Creating avenues for change in the industries of fitness and sport through adaptive fitness and the founding of Flex for Access

Jess Silver 

The idea that movement is one of the most important avenues for managing physical limitations and addressing further atrophy, should not been perceived as surprising or a newly discovered intervention, because it has been traced back to the earliest of civilizations that the human body’s physical constitution is often dependent on lifestyle and is reflected in how an individual moves. Even with this scientific fact being true, movement and fitness is unfortunately not prioritized for special populations that are comprised of individuals who have Cerebral Palsy (CP) Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Spinal Cord Injuries (SCI) and other acquired neurological disorders, infections, or diseases which cause neurological impairment. For these conditions medications are primarily administered to control localized symptoms or secondary affects of impairment and assistive devices are prescribed to assist in movement if an individual is able to use a walker, canes, or gait trainer, for example. Likewise, conventional approaches to physical and occupational therapy are applied in management, which similarly to the medication are used to control pain and where possible address aspects of impairment, but where there are gaps to accessing movement based programming, is evidently apparent in how individuals with physical disabilities and acquired injuries or conditions are accepted with hesitance by fitness industry leaders into facilities to improve their performance and address their own wellness or as educators themselves within the field. 

The unfortunate fact is that largely within the industry there is still the attitudinal barrier which is exists that it isn’t ‘common’ for individuals with differences, whether physically visible or not, to be seen in fitness and sport facilities or spaces alongside their able-bodied peers. Instead, it is believed that they need some of the following and thus can’t train in a mainstream space: 

- Specialized facilities with specialized equipment only to be able to address limitations. 

- A specialized approach to teaching and coaching which would be too challenging to incorporate within and across the mainstream. 

I created Flex for Access, the Non-Profit Organization, to achieve two main goals; the first is to allow a greater number of individuals with physical disabilities to pursue fitness within mainstream settings, and the second is for the organization to be the conduit for education of fitness professionals of their role in impacting lives positively of individuals who have challenges and also of important role that the fitness professional has in partnership with other medical professionals and practitioners. Providing the fitness professional or health practitioner with the insight that their expertise and role in the health pathway is life changing and demonstrating how it is and being able to instruct them on modifying exercises and the overall approach to programming, is most compelling and important in impacting the industry as a whole. Individuals that have physical challenges and injuries, have also commented on the fact that there is a lack of opportunity for them to be active within mainstream settings because of a lack of both infrastructural accessibility and even more importantly an informed, wholestic knowledge of fitness’ role to achieving overall wellness. Knowing this, Flex for Access’ work moves beyond creating awareness and into impacting educational structure and application of adaptive fitness and sport to health prescription. More information about the Non-Profit Organization, is available at www.flexforaccess.ca and there’s a great upcoming opportunity to engage with our work at the 4^th Annual Gala Fundraiser, S.O.A.R. (Sport. Opportunity. Amalgamation. Redefinition.,) on Thursday November 14^th. Tickets are now on sale under the News & Events tab of our website. We look forward to seeing many of you there.