Education has the power to equip individuals with new skills that are specific to a field or discipline, as well to teach them what are often referred to as ‘soft skills’ that are attributed to human character and are circumstantial. One of these skills and characteristics, is the ability to be resilient and to adapt.

For fitness professionals, the notion of adaptability is central to their work and a key reason why so many of them find fulfillment with their careers. The fact that they work with different people and have to often modify their teaching techniques and programming approaches, gives them a sense of freedom and creativity, and also allows them to be challenged to learn more and to develop new skills.

Part of this notion of challenging their skillsets is apparent and important when working with individuals who are part of special populations, meaning those who have visible and invisible disabilities. Many fitness professionals may comment on the fact that they don’t have experience (competence) and therefore lack confidence in being able to work with this demographic. They are often afraid of working with individuals who are part of special populations because of a few factors which include:

1. Not knowing how to train them and being worried about injuring them
2. Worrying about liability of working with the individuals that have disabilities because they require physical assistance and the fitness professional might not be able accommodate their needs if they’re more complex
3. The facilities of the fitness professionals might not be able to accommodate clients needs due to infrastructural inaccessibility.

Flex for Access was founded as a Non-Profit Organization to create opportunities for adaptive fitness within mainstream fitness settings. The realization of the importance of fitness for individuals with physical disabilities, came from the Founder, Jess Silver’s passion for fitness and her desire to advocate for allowing the perception of physical disability to evolve from one that is typically centered around emphasizing difference and limitation, to one that is focused on harnessing improvement, new capacity for new skill building and strength.

Jess noticed particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic that there was a vast difference and in fact complete oversight, in how the wellness and fitness of individuals is prioritized firstly as important and then how the opportunities are developed to allow individuals with physical challenges to engage in training. She endeavored to change this fact and started to work more intensely as an adaptive fitness consultant and guest lecturer at universities and colleges across Ontario, and Canada.

This then led to the creation of the “Adapt to Empower” eBook which is a comprehensive resource compiled together by fitness industry stakeholders and professors who work in the fields of Kinesiology and Sport Management and disability leaders to define adaptive fitness, speak to programming considerations within accessible fitness spaces, both from the standpoint of physical fitness and mental toughness as well to showcase specialized adaptive equipment pieces. Like its title says, it’s meant to help fitness professionals and healthcare leaders understand the ways to adapt conventional programming to empower both themselves in working with individuals with complex physical needs, as well as to enable and reinforce the confidence within the individual themselves.