Effective Wheelchair Exercises for Weight Loss: A Comprehensive Guide

For adults who use wheelchairs, maintaining a healthy weight can present unique challenges. This is often due to reduced calorie expenditure through physical activity. However, with the right approach, wheelchair users can effectively manage their weight and improve their overall health and well-being. This article provides a comprehensive guide to wheelchair exercises for weight loss, incorporating expert advice and practical tips to help you achieve your fitness goals.

Understanding Weight Management for Wheelchair Users

Body mass index (BMI) is a useful measure to determine if someone is at a healthy weight for their height. You can check your BMI using a BMI healthy weight calculator. However, BMI may not always provide an accurate assessment for wheelchair users. If you are uncertain about your weight, consulting a GP or dietitian is recommended.

On average, men need around 2,500 calories daily to maintain their body weight, while women need about 2,000 calories. Wheelchair users typically require fewer calories due to reduced use of large leg muscles and lower overall muscle mass. A GP or dietitian can help determine your specific daily calorie needs. Community weight management services can also provide valuable support.

Aim for a gradual weight loss of 0.5lb (0.25kg) to 2lb (1kg) per week until you reach your target weight. A combination of a balanced diet and regular physical activity is crucial for long-term weight management.

The Importance of a Balanced Diet

Eating a balanced diet is essential, especially when reducing calorie intake. It can be more challenging to obtain sufficient nutrients, particularly vitamins and minerals, from your diet.

Read also: Elliptical Training: Your Guide to Shedding Pounds

Base your diet on the Eatwell Guide, which recommends:

• Eating at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables every day.
• Basing meals on potatoes, bread, rice, pasta, or other starchy carbohydrates, choosing wholegrain options with less added sugar, salt, or fat where possible.
• Having some dairy or dairy alternatives (such as soya drinks and yoghurts), opting for lower-fat and lower-sugar options.
• Eating beans, pulses, fish, eggs, meat, and other protein sources. Aim for 2 portions of fish every week, including one portion of oily fish like salmon, sardines, or mackerel.
• Choosing unsaturated oils and spreads like sunflower or rapeseed oil, and consuming them in small amounts.
• Drinking plenty of fluids, aiming for 6 to 8 cups/glasses a day. Avoid drinking just before meals to prevent feeling too full to eat.

Limit foods and drinks high in fat, salt, and sugar, consuming them less often and in smaller amounts. Keep in mind that the Eatwell Guide is a general guideline. A dietitian or weight management advisor can provide specific advice on portion sizes tailored to your disability.

The Role of Physical Activity

Regular physical activity is vital for maintaining a healthy weight and promoting overall health and wellbeing. There are numerous activities and sports suitable for all levels of physical ability. Choose activities that improve heart health and muscle strength.

If possible, aim for:

• At least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity every week.
• Strength and balance exercises on 2 or more days a week.

Aerobic activity is particularly effective for weight loss. It raises your heart rate, causes you to breathe slightly harder, and makes you sweat. Gyms offer various options for wheelchair users, including adapted rowing machines and weight machines for resistance exercises. The Activity Alliance runs the Inclusive Fitness Initiative (IFI), which ensures gyms are accessible and suitable for people with disabilities.

Read also: Top Bodyweight Moves for Burning Fat

Wheelchair Exercises for Weight Loss

Incorporating regular exercise into your routine is vital for anyone who uses a wheelchair. Moderate physical activity can improve overall health and reduce the risk of chronic illnesses. Wheelchair exercises are designed to prevent various ailments associated with long-term wheelchair use.

Upper Body Strength Training

If you have limited mobility in your legs, focusing on upper body strength training will be most useful for you.

Here are some effective wheelchair exercises for weight loss:

1. Bicep Curls:

   • Sit up straight with back support.
   • Use a small weight and curl your arm up to shoulder level.
   • Lower your arm slowly and repeat on the opposite arm.

2. Overhead Press:

   Read also: Effective treadmill exercises for weight loss

   • Sit with back support.
   • Hold weights at shoulder height.
   • Lift the weights above your head in a smooth motion.

3. Chest Press with Medicine Ball:

   • Hold a medicine ball to your chest with your hands on each side, bending your elbows.
   • Push the ball outwards until your elbows almost lock.

4. Pull-Ups:

   • Use a pull-up bar at a gym or installed at home.
   • Grip the bar shoulder-width apart and raise your body using only your arms.
   • Build strength over time to lift yourself higher.

5. Weighted Punches:

   • Use progressively heavier weights to perform punches from a seated position.

6. Air Boxing:

   • Punch the air as a classic form of cardio that is upper body-intensive.

Core Exercises

1. Abdominal Twist:

   • Keep your spine extended and twist your upper body from left to right.
   • Use armrests for support if needed.

2. Seated Woodchop:

   • Hold a medicine ball beside your right hip, turning your upper body slightly.
   • Lift the ball across your body, reaching above your opposite shoulder.

3. Side Bend Stretch:

   • Sit tall and support your back with a strong core.
   • Extend your right arm toward the ceiling, keeping it close to your ear.
   • Bend your upper body, reaching over your head and making a "c" shape with your spine.
   • Repeat on the other side.

4. Seated Crunch:

   • Sit up straight with your arms crossed at your chest.
   • Pull your belly button in toward your spine.
   • Press your lower back into your chair as you curl your upper body toward your thighs.
   • Straighten to return to a neutral position.

5. Seated Rotation:

   • Sit up straight, with your arms out in front and elbows at your side.
   • Focus on your core muscles as you slowly turn as far as you can to the right.
   • Hold, then slowly return to the center. Repeat on the left side.

Cardio Exercises

1. Training Rollers:

   • Use training rollers to exercise as if you were moving without leaving your spot.
   • Place the back wheels of your chair on the rollers and propel yourself.

2. Handcycles:

   • Use handcycles like the Dragonfly and the Batec to get outside and get a good workout.
   • These allow you to use a different muscle set and save your shoulders.

3. Seated Aerobics or Adaptive Zumba:

   • Improve your cardiovascular fitness, burn calories, and have fun.

4. HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training):

   • Perform fast, intense spurts of exercise with rest periods in between.
   • A sample workout: perform 4 exercises for 30 seconds each with 30 seconds of rest after each (4 repetitions for a total of 16 minutes of workout).

Flexibility Exercises

Flexibility based wheelchair exercises may include yoga and pilates.

1. Yoga:

   • Improve physical and emotional wellness through mindfulness-cultivating practices.
   • Yoga increases flexibility and reduces stress and results in changes in gene expression that boost immunity at a cellular level.

2. Tai Chi:

   • Engage in Tai Chi, a low-impact, slow-moving form of exercise.

Leg Exercises

1. Calf Raises:

   • Sit up straight with your core engaged and feet flat on the floor.
   • Raise your toes up, keeping your heel on the floor.

2. Heel Raises:

   • Sit in an upright position, core engaged and feet flat on the floor.
   • Raise your heel up whilst keeping your toes on the ground.

3. Seated Marching:

   • Start with both feet on the ground and raise your knee as high as you can comfortably go before lowering and switching the other leg.
   • Increase the speed of the march to increase the intensity.

Using Home Equipment

1. Suitcase Workout:

   • Fill a suitcase with books for a back workout.
   • Use the handles to make lifting easier.

2. Cooking Pot Arm Workout:

   • Practice stationary holds with cooking pots and pans.
   • Use heavy-duty cast iron for an extra challenge.

3. Pantyhose Chest Workout:

   • Sit up straight, contracting your ab muscles to support your back.
   • Push your palms together with continuous pressure and extend out away from your chest until your arms are nearly straight.
   • Slowly pull your hands back in towards your chest, squeeze your shoulder blades together, and repeat.

4. Resistance Band Workout:

   • Wrap a resistance band around your wheelchair or a chair just below shoulder blade level.
   • Hold the resistance band so there is no slack when your arms are at a 90-degree angle.
   • Extend the band out and hold for three seconds before retracting your arms again.

Adaptive Gym Equipment

Curious how exactly to use adaptive gym equipment? If your nerves are keeping you from trying it out at your own gym, don’t miss this helpful video by Youtuber “Girls on Wheels” who shows you how to use various weight lifting and cardio machines in her video “Gym Workout for Paraplegic Wheelchair Users”.

Essential Equipment for Home Workouts

• Gripping Gloves: These gloves help you hold onto objects like free weights or adaptive bike handles.
• Push Gloves: Hand protection used while pushing the wheels on a wheelchair.
• Cuff Weights: Strap weights to your wrists for manageable resistance.
• Therabands and Resistance Bands: Utilize resistance to tone and build muscle.
• Medicine Balls: Use for core exercises and upper body workouts.
• Free Weights: Versatile tools for upper body exercises and core work.

Finding Motivation and Staying Consistent

1. Set Manageable Goals:

   • Start with a small number of reps and gradually increase them.
   • Select an exercise activity which you enjoy and set manageable goals with fun outcomes.

2. Track Your Progress:

   • A proper weight loss for wheelchair users programme requires data. You need to record stats and see how much calories and weight you are losing.

3. Create a Routine:

   • It usually takes about a month to create a habit. Discuss your goals with your accredited exercise physiologist and write them down as well as your reasons for exercising. Keep this list somewhere you’ll be able to see it. This will help keep you motivated.

4. Focus on Short-Term Goals:

   • Rather than focusing on long term goals like weight loss, try to think about setting short term goals.

5. Be Flexible:

   • If you skip a few days or even weeks, don’t be discouraged. It happens to everyone. Just pick yourself back up and try again, slowly building up to where you left off. Don’t expect yourself to get right back there. Remember – this is a journey, not a race! Be flexible: your health journey isn’t straight-forward, and neither is your fitness journey!

6. Seek Support:

   • If you’ve been injured before, it can seem scary to get back out into the world of exercise. This is a big one but if you’re willing to talk to your friends, family or accredited exercise physiologist about your exercise goals and ask them to support and encourage you (or even workout with you!), this will make a huge difference to your motivation levels.

7. Celebrate Small Wins:

   • Most importantly – encourage yourself and cheer yourself on, whenever you take a step toward physical fitness.

Online Resources

Stuck in a workout rut or simply at a loss for where to even find effective wheelchair exercises? Don’t fret! When it comes to finding helpful, effective workout ideas and tips from real wheelchair users like you, sites like Youtube have you covered.

• YouTube: Search for “wheelchair workout trainer” to find various instructional videos.
• National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD): Offers wheelchair-friendly fitness centers, exercise programs, and an equipment lending library.
• Inclusive Fitness Coalition: Another great online resource for wheelchair users looking to exercise.
• Adapt to Perform: Ben Clarke, a quadriplegic and workout fanatic from England, has a video channel called Adapt To Perform. In his workout video, he shows a series of five HIIT workouts that you do in four intervals.

Examples of YouTube Channels

• Lisa Ericson, the professional ice skater turned expert of seated fitness training who created the SMART (Seated Movement Aerobic and Resistive Training) fitness system after she herself became disabled.
• “Wheelchairgirl2018 R” is a YouTube vlogger who is paralyzed from her T12 vertebrae down. She is super real with her audience and shares funny stories as well as fitness and workout tips like these easy core exercises using resistance bands and dumbbells.
• Spinal cord injury survivor Mary Ann Amon shares her workout tips on Youtube, celebrating her 40 lb weight loss journey and inspiring other wheelchair users to never give up on their exercise dreams. Check out her fun workout video that shows you different exercises to do with medicine balls (and basketballs) as well as weight training tips (workout begins around 1:25).
• Ben Clarke for Adapt to Perform shows you 4 exercises you do for 30 seconds each with 30 seconds of rest after each (4 repetitions for a total of 16 minutes of workout) in his “No Equipment Beginner HIIT Workout for Wheelchair Users,”.
• Youtuber “Girls on Wheels” shows you how to use various weight lifting and cardio machines in her video “Gym Workout for Paraplegic Wheelchair Users”.
• Check out this calming wheelchair yoga tutorial from an Adaptive Yoga for Veterans series on Youtube - it even shows you how to utilize basic objects as yoga props during your practice.

Additional Tips

• Talk to your doctor before you start any new fitness regimen.
• Find an adaptive gym near you (with a wheelchair accessible entrance) or call your nearest gym and ask what type of equipment they have that is adaptive to wheelchair users.
• Use assistive tools like a leg lifter with foot grip to help you assume the right position for the various workouts you perform.
• Bring a friend, caregiver, or other workout buddy with you if you want a little help or need that social buffer.
• Warm-up prior to your workout to help loosen your joints and literally warm up your muscles for exercise. A warmup may consist of 5 minutes of light arm cycling, shoulder rolls and arm swinging as well as some light stretches.
• Stay hydrated by drinking ample amounts of water before, during, and after your workouts.
• Ask for help, especially when using weight training and other gym equipment that could be hazardous to your safety.
• Make sure your wheelchair is properly maintained and ready for gym use.
• Focus some gym work on your back muscles to offset the imbalance your stronger chest and shoulder muscles create from manually propelling your wheelchair.
• Always warm-up and stretch before you work out, cooling down afterwards.
• Be careful not to overextend yourself in this position.
• Consult with accredited exercise physiologists. Through a program of exercises for wheelchair users designed by an accredited exercise physiologist, you will learn how to achieve improved fitness and management for a variety of underlying conditions, while promoting aspects such as weight loss or healthy ageing.
• If you think you may enjoy arm cycling or boxing but an injury, disability or illness makes this impossible, perhaps try something completely new. You may find something that you enjoy even more!
• Many people believe exercise is boring but with so many options available, there is sure to be something that will interest you!
• Keeping fit in a wheelchair is no easy task. You have to learn what your body is capable of and what kind of exercises get you the results you desire…but it's not all about moving.
• The most versatile piece of equipment for wheelchair users is the Cable/Pulley Machine. These machines are great for wheelchair users because the handles and cables can be positioned anywhere.
• Were you visiting a physical therapist to work through a physical disability or injury when the coronavirus emerged? Suddenly, everyone is asked to stay home for non-essential activities. Be sure to contact your physical therapist to see if a family member is able to step in for your therapy exercises or if you are needed in-person at the clinic. Some places are scheduling particularly at-risk patients at lower traffic office hours when possible and limiting the amount of staff in their clinics.
• Not all workout equipment is suitable for people in wheelchairs.
• Many people with disabilities choose not to visit public gyms because many, especially small gyms, may not have enough pieces of exercise equipment that can be adapted to use from a wheelchair or the entrance may not be wheelchair accessible. For this reason, many wheelchair users install a home gym. If you are ready to order home workout equipment, the five different items listed above are a great place to start setting up a home gym.
• This one will feel familiar to a lot of you! The Captain’s Chair exercise nearly mimics the movement one would use to adjust yourself in a wheelchair and it is a key move for arm workouts at home. Sit up straight and grab the sides or the front of your seat and push your upper body up – and potentially – off the chair.
• Many core exercises require you to get on the floor to complete. But the side bend stretch is an effective ab workout at home that you can do while seated. Start at your baseline: always sitting up tall and supporting your back with a strong core.

Dietary Considerations

• 75% of the weight loss equation has to do with eating right. To maintain or properly lose weight, you will need to clean up your eating.
• Track your calorie/nutrient intake is okay, but not necessary if you try and eat only whole foods. Whole foods are anything unprocessed.
• It's not simply calorie intake that's important, it's the quality of the calories you are consuming. Don't trick yourself with the 100 calorie bags of Oreos, those things were created in a lab, not on a farm. Here's a good rule of thumb, try to avoid anything that's processed.
• Cook large amounts of food all at once. This will help save you time and effort. You might even consider cooking all of your different meals at once. I have done this before and I didn't need to cook for a month! Also, STOP DRINGKING SODA!!

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