This is a part of the Hot Topic podcast series from the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center on Exercise and Fitness After Spinal Cord Injury. Lynn Worobey, PhD, DPT, ATP, researcher, discusses Thinking about Exercise in a New Way.

I think a lot of the times it’s difficult emotionally to think about exercising differently than you were before. So your abilities are different. And I think sometimes what we try to do is focus on ability. So rather than thinking about what you can’t do, think about what you can do. Let’s work the muscles that are working, and let’s try to make you as independent as possible. So we really try to push function with exercise. So in a way exercise is kind of like a prescriptive medicine to get you to the functional level that you want to be at.

So it might be that you want your transfer to be better or you want to be able to go out with your kids when they’re riding their bikes. So those are sort of things that you can push to get people more involved with exercise.

And then I think also getting people to do things that they’re interested in. So going to the gym isn’t something that everybody is interested in. But it might be that hand cycling or yoga or dancing or lots of other things that are exercise as well are what speaks to somebody more. And those are the things for them to do.

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