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Sunday, November 15, 2009

Exercising from a wheelchair: the VitaGlide


One of my wheelchair tennis friends decided to buy a VitaGlide for her home after seeing positive reviews of it on message boards in the disability community. It's a piece of exercise equipment that wheelchair users can roll up to and use to get a good cardio workout. The VitaGlide, made in a tapered shape, surrounds the wheelchair and has handles on each side. The user pushes and pulls those back and forth repeatedly.

People say they are losing weight and building up shoulder and back muscles. This, among other things, it is claimed, helps to correct muscle imbalances which can prevent injury. They say it also helps improve the ability to push a wheelchair and do other tasks. I've never used one, so can't attest to any of this,but feel free to check around the internet for feedback from people who have used it.

This is the kind of equipment that would be a great addition to gyms as well as in home use. It sells for about a thousand dollars, can be used independently by wheelchair users and adapted with specialized grips for those with quadriplegia.

A video is shown below.

2 comments:

william Peace said...

This VitaGlide looks pretty iffy to me. I went to the website and could find all sorts of information except for the price. I can think of many free or inexpensive ways to exercise that do not involve what appears to be a silly product. In fact it reminded of the Bud commercials for tail gate approved products.

Ruth said...

Bill - Yes it has that tailgate look. Although at first glance I thought "ironing board"!