Picking Up the Pace

It's no secret that participating in sports and recreation offers a wealth of benefits in terms of physical and emotional health. For people with disabilities, there is no difference. Fortunately, there are increasing opportunities in a number of traditional and emerging sports for disabled athletes at both competitive and recreational levels.

“We all have to have balance in our life, between family, work, physical and spiritual life,” says David Kiley, basketball director, Sunrise Medical, Longmont, Colo., and director of adaptive sports and recreation for the Charlotte Institute of Rehab in Charlotte, N.C. “Having a disability is not an excuse to be inactive. It is important to set fitness or competitive goals to enhance your confidence and level of well-being.”

Basketball, tennis, quad rugby and softball are some of the most popular adaptive sports. “In North America, the numbers support basketball as being most popular because there are so many organizations and conferences throughout the country,” says Kiley.

Kiley says hand cycling has also created a great deal of interest recently. “Hand cycling is probably the sport that has the most buzz of growth and interest — it is a sport that crosses all lines between gender and age and is a wonderful recreational sport with family and friends,” he says. “From my experience in the national rehab sports market, people are pulling away from road racing and going into hand cycling. It is new, exciting and will, for the first time, be a competitive event in the September 2004 Paralympic Games in Greece.”

Rick Cooper, Elyria, Ohio-based Invacare Corp.'s consumer interface manager, agrees. “The fastest-growing sport is hand cycling,” he says. “Part of the reason is that as the track generation gets older, they still want to compete and exercise, so they're moving into hand cycling.”

Another reason the sport is growing at such a high rate is that it levels the playing field. With a hand cycle, a child or teenager can go ride bikes with neighborhood friends and family.

Wheelchair arena football is another sport that is just now emerging, says John Box, president of Colours in Motion, Anaheim, Calif. “Arena football is the next hot, crazy wheelchair sport,” he says. “It is months, if not weeks, away from being chartered in Southern California.”