So welcome to the AdaptX podcast where we have conversations with individuals who are
building accessible and inclusive businesses or products advocating for inclusion or excelling
in adaptive sports.
Our intention is never to speak on behalf of those with disabilities but rather amplify
their ideas and voice so we can help other people become more inclusive and accessible
in their work as well.
Today I am joined by Brad Clark of BC Adaptive Fitness.
They have in-person classes out in California for individuals with disabilities as well
as online offerings as well.
Brad thank you for joining us.
Yeah I am happy to be here man.
So maybe we can take it back to your education background and kind of university as you are
studying in school as their specific direction that you kind of expected your career to go
into.
Okay so it's a great starting point because when I first started all this it was obviously
was just an idea but originally so basically I did plumbing for seven years before I did
any of this but I also volunteered at a camp called Rad Camp since I was about 15 years
old.
And when I was 19 years old I am out there volunteering at Rad Camp and I see about 130
individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities two out of three of them were
overweight or obese and I knew that 99% of them were underline health conditions and
my sister is one of them.
And I was like these guys got to move.
They got to start moving and I was like what I was like so I started thinking I was like
okay maybe we can get them involved in some kind of gym or something and so I started
looking at places for them to work out and I couldn't find anything.
I was like huh.
I was like well I love working out.
I love working on people's special needs and so literally like the day I thought of that
I was like I don't think I slept for like two days.
My mind was racing I was just like thinking of all these things and I ended up already
at this point I already dropped out of college and I went back to college and I started at
like math one and English three whatever at community college and ended up working through
got my undergraduate at Cal State Fullerton in kinesiology and in my undergraduate I actually
met my advisor Dr. Daniela Rubin and through my process in my undergraduate there were
people that were interested in working with people's special needs but most people were
looking for occupational therapy and physical therapy that were interested in working with
people's special needs.
But no one was looking to try and create like or work with a maybe like some kind of either
gym or create some kind of system where people with disabilities are able to work out continuously
and not just work on like fine motor things as well as work on fixing injuries and yes
those obviously are important but making sure that individuals just have access to exercise
as a regular regimen like we all do is important.
So in my undergraduate I ended up doing a little bit of research and then when I finished
with my undergrad I was trying to figure out if I wanted to do a physical therapy route
or a master's of science route and so I ended up going with the master's of science strictly
because I was trying to create something new instead of trying to maybe because like well
it may I'll make it I'll simplify it like my thought process at the point was like okay
physical therapy is to fix people.
I'm like we're not trying to fix individuals with disabilities we're just trying to improve
their quality of life so I was like okay I'm gonna do master's I'm gonna try and see if
we can come up with something cool.
And then in my master's program COVID screwed up everything first of all so I ended up adding
another year to that and originally what we're gonna do is a in-person intervention for like
a group class for individuals with disabilities intellectual and developmental disabilities
and we narrowed it to just people with Down syndrome and then we ended up with COVID happening
we ended up doing an online intervention and we created something at home progressive resistance
training for adults with Down syndrome and so we created it was a 10 week intervention
and basically it was like the exercise is progressively increased so this is actually
pretty cool so what we did is we actually so for example for like a sit to stand exercise
we would shoot the exercise at 14 repetitions for the video for the actual film but for
weeks one and two we would only show six repetitions and weeks three and four we would bump it
up to eight repetitions and we would continually progress and then we did that for a bunch of
exercises and making sure that individuals would be able to get a full body exercise
every time they came and hops onto our videos so that was pretty cool I actually enjoyed
that a lot the people we used to film it we was one of them was my sister she was one
of the models because we felt it was very important that individuals with Down syndrome
were actually models for the exercise so that when people with Down syndrome tried to go
to do it they see someone like themselves and say like hey that person is doing it they
look like me I can do it so we actually used two neurotypical people a male and a female
one being me and then two individuals with Down syndrome male and female so it was a
pretty cool experience you know despite the COVID that messed up a bunch of stuff we
made the best of it.
Yeah you said a lot of things in there that kind of echo some of the things we look at
like one that adaptive fitness doesn't have to be reserved for physical therapy a lot
of our young adults and older adults with disabilities find it motivating to be an environment
that's like you said not rehabilitative but performance oriented so I think that is definitely
a way where strength conditioning can hopefully kind of bridge that gap and there just needs
to be more facilities that are willing and competent in terms of accommodating people
with different needs but is so you had your master's degree project that revolved around
this did it then like transition into what you do now is training people with disabilities
the only population that you work with now or do you kind of work with various groups?
So basically so it's a good question because what we did in my master's program is we
just literally transfer it all over to what we do in my business and we just I think we
almost use it pretty close to the exact same warm up it's a full body warm up and it's
almost designed as like a super set warm up so like you'll like target your upper body
like say so for example like the beginning of the warm up starts with small forward arm
circles big forward arm circles goes to high knees and then back up to low small backwards
arm circles big backwards arm circles the butt kicks.
So we're it's really we really try and optimize the physiological aspect of muscular strength
and endurance.
So when we are training individuals we always try to make it as efficient as possible and
then actually I'll go back to answer your same question we do train pretty much anyone
like we have neurotypical we have individuals with autism downs syndrome, cerebral palsy
so like yesterday actually I go this is most of the people that come to me but I do have
one client and he was really my second client ever when I started and his name is Jay and
this is actually a pretty cool story so so Jay he so he has quadriplegic cerebral palsy
spastic cerebral palsy to be specific and he is pretty severe but mentally he's like
he's there he knows what's up he knows what's going on.
He has also called a wind sweeping hip so for maybe someone who's listening this will
happen is when like so basically your torso is facing forward and both your legs are like
wanting to decide and they're kind of a fix there.
His mom reached out to me and she's like Brad I don't know what's going on Jay has had three
or four spasms in the past five months so bad that he's had to go to the ER every single
time and this dude's freaking he's tough as hell like so like if he's talking about being
in pain it's something serious.
So for him to go to ER that's like when I heard that and I've known Jay I knew Jay from
Rad Camp so I know since I was 15 years old when I started volunteering for that camp
so I've known the guy for a long time so when I heard he was in pain I'm like oh shit like
he's it's serious and so basically I went in there and like at this time I was like
still forming the business still forming protocols still putting things together and I was just
honest with her I was like I was like not really I told her I'm not really sure what
to do but I'm going to come in and I'm going to just give my best shot I'm going to try
and analyze the situation and my best theory was that since his wind sweeping hip was something
that he's been dealing with I might what my guess is is that his neurological system was
trying to correct his hips and trying to put him in a neutral position straight up massage
fixed everything huge the doctors they put them on all these pain pills put them on the
GI pills and I think after like four weeks of massage only one time a week got them off
all the pain pills and so and like something that might be interesting to you and some
listeners is that when people that have spasticity on the level of tendicity when it's reduced
we actually found so like the level of spasticity was reduced and bringing tendicity to more
of like a normal tonicity instead of spasticity we actually found that he was able to have
way better motor function so once we got his legs and pain under control we actually started
I just started doing massage on his upper body he went from when he got his hair cut so I'm
having to hold his head up to actually gain control of being able to postural control
his cervical sign and that was straight up just from massage then like he's not able
to necessarily exercise so there's a lot of cool things that came out of that.
That's awesome.
Yeah and so the classes like is that more of a personal training versus the group classes
and then you guys also do some small groups.
So right now we have five group class locations so as you're as I'm sure you're familiar
with individuals with disabilities are not able to access things as well as most people
so what we do is we actually do pop-up locations so we actually have kind of Northern Orange
County kind of on lock and so we'll do group classes in that situation and the group classes
we have I mean we'll have like on average anywhere from like 12 to I think I think on
Tuesday we had like 27 people and it was just insane it's like organized chaos it's like
it's pretty sick dude like it's like everyone's working out we have like we have like four
interns working with us we got my staff going we have like a volunteer to running around
it and we have this everyone's working out everyone gets their sets in and whenever people
come to our group classes they get a full body exercise we work on upper body push pull
lower body push pull core strengthening coordination balance and we spike their heart rate once
every time they come to a group class that's good yeah so the the structure of your staff
is you're getting do you have several coaches and then in addition a few interns as well
and volunteers so right now it's me and my manager Andrea her and I have been working
together a long time she was actually an intern of mine when I was a health and fitness director
at a day program before I started my business so her and I what we do is we just train everybody
we just train them brand like when they come in we train them we put them in situations
where they can succeed so that way our athletes can succeed and so for example we'll have
stations and so we will train them how to run a certain station and what you like to
start to put them start them off a little small say hey we want you just to focus on
how to do this exercise and then want you to implement this exercise properly making
sure their breathing is correct making sure they're going to fall into motion making sure
they're engaging their muscles properly and another thing you've seen that I feel like
it was just overseeing is just the quality of exercise we just we just we just we just
scream it the whole time we're like we're insane about it it's like quality not quantity
we want to make sure they're moving correctly everyone needs to make disability or not if
you're doing something with crap form you're gonna move like crap so we need to make sure
that our people with disabilities who are already susceptible to motor dysfunction low muscle
tone need to they need to really focus on their form so it's super important and I think
that we've seen a lot of I like you know not obviously anything about other people but
like I've seen like on Instagram and stuff I've seen other people trying to do what we
do and it's like when you see people they they're they're giving maybe a really good
effort but the exercise isn't being effective and it's I think people that are in our shoes
that are trying to work with individual disabilities really need to take a step back and regress
the exercises and stop putting so much stress on the individuals and really focus on making
sure that the form is correct because they're just gonna put those individuals in a situation
where they're gonna they're gonna strengthen those muscle imbalances yeah I think one
of my one of my biggest gripes I try not to be cynical because I think every opportunity
for people with disabilities to be more active is a net positive but like using disability
as an excuse for like accepting like subpar performance and subpar like coaching like
yeah that they're just gonna check the box and that that's sufficient or they're just
like I see it actually just as much on like LinkedIn through a few popular like adaptive
fitness instructors just like a couple people at Down syndrome sitting next to a stationary
bike and they're like both like turning the pedal with their hands and then it's like
oh a plot so and so for working out they're doing such a great job and it's just clearly
just trying to like drive engagement but that that's like an inadvertent consequence of
that it's just everyone sees that and they're like wow that's I guess that's what people
with disabilities can do and the expectation just becomes like lower and lower and so I
think that's like my biggest concern is like rewriting that narrative and trying to get
people to expect more out of those with disabilities but also like having the tools to like safely
progress them through exercise yes yes I you said it really well man because you'll see
these individuals and like for example like you'll see the guy next to a stationary station
you're bike and you like pushing the pedal or something it's like he's not doing anything
right and if he was doing he's not doing it right and it's like first of all those individuals
individuals that are posting that and using it for engagement online you're just if you're
listening to this you're just enabling the stereotypes you're not helping the community
at all you're like absolutely it's it's it's it's moving backwards really and so like and
like I've seen it before like to say these they'll get these we get these super viral
videos and it's like that is like the worst form I've ever seen in my life is the crazy
song yeah it's like as as someone that works with a lot of people disabilities and fitness
space it's always tough to like find that balance between like sharing my client's successes
but not feeling like I'm like using them for engagement so like I want to celebrate what
they're doing well but I also don't want it to be because it always it always shifts to
like wow Brendan you're doing such a great thing by like training people with disabilities
and I'm like no like that's not what I'm trying to show you like it's not a noble act like
I'm not trying to draw any attention to myself but people always just gravitate to like that
idea that like wow this is such great work you're doing I'm like no I don't want you
to see the work that I'm doing I want you to see the work that this athlete is putting
in and it's not like supposed to be inspirational because they have a disability it's like it's
supposed to be inspirational because despite their disability they're still training a
lot harder than so much of the population so it's always that tough like putting content
out finding that balance between like demonstrating competency but not having it turn into just
some like inspirational narrative it's been a tough balance yeah yeah I can 100% relate
to that because and first of all just just as a brother with someone who has special
needs it is it is a good thing we're doing it is a good thing it's it's something that
not a lot of people are doing so like I like and I appreciate what you're doing like as
a brother but someone has a dancer I'm like it is important what we're doing like it is
this is almost a noble act because no one is else doing it so like I appreciate you for
doing it Brendan like seriously but for like the Instagram thing like it it's I I'm so
bad at it dude like like and I like when I say I'm bad at it like I mean like I know
like the thing is like if I wanted to be good at it if I want to focus on it I could do
it but my thing is that's like I have so many of my athletes who are just they're just working
their ass off and they just try so hard and I'm just I'm just there with them either whether
it's a group class or a personal training session and it's like I was like I want to be there
with them in a moment I don't want to like is it I don't want to win it it's hard to
win my phone out I'm like okay like I know you're going to break through moment I don't
want to think I want to hold on let me film you let me let me film you have an emotional
moment it's like no I want to be there with them so like I don't know I post like I don't
know like three times a month I'm awful at it yeah the only like the only way that I've
found to be able to create consistent content is to like have someone there filming for me
it like it makes it not genuine like you said if you're if you're training someone and then
you're like wow this is going great let me film like the only way I've been able to like
consistently create content over the last five or six months is because I did hire someone
to like manage that job and I think it's important to to get that footage and I've found my self
using it in a lot of different scenarios whether it's posts or integrating it within educational
videos so it's good to have but like you said it's the people that are making a lot of content
on their own typically aren't the ones that are like coaching a lot so for you and I being
like the ones that are running a lot of sessions you almost have to outsource media side of
things because we're too busy with actually working with athletes yes and I understand
yeah that's exactly it and I don't know maybe I'm answering this your question better now
but so like for group classes we'll do through our five locations or group classes we have
like eight classes a week and then I do personal training actually do it out of my garage I
turned my garage into a gym super accessible for everyone especially me and so like all
like you know I'll do my morning usually I'll try and get like a judicious session in like
6am or something come home do breakfast whatever and then start doing sessions at like 9am
and then from like 9 to 1 do personal training sessions and then like from 2 to 6 we'll do
group classes and like the thing about our group classes is we actually we'll do so I
know you have no relative like our understanding of like where am I when I say Fullerton or
Brea or anything like that so say we'll do like a group class a and we pack up and then
we drive 20 minutes and we and we set up a group class B and so that'll take and like
what doing that is like it's like a it's about two hours like so like just like I always
like give it might give it me and my staff a little bit extra time so we'll do group
class a so we get there we set up run the class pack up go to group class B get there
set up run the class and we pack up and we're done around like 6pm and then I head back
back to my pad and I do like another two sessions maybe I'm done like 8am 8.30am night so I'm
doing long days but I love what I'm doing it's like it's pretty cool and I think working
with individuals with disabilities is like one of the it's like one of the coolest things
like because they're working with people that not everyone gets a chance to and I think
people are always like oh my god that must be like so hard or I'm like I'm working with
like some of the sickest people in the world like like like like these like these are literally
like like these are people that like no one else gets to work with like you guys are looking
at a different way so I mean I this is and I'm I feel like you have like a similar feeling
I don't know I think I think it's just like it's something that is super unique and that
a lot of people they just don't even see it.
Yeah I mean my life is all around it for the last like 15 years as well like you had that
first experience at a camp I had my first experiences through Special Olympics and Best Buddies
in high school and it like just kind of molded my approach to my career and I met individual
Jacob with Down syndrome and autism when I was 16 started becoming a PCA when I was
19 and now he lives with my wife and I every weekend so I can definitely relate to like
the you having a sibling with Down syndrome I more or less have this kid who's been a
part of my family for the last 11 years with Down syndrome as well and like I just want
to see exercise become more accessible for people like him and just like more opportunities.
I was curious like are you how do you find those locations that you have the classes
at are they strictly outside or?
Yeah so good question because so first of all it's super cool what you're doing for
that dude is it Jacob?
Yeah.
Yeah and like I'm like first of all before we get there I just want to point out like
I always like I always had like a special place for people that don't necessarily so
like individuals that work with people especially these of it they don't have it in their family
was like for me it's like I can't imagine I like if my sister April was in my life I
have a hard time believing I would have been in this industry you know what I mean so I
mean so people like that are doing it just like they just like people that saw it and
like oh this is cool I'm like I really applaud you guys but for group classes so what we
do is like it's actually kind of tough so we do have like two outside locations and we
only do that on Saturday but what we do is like we it's like it's one of those things
where sometimes people they don't want people with disabilities in their location we've
been kicked out of like five places and it's like and they they go they never give like
a real reason like okay I got it I get loud and clear got you bud so it's like so like
well like churches are really cool we've had we have like but like now the people that
we are working with are awesome they're great I'm very thankful that we have like great
relationships with these people so we have like two churches one gym a dance studio so
it's you know and then it's just and then we do a park I don't know like I'm just waiting
for it to get kicked out of that I guess I don't know but it's like it's but like it's
so like I'm like stepping on my words but it's super important and it's just finding people
to understand what you're trying to do because we've worked even with people that are in the
same industry but they didn't see what we're trying to do like you're like oh you're just
there's doing a workout class like no it's like it's so much more than a workout class like we're
literally trying to change these people's lives in the future like we're trying to make sure
that these people are set up for success we're not just it's not just a workout class like for you
when you go to a workout class it might just be a workout class for you but we're not doing this
workout class this is like a yeah it's super fun and we got like good music going and everyone's like
having a blast but this is this is serious stuff we're doing here and when people see what we're
trying to do and like they see like a little insight they're like oh okay we want you guys here we
want to help you out like you know people offer like okay we'll just do it for free like no no
come on this is a this is a partnership it'll pay you still and I think it's important to pay people
because that way you can still have you got some you got some uh spit in the game instead of just
being able to you know let people do whatever they want with you yeah that's that's another thing
where like I feel like are you a for-profit or a non-profit um so I have BC Adaptive Fitness which
is a for-profit company and I have a National Adaptive Fitness Foundation which is a non-profit
company which we just we just launched it last August and what does the non-profit do
so what we're trying to do at the non-profit is one we're trying to
allow individuals with disabilities to access and funding for adaptive fitness programs so
and we're not just trying to like do it for BC Adaptive Fitness we want to go all over we want
to do it for companies like like you know like I want to like I want to help people like in your
in your neighborhood you know people that are like hey I want to go work out of Brendan
and they can't afford it we want to send money to you guys we want to like get you guys hooked up
we want to make sure that you're like you know Jacob's friend can make sure he can go to the gym
excuse me yeah I think it's I think it's important I think it's important that like
some inclusive fitness businesses function as for-profits and I think it's important to
demonstrate that like the inclusion of people with disabilities can be a profitable endeavor
like my gym is a for-profit entity AdaptX this podcast our education is a non-profit so I have
a similar structure to you in terms of like having a branch that can provide some funding and having
a branch that does education based and then the non or the for-profit brick and mortar facility
like the actual classes the actual sessions and we don't work with only people with disabilities
about a quarter of our 250 members have disabilities and the rest are high school collegiate athletes
general pop adults etc so try to make it like as inclusive as possible so it's all populations
like seamlessly coexisting but I think it's important for for-profits to realize that catering
to people with disabilities can be beneficial for their businesses so like when you say like
some gyms don't want you there that's just like that just kind of sucks because they don't really
realize the value proposition of it I was curious have you ever considered like opening your own
space that's kind of central to the different areas that you work in? Totally I've always
considered it it's just so expensive California is nuts it's insane how much everything is it's
literally wild like so you actually said a few things that I want to touch touch up on like
that will actually look I might answer some of your questions that you just asked me
so you said so first of all you said that you wanted to demonstrate that working with people
with disabilities can be a for-profit company that's crazy because I've never heard anyone
else say that and that's something that was just a thought in my head when I first started my company
I was like I'm not doing non-profit I'm doing a for-profit because I'm sick of all these stereotypes
that people with disabilities are just like we need to help help help help help like no like
freaking people like come on you know what I mean so that's that's that's cool to hear I like to hear
that and I'm gonna say it was um maybe about the opening your own space yeah it so it was and also
going back to like I would like to ask you actually about uh you know I'll get back to the opening
one space like but have you ever like do you guys work at regional centers at all? What do you mean
by regional centers? Government funding? No we don't get any government funding we have some
programs like they have programs as well as special education schools that send classes to us
but outside of that it's all just a private sector a lot of our young adults with disabilities are
still either supported by their families or maybe they have like flexible savings or flexible spending
for their 22 plus budget and they're able to build the gym into their uh into that funding but I don't
work directly with any funding sources um we whether you have whether you're a wheelchair user that
requires basically one-to-one for our coach or you're a high school athlete that's relatively
independent uh you pay the same price based on frequency um to train with us so yeah I understand
um okay cool so um
kind of try and tie everything in together um so like our non-profit uh so we're doing three things
I enter the first one this uh as mentioned the first one excuse me the second part is what we're
trying to do is we're also trying to create a a community of adaptive fitness professionals
nationwide so we want to be like we create a community and so that way like we're trying to
get all on the same page trying to talk about what we talked about earlier and trying to make it
like create like a stringent a stringent program so that people that are in our field they know it's
like hey like we have a we got to do things right um like a big thing that I've been like focusing on
is like um recognize the effort make sure it's effective and then it'll be efficient and be
efficient because like if someone has good if a good effort but the exercise isn't there
that's not effective if they if they're not being effective we're not being efficient so
um so like if someone is doing an exercise and they're doing it poorly
hey that was a really good effort but let's do it like this let's let's take it back a step
um and then so going back to norm that so our non-profit we're also trying to
um influence the dds so the department and the disability services we actually are trying
to conduct research so that we can influence them so to create a health and wellness sector
so that people like you and me can get funded um or are rendered so that individuals that can come
to us and they don't have to pay out of pocket they can they can do they can have access to these
programs that are you know just really change their lives in the best way possible so um
you know I definitely think after this we should uh create a communication between ourselves and
relationships so that way I can work with you and I can make sure that you can um keep your
people on a list and so you know if you got a list of people like hey they can't afford it I'm like
okay let's figure out how we can get you guys some money let's see if you guys do some fundraising
so that way you can get people on like off your list and in your gym because like and it's you
know it's like it's like it's the government um not knowing what to do and so what we want to do is
we want to create research so that they can we can kind of show them like hey this is what we
can do it's going to improve their quality of life it's going to actually reduce caregiver burden
which is a technical term I'm not just saying that um that's what the government calls it caregiver
burden and reduce caregiver burden reduce costs in the future so there's a lot of things that we
can come out that can come out of that by trying to create health and wellness sector yeah a place
like DDS might not like they might not know that programs like ours really exist to like serve their
clientele so it might not be like they're not willing to do it they might just see that there's
not enough spaces because then everyone might start coming I shouldn't say everyone but then
people that aren't really qualified aren't really sure what to do might start coming out of the
woodworks and trying to leverage that funding um so kind of like you said like I for the AdaptX
course that we teach we're trying to create a large database of certified professionals who are
are competent and qualified to work with people with disabilities so then um like on our website
we have a directory so you type in your zip code and it kind of gives you a listing of who the
closest person who's completed our course is so that's kind of a similar project that you mentioned
that trying to like just create a large community of people that are both passionate but also um
excellent like adaptive fitness instructors as well so yeah I I looked into your uh your uh
the certification it looks solid dude yeah I think that's really cool be happy to happy to
give you a chance to it if you want to take a look yeah no I I mean I just peaked on like
Instagram and stuff and I'm like this is cool because this is there's something that um I will
I'll create my own eventually but I think uh like you're definitely setting setting the bar high for
that and that's super cool it's like because it's just not it's not out there and people need to know
and like and like and just something as simple as like understanding multiple sclerosis understanding
Down syndrome like that's like so important and people just they don't even think about that stuff
and that's like and so I saw that I'm like that's sick like that is that's cool as hell
how do you do in that so I'll give you problems in that dude enough enough about me though so
maybe let's go back to let's go back to like uh whether you have any ambition maybe to open a facility
yeah um
slash how can I convince you to open a unified health and performance in California
um it it it's it's it's one of those things where it's just it's like I'm down but
um I mean gym ownership is not some people I feel like some people think gym ownership is
like the pinnacle uh but it's really not and I think sometimes people get into owning a gym
because they like working out themselves and then they realize owning a gym is 75% just managing
people and making sure the admin side is is uh dialed in so I certainly by no means think that
like owning a gym is peak career success like if you're if you're training people all day
you're improving lives it's financially uh supports the life that you want like the risk
that's associated with opening a facility and like absorbing all that overhead isn't necessarily
gonna be the right choice unless the socioeconomic makes sense yeah um and I mean there's so many
things going on when you ask me that like that's why I don't know what to say first uh I mean like
right now everyone's trying to push back like in California like in like Orange County is not as
maybe like uh they're not gonna fall into it as soon as other places but everyone's trying to
push like mass mandates and stuff and I'm like dude are we doing this again because obviously
I want everyone to be healthy and safe but if we bring that back and it's like we will open a brick
and mortar if you just shut down like but then we're paying rent and we go like you know we go back
to working out in the park and it's it's it's just it's really tough because like we don't know what's
happening above us and if other people have a say on what we do I just I don't like the idea of that
um so it's it's hard for me to say I'll have something um I definitely would love to have
something and I I think what I would actually do is I would create a facility with a non-profit
creating like an adaptive lab somewhere we can that we can continue to build research and then also
um maybe train some people and then also how it holds some group classes but then we still want
to maybe make it like a hub location so that we can still branch out and reduce that barrier of
access for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities so we can still go
out in different communities and instead of just saying hey you got to come to come to us because
that's just not realistic for a lot of people and we want to make sure that we can be there for
people instead of just saying this is the only spot that this happens yeah we want to be like oh
hey it's actually only 10 minutes from here so yeah yeah absolutely no I and that's where like
I have my gym in the small area of Massachusetts we can serve people within a 30 minute drive radius
but then my goal as a whole is to help as many people with disabilities as possible become healthier
so it's like my way of doing that initially was like the course we created helped more people
start programs like ours run programs like ours but now it's kind of like the more physical
locations we could come up with the more places there'll be for people with disabilities to train
and I also think it's important for a lot of our clients without disabilities as well to like see that
to like be in the same environment as people with intellectual and developmental disabilities so
they can kind of so their perception of disability changes like I got a really nice letter from one
of our college athletes before he just left for school and he was it was very it was like really
vulnerable he was like I joined your gym in seventh grade I was a bully in sixth grade and now he's
like one of the volunteers like in some of our adaptive classes and he was like just being exposed
to that environment and seeing all those people completely changed how I saw differences so I
think like brick and mortar environments that are cohesive and are inclusive are really important
for like kind of rewriting some of those narratives so not to push you in one way or the other but I
think a gym that trains people with and without disabilities simultaneously can be a really good
source of change for communities at least in my small experience. I mean that's super cool to
hear that and it's it's something that we've always always talked about and it's just something that we
haven't really pulled the trigger it's like we've had we just have so much we've had so much work
going on already so it's like oh my god I don't even know where I think we would fit it in and like
a big thing right now that we're dealing with is just trying to find people to hire I can't like
we've been we've been hot and like people like I don't mind training people at all but so like the
way I look at it is like you either need to have an exercise background or you either have trained
people exercise background exercise science background preferably or you need to know how to
work with people with disabilities and I'll teach one or the other if you're open like you know it's
like I don't mind teaching at all but just finding people it's been tough it's been tough and no one
wants to work I don't know what's up with that yeah yeah it's tough I can definitely relate to the
struggle of finding coaches that I really saw and I got two awesome full-time coaches here now that
make a lot of the burden of my work a lot easier but without them it would be a lot tougher to
run the facility that we run maybe we wrap up a lot of these conversations with the question like
what do you think needs to be done to make fitness more accessible for people with disabilities?
I think the biggest thing is educating individuals so that way people like that wanted
they be in like our shoes can know what to do when they go to train people I think the biggest
issue is individuals that want to go and help people with disabilities don't necessarily know
what to do and I think another huge aspect of that is educating families and parents and saying
how good it is for individuals with disabilities to exercise so specifically like people with
Down syndrome I don't know if you're familiar with this but there is the early onset of Alzheimer's
disease dementia are you familiar with that? Yeah one of my research coordinators is kind of leading
the charge in that at Kansas State. Oh cool cool yeah I mean obviously it's not the coolest thing
to talk about but it's something serious but and so here I'll put this out here something you know
when I was when I was wrapping up my master's program I kind of did some A plus B equals C
research and so typical and this is a little fishy on this one not 100% so like typically
developing people when they get Alzheimer's disease a lot of it the plaque deposits happen in their
temporal lobe in their in their brain and there's another part too I'm just blinking right now
and then but people with Down syndrome they have a high accumulation in their frontal lobe of the
plaque deposits they also saw that physical activity is the only thing to reduce mitigate
or even suppress the onset or the progression of Alzheimer's disease dementia plaque deposits
with that being said resistance training is a form of physical activity resistance training
specifically targets the frontal lobe where people with Down syndrome have a high accumulation of
plaque deposits so that's kind of like the way when I when I found and I kind of put that together
I was like wow resistance training specifically is so important for people with Down syndrome
it's like it might be like almost like the golden ticket to improving their quality of life because
I think what like in early 1900s like the average age of someone with Down syndrome was like what like
12 yeah but now with modern medicine or yes I mean it's you know modern medicine we're able to
we're able to do heart surgery my sister has had two open heart surgeries um when she was before
she was 10 she was hospitalized five times with pneumonia in which she was 22 or something she
had a pacemaker put in and it's all modern medicine so now like that's great that's awesome I mean yeah
obviously it's great but now we have to do the other end how are we gonna make sure that their
life is good how are we gonna make sure that they can have a good life how can they make sure that
they live longer um exercise exercise exercise and lifestyle making sure they're eating healthy
um just like having it's like you know just like anyone and it's it's I feel like it's so crazy that
we have to force this it's not it's not force it really push it but it's it's so important just to
have a good lifestyle and just eat healthy exercise moderately at least so I think people
are surprised when they kind of find out that there's more similarities and differences in
training people with or without disabilities and like how you set up exercises how you set
the environment how you queue is going to differ a little bit based on the the client's cognition
and their motor skills but at the end of the day like good strength conditioning is good
strength conditioning um whether you have a disability or not and um I whole hardly agree
with the Down syndrome stuff we're about to submit a grant proposal for a study on high
intensity resistance training in clients with Down syndrome um and so we're hoping that gets funded
um early 2024 so we can run the intervention um so yeah it's something maybe I'll maybe I'll pick
your brain or kind of loop you in on some of that stuff if it's anything that interests you but
I think the the conversation was great and it's um I love that there's other programs out there
that run quality and uh that really like care about the quality and not just the access but also
uh the products that they put out there so it's great that you kind of hold that to a high standard
really well aligned with what I hope to see and what I want to accomplish with my work as well so
Brad I appreciate kind of having you as as a part of our connections now and if we can send any
people your way in California then um that would be great so yeah it was a it was great talking to
you um it was great hearing uh kind of echoing what you said like someone that's trying to
create the access and uh keep the quality control so it's um it's really cool talking to you and
meeting you dude because I think we need we need more people that are doing things that you know
you and I are doing and making sure that there's just doing it right so um hopefully something
wonderful and encourage people yes yeah and I hope we can hope we run into each other someday
yeah like last all right well thank you for joining us today I'll be sure to um share some links to
your work and profiles and the show notes um and we will be sharing the episode in the next few weeks
so uh Brad thanks again for joining me all right Brandon thanks for having me a great day man you
too thank you for listening to the adaptx podcast our effort to amplify the ideas of our guests and
create more inclusive and accessible industries is futile unless these episodes reach a larger
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