It’s no secret that the blindness community as a whole is very sedentary. Maybe, that’s due to the fact many of us live in cities where public transit options are scarce and paratransit offices may be greatly understaffed. Safe walking routes are hard to find unless you live in a quiet suburb and or know the area where you live literally by the back of your hand. Certainly, the seventy percent unemployment rate among people who are blind or visually impaired contributes to our being sedentary.
As such, many of us face additional health concerns along with our vision loss-heart disease, chronic depression, diabetes, and obesity to name a few. So it’s tempting to think of physical fitness as better suited for someone else, someone more active than ourselves. Not everyone will be the next starter on the beep baseball or goalball team though we may know those who enjoy these sports. Yet, physical fitness doesn’t have to remain a distant goal or huge step even beyond the house or apartment where we live.
That’s why this week’s Fitness Friday features a website and app that any of us can use right in our living room. It’s called the ReVision Fitness App. Four-time para-Olympian, Tyler Merren, who competes in goalball and is a personal trainer created it back in 2020 for anyone but especially for us who can’t see. You don’t have to be an elite athlete yourself to use it. In fact, Tyler has included programs for the beginner who’s never exercised to those geared for the fitness focused gym rat.
You can view the website here or get the app from your Google app store. While there is a small fee after two weeks’ usage and membership, the initial stage allows you time to explore the various areas of the site from its virtual classrooms, planning rooms, to the actual fitness studios where you can put programs into action lasting from ten minutes to an hour or more.
Perhaps you’ve wanted to do more specific exercises than the basic push-up or sit-up we all learned in gym class but haven’t known the exact way of carrying them out. Maybe, you’ve tried getting into a steady workout regimen at home but let other factors hamper your efforts.
Tyler builds into the ReVision Fitness program a thorough and easy to grasp description of every exercise and body position the website’s programs include. Again, while you can incorporate ReVision Fitness’s programs at the gym, you can do many of them right in your living room provided that enough space is available to stretch out and have some movement. In addition to the website and app, Tyler posts discussions on a Facebook group for those of us who enjoy learning more about fitness in general and want to stay up to date with new programs he regularly adds to the site.
Well, as for me, I’m off to getting the rest of my day going with some quick ab stretching and good cardio exercise before my parents spend Easter weekend with me and my wife. So till next post, continue being boldly blind while navigating life’s contours.
Boldly Blind 