KU Life Span Institute<\/a>. She is studying the effectiveness of HIFT focused on people with disabilities as part of three pilot projects in several facilities in the Greater Kansas City area.<\/p>\n\n\n\nKoon, who has a doctorate in sport and exercise science with a focus on the social psychology of sport and physical activity, was skeptical of HIFT at first. Then a friend convinced her to go to a CrossFit class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI thought I knew just about everything about exercises,\u201d she says. \u201cI finally went, and it was like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ve been doing it wrong this whole time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a former athlete, Koon had been studying the health and activity of older adults. She thought HIFT, with its focus on individually tailored workouts, might help fill an important need for physical activity for people with disabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Koon says she has seen HIFT work for a variety of people\u2014from ages 8 to 80, people with amputations or spinal cord injuries, and individuals with Down syndrome or cerebral palsy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe methods of CrossFit are unbelievably effective. And because they\u2019re so adaptable, anybody can do it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The need to adapt<\/h3>\n\n\n\n The roots of Koon\u2019s research program began when she met Josh Snyder, owner and manager of FitNKC. Koon had spoken with Alec Barowka, \u201916, at Kaw Valley CrossFit in Lawrence, and he recommended Snyder as someone to connect with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Snyder, who developed the AAIM program, emphasizes that fitness and its benefits are for everybody. Several years earlier, before he started his first adaptive class, his nonprofit Chalk Up For Burpees program introduced HIFT to veterans and first responders as a method to build health, healing and community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Snyder didn\u2019t have an adaptive fitness class when, in 2017, a former first responder with a traumatic brain injury came into his gym in a wheelchair to ask if Snyder could train him too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Snyder wasn\u2019t sure he could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo, I\u2019m just going to say no, right?\u201d Snyder recalls. \u201cWell, that doesn\u2019t sit very well with me. So, I said, \u2018The answer is no for right now, but I\u2019m going to figure this thing out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To begin helping individuals with disabilities, Snyder completed certification for adaptive and inclusive training through the Adaptive Training Academy, an organization established in 2012 by adaptive fitness community leaders. Training people who have limited mobility, are recovering from a stroke, have chronic health conditions or have spinal cord injuries takes some thought, Snyder says, but it isn\u2019t as difficult as he feared it would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just looking at something and knowing, \u2018Hey, what is it we are trying to do to our bodies?\u2019 And then from that standpoint, \u2018How do you get creative with that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before beginning, all AAIM participants complete two orientation sessions with HIFT trainers who inventory their health and physical condition and work with them to adapt routines before they join others in completing the workout of the day, or WOD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJosh has a knack for this stuff,\u201d Koon says. \u201cHe can take any disability type and go, \u2018OK, I see where you are. Now, I\u2019m going to get you to here based on your capabilities and goals.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nResearcher Lyndsie Koon overcame her initial skepticism about HIFT after seeing how the workouts can be adapted to benefit people with a wide range of abilities.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nAdaptations, which are modifications in how an exercise is performed, may seem small, but they are necessary. Someone who cannot do pushups, for example, can work the same muscle group by tossing a medicine ball against a wall. An adaptation could also involve lowering the handlebars of a ski machine so they can be reached from a seated position, or rotating the screen of a rowing machine so it can be used by a person seated in a wheelchair on the other side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mike Aldridge knows firsthand how small things can make a big difference. On July 11, 2020, just one day after his 50th birthday, Aldridge was working on his roof when his hammer slipped from his hand. He asked his wife, who was holding the ladder, to retrieve it for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe didn\u2019t want to let go,\u201d Aldridge remembers. \u201cBut it was hot up there, and I\u2019ve rolled the dice so many times in my life. I never thought I was going to fall.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aldridge insisted\u2014\u201cI probably used some expletives,\u201d he says\u2014and his wife reluctantly took her first few steps away before \u201cthe ladder slipped completely out.\u201d The impact of the fall broke bones throughout his body and fractured his spine, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After his injury, Aldridge recalls lying in the hospital, feeling broken everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe thing I was saying to myself,\u201d he says, \u201cis that I got to get strong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His first physical therapy class focused on just getting out of bed. It was a struggle, for the first time using only his upper body to maneuver himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After training with AAIM, Aldridge now has the strength to get out of bed and much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou get into this zone, and you start feeling the results, seeing the results, and then sharing the results with other people,\u201d he says. \u201cIf I could do anything, I would want to see this place full all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Function of fitness<\/h3>\n\n\n\n HIFT challenges participants to focus on functional movements, considered more natural with real-life application, rather than on sports- or gym-specific movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Functional movements are actions that mimic activities of daily life, such as walking, sit-to-stand, bending to pick something up or reaching to put something away. This term is used to distinguish HIFT from exercises that focus on isolated muscles or that are not part of everyday movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s nothing wrong with performing calf raises, for instance, but such exercises may be less helpful to someone whose goal is to improve their health and independence rather than compete in a physical activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\nJosh Snyder, owner of FitNKC, developed AAIM after a first responder with a traumatic brain injury asked for training help.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nHIFT classes focus less on muscles needed to bench press a certain weight, for example. Instead, strength and movement efficiency are built around more functional activities\u2014getting in and out of bed, retrieving an object from the floor, putting a bag in an overhead bin on an airplane, or picking up a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe basis of this HIFT stuff is these functional movements,\u201d Koon says. \u201cThese are things people with disabilities have to do as well. They just do it a little bit differently.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maureen \u201cMoe\u201d Flynn-Hart, a retired high school coach who began training girls sports teams right after Title IX was enacted, is used to working out. But a stroke left her with tremors that made it difficult to function as she used to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cExercise is control, I feel, for motivation and wellness,\u201d she explained with the assistance of a writing app on her phone during the second orientation session for the adaptive HIFT classes back in January. She practiced standing from a seated position without using her arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At FitNKC several months later, Flynn-Hart, \u201998, reflects on her progress. Having a routine of physical fitness, she says, helps her cognitive abilities. On this day, she does shoulder touches from a straight plank position after taking a break from the rowing machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In her 70s, Flynn-Hart is raising her active 3-year-old granddaughter, who loves riding her bike and trying to reenact the Olympic gymnastics she sees on TV. The energetic young girl keeps her busy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can\u2019t run,\u201d Flynn-Hart says. Still, \u201cI have to create leverage for me to keep up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While people with disabilities worldwide engage in HIFT, Koon says there is little to no empirical evidence on the effectiveness of this type of exercise for the disability community.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLynne Ellis, j\u201985, during an Adaptive Athletes In Motion session at CrossFit Lawrence.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nMuch of Koon\u2019s research is focused on documenting how adaptive fitness can help empower and improve people\u2019s independence. While her data have shown increases in grip strength and improvements in balance and flexibility, those aren\u2019t the factors that motivate her work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI want to know that these people are getting on the floor to play with their grandchildren or carrying in their groceries alone,\u201d Koon says. \u201cThe functional independence piece of it is, I think, the most compelling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Confidence and community<\/h3>\n\n\n\n For the first time in her life, AAIM participant and author Rebekah Taussig loves going to the gym, meeting up with the other people in class and challenging herself physically. It is an experience the KU alumna didn\u2019t always think she could have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m 38. And this is the first time I\u2019ve ever worked out consistently with other people,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paralyzed at age 4, she says she didn\u2019t fit into \u201cthat traditional, tiny, narrow box\u201d around which most exercise plans are designed. That changed when she joined AAIM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen I first started working out at this gym, I would have this big smile on my face just, like, lifting weights,\u201d says Taussig, PhD\u201917. \u201cI\u2019ve never done that. And it was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She attended accessible exercise classes as part of a study several years ago, but when the study ended, so did her workouts. This time, she has stuck with it, and she feels pride in the strength she\u2019s able to demonstrate to her family, including her 4-year-old son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne thing that I actually really love about it is the way that my son perceives it,\u201d she says. \u201cIt matters to me that he sees me pushing myself physically.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While she exercised some in the past, what has felt different to her this time is the support from her trainer. But what she loves most has been working out with people like herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is the first time I\u2019ve ever worked out consistently with other people,\u201d she says. \u201cThat feels really important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taussig wrote the bestselling memoir Sitting Pretty<\/em>, which discusses growing up with physical disabilities in a body unlike those around her. Because she works from home, she says, the community aspect of HIFT has been important to her. Her fellow gymgoers greet her when she shows up and ask about her if she doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re all doing similar things together, but in our own ways. And there\u2019s something about that social component of it, like we\u2019re all doing this together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/path><\/svg><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\nGet a look inside Josh Snyder\u2019s accessible HIFT program, Adaptive Athletes in Motion, and hear from Lyndsie Koon on her research into the benefits of high-intensity functional training.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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