Below I’ve listed my top ten exercises for disabled people. I’ve tried to make suggestions as to which disabilities they may be suitable for, however, as disabilities come in all different shapes and sizes, and no two sets of symptoms are the same, it’s more a case of trying them all out to see which ones work for you.
Select the exercises from the below list which suit you and try to perform them regularly in 3 sets of 10 repetitions. For those of you who are unfamiliar with those terms, it means repeating a movement 10 times without rest (10 repetitions), then resting for 30 seconds to 1 minute before repeating a further 10 times (the 2nd set). Rest again before repeating for a 3rd time. In most cases, try to leave 48 hours between workouts in order to fully rest your muscles and joints. Stressed tissues take time to recover!
In terms of intensity, you should always be trying to better your last performance. That means that if you can complete 3 sets of 10 on a given weight, either try to move up to the next weight, or if you don’t have access to heavier weights/resistances, try to increase the number of repetitions or number of sets. Always be improving! It’s the only way to get fitter. Bear in mind that increasing repetitions will improve your endurance and increasing weight will improve your strength. Work out which one you’d like to focus on and act accordingly.
For a cardiovascular workout you can try a circuit by performing the exercises below in sequence with little or no rest between sets. One set of each exercise before moving onto the next and once you’ve completed them all, you can break for a couple of minutes before repeating the circuit a few more times.
