefore, we needed to be creative and come up with an alternative solution to get some cardio workout in. That’s when I came up with the broom handle workout. Using this simple piece of equipment, or something similar, we can get in a great workout that adds some variety to keep things interesting.

I usually use the broom handle in conjunction with interval training — multiple exercises done for various amounts of time — to get slightly different workouts in. These workouts have become popular among my clients and in my community, as they’re low-cost and quite fun. You can also increase intensity as you get stronger and fitter by adding wrist weights or using a heavier pole.

If you need a guide on how to plan an interval training workout, I have plenty on my YouTube channel, Adapt to Perform.

• Sample broom stick: amzn.to/3l3uwa5

Honorable Mentions

There are some items that I personally love using and are deserving of an honorable mention, despite not being essential.

The SkiErg by Concept2 is my favorite way to do cardio. Not only is it a great workout, but it also exercises the opposite of muscles that we usually use when pushing our wheelchairs. This has a positive impact on our posture. These are getting more popular in gyms due to being used in CrossFit competitions. I asked my gym to get one, and it quickly became the most-used item in my gym.

• SkiErg: concept2.com/skierg

The HIIT interval timer app really helps with a workout, as I just type in the intervals and the rest periods and it tells me when to rest and go. This is really useful when you’re struggling and forget to look at the clock. This app, and others like it, are available on your phone’s app store.

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Workout

In my many years of training myself, and as a qualified personal trainer, I’ve come to realize you don’t need fancy equipment that costs a fortune to get good results. The three items above plus a couple of dumbbells of different weights allow you to get a great workout in and keep things interesting with a variety of routines. Even if you have access to a gym, having some equipment on hand at home is really handy.

If you need extra help or guidance on how to use this equipment effectively or how to program it into a workout, you can come check out my YouTube channel: youtube.com/adapttoperform