Adaptive Exercise

Adaptive Exercise Guides  

  • Mount Sinai SCI Adaptive and Inclusive Workouts Guide: Our team at The Spinal Cord Injury Research Center have created a comprehensive guide to adaptive & inclusive fitness, dance and yoga resources that people with SCI can access to stay active and healthy. 
  • Active Homes: Strength-Training Guide For People with SCI: This guide is designed as a resource manual for individuals with a spinal cord injury who want to try to meet the strength training recommendations as outlined in the Physical Activity Guidelines for Adults with SCI. Downloadable manuals and videos for people with paraplegia and tetraplegia for continued at-home strength training for adults with SCI are available. 
  • Discover Accessible Fitness: A Wheelchair User’s Guide for Using Fitness Equipment: The Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD) created this guide as an exercise program for people using wheelchairs. 
  • Exercise and Fitness After Spinal Cord Injury: The MSKTC page highlights the importance of physical activity for individuals with spinal cord injuries (SCI) to improve overall health, mobility, and independence. It provides information on different types of exercises, adaptive fitness options, and expert insights on how to stay active safely. The resource emphasizes the benefits of exercise, including improved cardiovascular health, muscle strength, and mental well-being. 
  • Exercises At Home Packet: The Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Washington put together this wonderful packet of exercises that most can perform from a sitting position at home or a gym. 
  • Exercise for People with SCI: Shepherd Center YouTube video playlist intended to promote a healthy lifestyle for people with spinal cord injury by providing how-to videos depicting various exercises users can do in a gym with the assistance of a trainer or caregiver. 
  • Every Body Fitness Exercise Class: Every Body Fitness, an exercise ideology created by Physical Therapist Kristin McNealus, is the first online exercise program for people with spinal cord injuries. 
  • Physical Activity Guidelines for Adults with Spinal Cord Injuries: This guideline by the University of British Columbia has been developed by an international group of SCI scientists, people living with SCI, clinicians, and representatives from SCI organizations. These physical activity guidelines are based on the best scientific evidence available. 
  • Physical Activity for People with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI): This factsheet from the SCIRE Community provides evidence-based information on physical activity for people with spinal cord injury (SCI). It is designed to help individuals with SCI understand the benefits, types, and safety considerations of exercise, and to support informed decision-making around staying active. 
  • The Miami Project’s At Home Fitness Guide: Developed by the Miami Project for those who want to incorporate different exercise protocols developed to optimize health in people with spinal cord injury. The training program consists of a mix of cardio and weightlifting exercises, utilizing resistance bands system and/or dumbbells. It includes a section that enables people to track their progress as they work toward their fitness goals. 
  • National Center on Physical Activity and Disability: Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD) is a public health practice and resource center on health promotion for people with disabilities. NCHPAD seeks to help people with disability and other chronic health conditions achieve health benefits through increased participation in all types of physical and social activities, including fitness and aquatic activities, recreational and sports programs, adaptive equipment usage, and more. 
  • New Mobility Fitness: Page offers a curated collection of articles and resources tailored to wheelchair users, featuring adaptive workouts like boxing, weight management strategies, shoulder rehab, and fitness equipment reviews. Regularly updated with expert advice and user-tested content, it aims to support active, inclusive fitness for individuals with physical disabilities. 
  • Spinal Mobility: A demanding, free 8 week boot camp for people with Spinal Cord Injury that meets for 4 hours, once a week. During the class, participants learn about how to exercise and how to set up an exercise space in their homes. It is staffed by volunteering clinicians and students allowing all the participants to share their knowledge about exercise and rehabilitation while enabling the Volunteers to practice the Spinal Mobility technique and review other fitness activities pertinent to this population. The class is held in the Spring and in the Fall. 

Adaptive Fitness & Recreation Centers 

  • Axis Project: (NYC) The Axis Project is a multidisciplinary center committed to providing high quality services for those with physical disabilities. This unique center empowers people with physical disabilities to pursue a healthy, active lifestyle. The center is completely wheelchair accessible and includes all accessible workout equipment. The Axis Project offers programs, activities, and classes specifically designed for people with physical disabilities. 
  • NYC Parks Adaptive Hubs: (NYC) The adaptive hubs are fully accessible recreation centers that lead their borough in offering programs for New Yorkers with disabilities. These hubs are also a center of information where patrons can go to get more information on what NYC Parks offers citywide for patrons with disabilities. 
  • Breakthrough Fit Co: (Hartsdale, NY) Offers a fully accessible and inclusive fitness environment, with Adaptive, appointment-based personal training and small-group classes tailored for individuals with physical, neurodiverse, and developmental disabilities through their IGNITE program. 
  • Motion Project: (Buffalo, NY)) Natalie Barnhard Recovery Center in Buffalo (in partnership with SUNY Buffalo) is a fully accessible gym and rehab center built specifically for individuals with spinal cord and neurological injuries. 
  • The Pieters Family Life Center Fitness: (Rochester, NY) facility is fully universally designed and accessible, offering wheelchair-friendly cardio and strength equipment. 

Virtual Exercise Classes & Videos 

  • SitGrit! Fitness Class: Join us every Tuesdays 2-3pm and Thursdays 12-1pm for SitGrit classes. Created by the Spinal Cord Injury Transitions Group of Mount Sinai and powered by Social Creatures, SitGrit is a free, fully seated, home-based aerobic and strength training workout for the upper body. Classes are held fully remotely on Zoom, and led by high-performance and Olympic fitness trainers. SitGrit is open to everyone. No workout equipment is needed to participate. The classes are open for all ages, fitness levels, and mobility levels. Classes include full upper body workouts, boxing, dance, yoga, and more! For more information on SitGrit Fitness visit their website: HERE 
  • Adapt to Perform: Free wheelchair fitness YouTube channel with a myriad of quality home workout videos, most of which can be performed with minimal, or sometimes no specialized equipment. 
  • Borp Online Fitness: BORP offers a variety of different free online fitness options for people with disabilities to help them stay active and healthy. They are offering online virtual workouts classes via Zoom. Visit their FACEBOOK page for more information. 
  • Disability Partnerships’ Adaptive Exercise: Offers free, zoom virtual weekly classes like Adaptive Zumba, Adaptive Fitness workouts, Line Dancing, and Accessible Boxing led by certified trainers for individuals with limited to no mobility.
  • Exercise and Fitness After Spinal Cord Injury: This 19-minute video features individuals with SCI who share their fitness routines and explain how exercise has improved their quality of life. The video also includes expert input from health care professionals at the University of Pittsburgh Model Center on Spinal Cord Injury, who provide clinical insights on the importance of fitness and physical health after SCI. 
  • Gathering Strength: Gathering Strength offers free, live online fitness classes—Strength & Endurance, Mindful Movement, and Cardio & Core, designed for people with physical disabilities, including SCI. Led by certified adaptive trainers, classes are seated, beginner-friendly, and available via Zoom or YouTube recordings. 
  • Move United On Demand: Move United OnDemand provides a high-quality, engaging fitness platform adapted for different abilities and body types. Through highly trained instructors and workouts that are fun, dynamic and engaging, athletes with disabilities can enjoy the benefits of healthy, physical activity at home and other places where you train. 
  • Move United Adapt At Home:  Check out the Move United calendar compiled with hundreds of free live and on-demand #AdaptAtHome exercise and fitness classes. 
  • Reeve Health Minute: Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation YouTube playlist videos on exercises and other healthy living tips. 
  • Shepherd Center Workout Routine for People with Spinal Cord Injury: Shepherd Center YouTube playlist for upper extremity exercises for people with SCI (both assisted and resistive).
  • Virtual SPIRIT Club: An inclusive, on-demand and live-streamed fitness platform with universally designed classes. They offer flexible individual memberships  and organizational access, with options for interactive live classes, on-demand workouts, meditation, and healthy cooking demonstrations—all aimed at making fitness accessible, engaging, and community-driven for people of all abilities. 
  • Zumba on Wheels: Live and Video on demand wheelchair Zumba classes with Tennille Houstin. 

Inclusive Dance 

  • Axis For All: A FREE online video series that features guided movement, dance and meditation exercises for people living with paralysis, their families and caregivers. These videos for all ages include seated/wheelchair-based workshops that focus on bringing movement into the body, taught by AXIS Dance Company. 
  • Dance for All Bodies: They are offering free online inclusive dance classes via Zoom. 
  • Chair Dancing Fitness: Presents a five day Seated Workout Plan alongside other free virtual adaptive classes throughout the week. 
  • Heidi Latsky Dance: The mission of HLD is to bring contemporary dance to a broad audience in a visceral and emotional way, with performers whose unique attributes, physical and otherwise, are honored and utilized in highly dynamic, virtuosic and provocative ways. 
  • NYC Ballet Access Workshop: 75‑minute, movement-based sessions designed for people aged 13+ with physical disabilities or movement disorders, featuring ballet warm‑ups, choreography inspired by current repertory, and adaptive options.  
  • Roll Call Wheelchair Dance: The mission of Roll Call is to provide people in wheelchairs, both adults and children, with a social dancing outlet. They also provide an opportunity to learn competitive style wheelchair dance and to compete at local and national dance competitions. 
  • Tap: On Tap: an all‑abilities tap ensemble based in NYC that integrates dancers with and without disabilities—some using wheelchairs or resulting from brain or spinal cord injuries—into performances using traditional foot-tap- and Tap-Dancing Hands Down hand‑tap techniques. 
  • ZCO/Dance Project: Offers physically integrated dance classes and workshops for all ages. Their programming serves individuals with and without disabilities through private and group sessions, cultivating confidence, community recognition, and artistic empowerment.

Inclusive Yoga 

  • Breathe & Flow Adaptive Yoga Series: a powerful resource from the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation in partnership with Mind Body Solutions. 
  • Accessible Yoga School: offers comprehensive, equity-centered training in inclusive yoga through live online courses, in-person workshops, and on-demand content.  
  • Adaptive Yoga with WheelPower: Nina the Yoga Instructor demonstrates effective and safe adaptive chair yoga poses in this 1 hr. class. Free to stream. 
  • Adaptive Yoga Full Class: Stream 1hr adaptive yoga class with renowned adaptive yoga instructor Matthew Sanford on YouTube. 
  • Adaptive Yoga Live: Yoga designed by disabled people for everyone. They offer Accessible and inclusive yoga chair-based classes that cater to any mobility level. All ages and abilities welcome.
  • Allihopa Yoga: Founded by paralysis-survivor Rodrigo Souza, offers accessible and adaptive virtual and in-person yoga classes especially seated chair yoga designed for individuals with physical disabilities or spinal cord injuries, and anyone seeking mindful, body-positive movement. They provide sliding-scale pricing and free spots for disabled participants.
  • Inclusive Yoga: A Practice for Individuals with a Spinal Cord Injury: This 35-minute yoga video is a first-of-its-kind practice for individuals with a disability. 
  • Lynn McCarthy Yoga: Offers adaptive and accessible yoga classes designed to support individuals of all abilities in improving mobility, strength, and well-being. 
  • Mind Body Solutions: A nonprofit with a mission to transform loss and disability into hope and potential by awakening the connection between mind and body.  Mind Body Solutions offers free, online yoga classes with an accessible, adaptive approach. 
  • Yoga for Paralysis: Yoga Anytime features over 2,600 videos to help you move, heal, connect, begin, and/or teach yoga. They offer an 8 episode online streaming adaptive yoga options from wheelchair instructor Quinn Brett.

For more resources visit our Active Living & Recreation & Adaptive Sports pages.