Fitness For All - Adaptive CrossFit
CrossFit is for everyone and anyone. That motto has been the long-standing tradition of CrossFit through the years. Innervate CrossFit embodies this tradition as a community by having programs for kids and teens, adults and even senior citizens. Being a family-friendly fitness facility, we aim to remove all stereotypes of fitness and encourage everyone to embark on their fitness with us.
As a community, Innervate CrossFit has taken that to the next level by introducing the Adaptive CrossFit Program to Singapore. Being the first of its kind here in Singapore, this is CrossFit specially designed for persons with disabilities. We believe that CrossFit truly is for everyone and by adapting movements and exercises, we are able to overcome our limitations to increase functionality, promote independence and improve quality of life.
Stepping up our inclusive actions As Singapore moves towards becoming a more inclusive society, such as opening up more disability-inclusive gyms in Singapore (http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/more-disability-inclusive-gyms-in-the-pipeline), we aim to support such an initiative as well with the Adaptive CrossFit Program. As Singapore progresses as a country in its stand of becoming more sports-oriented, we aim to create a culture where fitness and sport for all becomes readily accessible. This isn’t just for the typical sports in Singapore such as Wheelchair basketball or Murderball (Wheelchair Rugby) but instead we believe that a CrossFit-style program is something that should be made accessible to all.
Meeting with various organisations such as the Singapore Disability Council and Sport Cares, we too have resonated with their vision of creating a culture where any persons with disabilities can reach their fullest potential of fitness. Additionally, we believe that similar to our other programs with Youths, we aim to build a community that is inclusive too. With various statistics showing that Singaporeans remain uncomfortable interacting with people with disabilities (http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/the-hard-and-heart-part-of-inclusivenes-for-the-disabled), we want to break that stigma by having able-bodied athletes train alongside the Adaptive Athletes to show that apart from scalability, the workouts remain the same in nature and pushes athletes to a new level of intensity each time.
What do the Adaptive Athletes do? Being the first of it’s kind in Singapore and opening this program in February, we have done extensive research on how to scale workouts to make it easy to pick up and to accommodate each person with their own disability. Using straps, substitutions for equipment and more, it is a program that relies heavily on innovation. Crafting such a program out requires our coaches to understand the needs of these individuals yet at the same time, apply their knowledge of fitness and CrossFit to the way the workouts are crafted and how these translate into functional movements for the Adaptive Athletes. This program is extensive in addressing the need for not just improving functionality but also to increase the Strength and Conditioning aspect of adaptive athletes.
In a bid to be a more inclusive community, we also create a culture to let such a community blossom by raising volunteers in assisting the classes and we do so from the members within Innervate CrossFit. Members and staff alike help to facilitate the classes by setting up of equipment, moving of items or supporting (Sporting) the athlete if there’s a need to do so.
Athletes such as Yip Pin Xiu, the three-time Paralympic gold medallist and the world record holder in the 50 m backstroke S2 and the 100 m backstroke S2; as well as Theresa Goh, the bronze medalist in the SB4 100m breaststroke at the 2016 Summer Paralympics, have both joined the program. When asked about the Adaptive Program, Pin Xiu mentioned that, “I feel like it is important for people to be active regardless of whether they are disabled or not. Adaptive CrossFit is a good avenue for that because it is a safe environment where workouts are adapted according to the needs of different people. These different adaptations makes it such that every exercise can be done by everyone. There is also a sense of inclusion in the community when the workouts done are similar to everyone else.”
Speaking for Innervate CrossFit, the Head Coach for the Adaptive CrossFit Program, Moses James shared that, “We wanted to foster inclusiveness in our community and encourage more people to be active. The Adaptives Program is life changing because it enables persons with adaptive needs to develop and maintain functional capacity through movements and exercises which they may never have realised they could perform.”
