Exercises to train on a wheelchair

Keeping active is essential for people with any disability since physical exercise helps to improve both physical and psychological health and gives them more confidence.

The exercise intensity will be different depending on the person’s capacity, health or age but it is essential to perform it since the lack of exercise may increase the possibility of suffering other disorders.

For this reason, we have gathered for you today the best exercises on wheelchair to strengthen your body and mind.

Tips to start

Feeling motivated to start doing some exercise is a big challenge due to the lack of confidence, time or knowledge but to start doing some exercise, motivation is essential.

You can start by leaving a couple of hours free one day to practise some exercise and try to turn it into a routine. The final target is to improve your health and mood and, of course, to enjoy it.

Try to focus on the positive advantages it may bring you. These are only some of them:

It helps toning your muscles up.
It helps keeping your weight under control.
It improves blood circulation, the spine and lower back posture and stability.
It increases flexibility, mobility, and body awareness and muscle strength.
It produces endorphins to help boosting your humour, releasing tension and stress.
It produces more self-independence which will make you feel better and gain confidence.

Exercises

Warming-up and stretching

Before starting with the exercise, you should pay attention to the warming-up. The best thing you can do is to stretch for 5 minutes before and after the exercise. In that way, you will prepare your muscles and will avoid injuries.

Resistance workout

It is commonly performed using endurance bands which are placed at the back of the wheelchair. These bands produce resistance when they are pulled at. This is useful to strength the body’s upper part.

Strength workout

You can use weights to help you strengthen your arms and core, the most used body parts when moving around on a wheelchair. You can also perform some push-ups by placing your hand on the armrests and trying to lift your body weight.

Aerobic workout

Sports such as basketball and pilates or dancing are great to perform an aerobic workout. They are focused on moving the body’s upper part and help improving the posture.

Find what suits you the best and support an active life style!