workouts at home

Observations from an outlier

workouts at home

pulls-system-start_small-9366075

workouts at home

Winter has been pretty kind with sunshine thus far, but the rain is coming. Days where I can’t wheel on the seawall, I do more “pulls.” Getting ready for climbing the chief climbs I spent hours on this simulator at home. (see notes on performance boosting) After many versions, I’ve come up with the ideal system for a quadriplegic to get a good workout at home. I do these exercises in my living room, so I need something minimal and easy to put away. A few carabiners, bit of rope and a weight, simple right? Nope.. it was really tricky to get the weight from swinging around and to keep the tensions on the ropes just right. So the pulleys need to be exactly in this configuration if you want smooth pulling motions. I have lots of climbing gear at home, so that is what I used, but anyone could build this out of parts from any hardware store for under 30 dollars.

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The load can be adjusted easily by just adding a wrist weight to the ball. My Dad found this set with pockets to add/subtract weight as needed. The pull bar we made for me by a friend (best wheelchair mechanic around). This thing has seen lots of use over the years too, been re-taped many times. Important to note that this is a 2:1 “advantage” system. Each pull by the user makes the ball travel twice the distance (generally one uses pulleys to gain advantage, not lose it).

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