Any squat alternatives? (*real* need)

T

TheMusk

0
No, I'm not looking to avoid the pain, and I'm not dealing with run-of-the-mill knee/back problems. I'm a wheelchair user with one of those obscure hardly-anyone-has-it medical syndromes which happens to involve spinal deformity.

I do have the ability to move my lower body, and even to stand for brief periods of time, so the usual upper-body-only wheelie workouts aren't especially appropriate. I've tried getting out of the chair and doing squats, but, I've realized, I'm physiologically unable to squat correctly (I can't straighten out my back -- if upright is 12 o'clock, I can at best straighten to about 2 o'clock. This is a bone structure, not flexibility, issue).

In a dream world there'd be some medical professional I could call who would tell me what kind of lower body strength training I could do. But out here in the real world, 95% of the medical types haven't even heard of what I have, and the rest of them seem to think I should be a couch potato for life. Its been up to me to figure out for myself what I can do.

What's out there that isn't critically dependent upon being able to straighten oneself out? (Leg presses are out -- I have no access to anything but freeweights and a simple bench (literally "no access" -- the local gym is not wheelchair accessible)).
 
Well just to start out, it makes me sick that your gym isn't wheelchair accessible.

That said, i'm not positive if you'll be able to do these, as they tend to require a straight back as well, but you could try a lunge. The fact that you can't straighten should not hinder your movement terribly. That said, I would seriously look into finding a doctor who has knowledge of your condition and ask his opinion of doing weight bearing exercises for your legs.

Just some thoughts
 
Yeah... assuming you're in the United States, isn't there something called the Americans with Disabilities Act? Where if a facility doesn't accomodate you, you can complain and they have to do something about it?

ACLU business aside, yeah, what Adler said. Try to find either a doctor, a professional personal trainer or someone in the field of sports medicine to find out what exercises best suit you.
 
Adler1983 said:
I would seriously look into finding a doctor who has knowledge of your condition and ask his opinion of doing weight bearing exercises for your legs.
Click to expand...

With an uncommon condition this is easier said than done. There are only about a dozen doctors who might be considered experts in it, and no one has bothered to do any research on how exercise impacts my syndrome, other than a little bit of research that indicated physical therapy didn't have any significant therapeutic value.

The best advice I've gotten from a professional was from a physiotherapist/trainer working with me on a rotator cuff tear a few years ago, and his suggestion was to do whatever I could tolerate, and let pain (the real kind, not just a little DOMS) be my guide. That still leaves me to puzzle out what's biomechanically reasonable to attempt and what's not, at least not with plates on the bar. And I'm sick of stopping my training at my abs.

As far as the ADA goes, there are loads of loopholes in the law, some intended by congress, some because the law has been dismantled over the years by the courts. The loophole under which this gym operates was written into the law from the beginning. You don't need to retrofit an elevator (or anything else) to an older building if doing so is architecturally unfeasible or unreasonably expensive. They're in the basement of one of the older buildings downtown.
 
Along Huffs lines...you could purchase one of the exercise bands.

If you lay on the floor, and put the band around the arches of your feet and push straight up. It would kind of be like and incline press. You could even do this seated.

I'm not sure how effective it would be, but its worth a try.
 
Just a followup to my very old post (I got sidetracked with some medical issues for a while).

In the end what I've ended up doing are some very careful squats. Picture something like a box squat (with a wheelchair standing in for the box) performed in front of grab bars and in surroundings that allow me to drop the bar safely at any point in time in order to use those grab bars (mind you, at this point I'm at bar only weight... I might need to figure something else out later on). My policy is, when in doubt about even the slightest twinge, stop.

I just don't think there's anything out there even close to the squat in effectiveness (well, okay, my glutes are, right this moment, pointing out to me that the deadlift is a good second ;) ). So unless or until I absolutely can't do a squat, I'll be trying.
 
well, just out of curiosity, do you mind if I ask what the condition is called? I'm not saying I'll know what it is or anything I'm just curious{sp?} but, in the way of workouts, I wish I knew the name of the machine I'm thinking of, but whta you do is you sit down on the machine, you put your thighs forword and weave your shins under a bar with foam around it and you use your thigh muscles to pull the weight up. This however I would imagine would put some stress on the spine, so if you find the name of this machine take it slow, I have one in the gym the is usable to my apartments. anyways, that is just a sugestion.
 
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