Yesterday when visiting my son’s school, I noticed a portable exercise cycle outside of the special needs classroom. Ever since we started creating the Excy portable exercise bike, in addition to making an amazing fitness experience more convenient overall, we also in our hearts believe we can make exercise more accessible to help people who face unique challenges with getting exercise.
It was lunchtime, so I introduced myself to the teacher and asked if she could spare five minutes to tell me more about her experience with the portable exercise bike in the class.
Her feedback: She uses the exercise bike with a chair when kids need help settling themselves, need to burn some quick energy to get re-focused, or just for a quick break to get their body moving. All good reasons for using an exercise bike, whether special needs or not, but especially exciting to hear that it works for her students.
But, the portable exercise bike had some challenges that she explained:
- It was too heavy and awkward for the kids to move on their own, also a little clunky for her to move and store (which is why it was outside the classroom).
- It scoots across the floor when the kids use it, so she found a work-around in the way she uses two chairs to keep it stable.
- The resistance wasn’t always strong enough for those who want to give more effort.
This is actually in line with a lot of feedback we’ve heard on existing portable exercise bikes, especially if trying to use the machines for higher intensity workouts vs. rehab or light exercise or in multiple locations.
During that same evening at my son’s baseball game, I decided to ask a fellow teammate’s mom about how her daughter with Down syndrome gets exercise activity. Like any mom, they had a lot of daily fun activities to get the body moving, but a consistent piece of exercise equipment never quite works. They have a small trampoline in her room, but it’s isolated and heavy for the mom to move into other rooms. We talked a little about Excy and she brought up the potential of cycling as a cross pattern activity to help develop good communication between the right and left sides of the brain.
Exercise is Medicine
I mentioned that I frequently use Excy for very low levels of exercise in addition to high intensity interval training, including doing Excy in the morning while I drink my morning coffee to get my body and circulation moving. As we were talking, I was sitting next to her mother who struggles to use her stationary bike (it’s hard for her to get on it, it’s isolated to another room, and its footprint is too large to have in her main living room). I believe we can help her too!
It’s amazing to me that right now I am using Excy for rehab for my broken leg, to get high intensity interval training in with my arms while my leg is injured, and that we are talking about the bike being used for those with unique physical challenges.
I know we can’t be all things to all people, but I can’t tell you how happy we are with the progress and how excited we are to see where our customers will take us! We have much to learn and we look forward to the journey with Friends of Excy.
Make sure you sign up to be one of the first to know when we launch at excy.wpengine.com.