The non-profit Upstate Nevada Cross Fit gym in Reno has introduced "Adaptive Fridays" on the last Friday of every month.
The workouts are written and performed from the perspective of an athlete with a disability.
Every athlete attending class on the last Friday of each month will have the opportunity to experience a workout as an adaptive athlete.
“The support you feel here is like nothing you’ll experience anywhere else in your life, and we want to make sure anyone who wants to can access thatm” said Lauren Moore, an Adaptive Program Coordinator.
Moore also has a brother with disabilities, and she said even though she's the big sister, she looks up to him.
“Every time he comes to visit me, I am yanking him into the gym to come work out with me," said Moore. "He doesn’t have any fingers on his left hand and we’re just going to figure it out.”
"Adaptive Fridays" are a way to give all athletes a chance to experience an adaptive workout.
“We started last month, and everyone was a seated athlete," Moore explains. "This month we had every experience what a seated athlete and a neurotypical athlete with a neuromuscular disability, so using the hand wraps to grip the dumbbells the rower or the ski.”
The trainers say this helps them create workouts for adaptive athletes after having experienced a morsel of what an adaptive athlete goes through.
“There are so many little things you don’t even think about," said Moore. "Today we were doing double presses with the hand grip and the amount of time it took me to get the hand grip off of one hand and back onto the other hand and wrapped around the dumbbell, I have to pick the dumbbell up and put it back down and it took so long.”
The gym's goal is to help make adaptive athletes' workout set ups as efficient as possible so they can work out easily with everyone else, but also so adaptive athletes have the skills to make their everyday lives easier.
“We had an adaptive athlete yesterday tell us how much easier it is for him now to get up his driveway, which is on a slope, in his wheelchair, and that’s what it’s all about,” said Moore.
Moore also said it would be unusual in the gym not to see an adaptive athlete working out at all hours because of how many use the gym.
She also says anyone is welcome to work out at the Upstate Nevada Cross Fit gym, which gives half price memberships to first responders, nurses and educators, and free memberships to adaptive athletes.
