Article of the Week

Fitness for the Disabled?

Traditionally health and disability were considered to be antonyms, but today this twisted concept is undergoing a change.. Or is it?

Did you know that health clubs are among the last public places in the US to become broadly accessible to the physically disabled? Some clubs lack the ramps and wide doors that they are required under the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990.

Disabled exercisers face major hurdles at most gyms. Some gyms have obstacles that prevent disabled members from reaching all parts of the club, a violation of the disabilities act. Others lack equipment accessible to people with disabilities or staff members who are willing to help them.

Christopher Grobbel, 46 a former extreme skier who was paralyzed 10 years ago, said that the clubs he visited after rehabilitation were not wheelchair friendly and staff members he met had no sensitivity training. He narrated an experience where when he enrolled into a club and they looked at him as if he was nuts.

So in 2001, he founded a gym of his own, "Where abled and disabled can train side by side". Getting fit may soon become easier for the 49.7 million Americans who are physically or mentally impaired as new equipment is being designed for them. The 26,830 health clubs in the US may soon be forced to follow suit.

New federal guidelines would mandate that the health clubs provide a clear floor space around each weight-training equipment so people in wheelchairs can get to them. Swimming pools would be required to have a ramp or a lift capable of lowering swimmers with lower limb impairment.

Many advocates say that they do not go far enough as the guidelines will not mandate that clubs purchase equipment with Braille, or seats that swing out. If the fitness industry made modest accommodations, it would attract new members among the disabled. It does not accommodate the disabled not because of discrimination but because the gyms are unaware of the issues. Wither India?

Source: Disabled, and shut out at the health club. DNA, Mumbai, 10 February 2006.