health

renovations for disability after many months of power tools, dust, painting etc.. I finally have the wheelchair accessible apartment I’ve always wanted. my desk and kitchen has been upgraded to create more usable room and increase functionality for me. lost of decorative choices too of course, but mostly the changes were designed around smoother rolling for me. most obvious to me is the legless table (desk pictured right). I…

workouts at home Winter has been pretty kind with sunshine thus far, but the rain is coming. Days where I can’t wheel on the seawall, I do more “pulls.” Getting ready for climbing the chief climbs I spent hours on this simulator at home. (see notes on performance boosting) After many versions, I’ve come up with the ideal system for a quadriplegic to get a good workout at home….

Here is a short video of us testing the elevation wheelchair with the disk brakes we designed. This project has been both frustrating and rewarding. The tiny details add up quickly. The disk brakes require a bit of extra chair width, and this can be deal breaker for most users. It can make getting into older buildings, especially bathrooms, impossible, but outside all that matters is stopping force and…

disk brakes for wheelchairs it’s been a braking with software (on board arduino or android). As a quadriplegic I don’t want to take my hands off the wheels to apply the brakes because this throws off my balance (especially on uneven ground or with muscle spasms to contend with). When adding power assist motors, a user must have the ability to stop even if that motor is malfunctioning. So…

So I was interviewed on a topic other than climbing and/or boosting on Maureen McGrath’s radio show. I couldn’t help but talk about boosting and autonomic dysreflexia, but they are in fact, very much related. I chopped out the segment I’m in, following tips for premature ejaculation, and posted in here. I think I’m the worst person to ask about dating in Vancouver. I think she missed my dragon…

I was recently interviewed here in Vancouver about the boosting that will be going on in the coming paralympic games. No one actually participating in these events would ever discus performance boosting obviously, so Sky News in London found my blog and got in touch. They wanted to know how it works and “is this cheating”? This is a loaded question in my mind. There are many ways to…

c4 meet the superhumans from envy post on Vimeo. About bloody time I say. Please no more of the warm and fuzzy videos of Paralympic games. In the past these ads have been simply vomit inducing and don’t do the athletes any justice. Finally the marketing people are getting it — these athletes are badass. They work hard for years to get to the games and then they throw…

Jonah Lehrer: The Origins of Creative Insight & Why You Need Grit Do we sometimes pay too high a price for our dreams? Or worse, pick the wrong ones to follow? I remember having many conversations like this while making all the gear for rock climbing. It was NOT at all a practical goal (given all my limitations) to be spending tones of time and money on — pretty…

This page will hold data and evaluation of “boosting” experiments that I’m doing in order to get my heart and blood pressure to respond appropriately while climbing.  See ramp wheeling tests to learn more about post exercise hypotension (EH) , and why this limits performance in most quadriplegics.  First some background on what “boosting” is and why Doctors are trying to STOP this in sports. Basically put, Boosting is…

icord ramp fitness test I keep score of wheelchair races at ICORD. Here is an example video of Jaime and Brad on the ramp. This shows the difference between a T6 paraplegic (gold medallist) vs a C5 tetraplegic. You can record your own effort, or see the current statistics. current records: NAME ABILITY TIME CHAIR RECORD Pat Anderson Amputee 42 sec bb world record Katie Able Bodied 1:14 bb…

sexual health education for spinal cord injury These are a few videos we made with Dr. Elliott(sexual health doctor) discussing sperm retrieval and vibro-stimulation with Dr Ip (family doctor). This is basic information for quadriplegics that are going through rehab and want to avoid dangerous Autonomic Dysreflexia while being sexual. More here on things you didn’t know about orgasm on TED talks.

These are a few videos we made with Dr. Elliott (sexual health doctor) discussing sperm retrieval and vibro-stimulation with Dr Ip (family doctor). This is basic information for quadriplegics that want to avoid dangerous Autonomic Dysreflexia while being sexual. More here on TED