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Accessible Fitness, more choices for more people

Fitness has always been a concern with regard to both mental and physical health regardless of age, gender, or any other variables that make each one of us unique. And for those in the blind community, fitness is every bit as much—if not more—important.

Exercise for the visually impaired is something that should be incorporated into a weekly, if not daily, routine for a variety of reasons that are both similar and different from people within the sighted community. For those with total loss of sight as well as for those who are low sighted, a lack of regular exercise can bring on a host of other issues, including weight gain, sluggishness, and perhaps worst of all for many, insomnia or a circadian rhythm that has been thrown completely off track.

A quality workout done at the right time of day and at the right pace to meet your unique physical and mental needs is just what the doctor may have forgotten to order. For many blind people, fitness has been a challenge: without someone to guide you and without the ability to drive yourself to the gym, it becomes obvious why so many visually impaired individuals give up—but with the BlindAlive line of Fitness Workouts for blind people, you’ll never have to depend on anyone else again.

Yoga and Strength Training with wieghts for blind people along with a variety of other cardiovascular exercises help our bodies stay toned, help us gain muscle mass and lose weight, but most of all, can help lead a blind person away from a sense of helplessness.

Are you ready to sweat? Come get healthy and leave all your notions of not being able to get fit due to your visual impairment behind with BlindAlive!

A Thousand Words Are Worth More Than One Picture

July 19, 2015  /  Mel Scott

I am sure you have heard the phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
 
It isn’t true for 285 million blind and visually impaired people on the planet according to the World Health Organization. This is a lot of people who can potentially feel isolated especially in a world of Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, and on and on.
 
I admit it. I feel angry, isolated, excluded, and invisible. I feel like I might not exist since I don’t take selfies and send them all over the planet. I can be in a room with dear friends and completely miss an entire thread of conversation because that conversation centers around something everyone sees but me. It does not occur to people that I don’t have a clue what they are talking about.
 
I have learned how to work with my feelings of isolation. I have learned to find my center, reframe the situation, and to enjoy being together and alone simultaneously. This type of episode usually gets me thinking about how much people rely on their vision to the exclusion of their other senses.
 
The saying that blind people have heightened senses is a boring story to me, and that is not where I am going with this. What fascinates me is this question: where have all the beautiful, poetic words gone? Are people losing the brain capacity to connect their vision with their mouths? I am increasingly noticing how addled people get when they are asked to describe what they are seeing. They see it, take a picture of it, Tweet about it, Facebook, and Snapchat it. The vocal chords are bypassed.
 
It is evident that this is a pain point for me, and I expect it is for many blind people. I ask myself, what can I do to help myself? How can I teach people to create new brain pathways that will make describing easier and more natural? I think describing is an innate ability for some, but I also think it is a skill that can be learned.
I can imagine a workshop where people have to speak everything they are seeing. It could be an intensive training for people who live with and love blind people.
What do you think?

 

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