Michael Woods (He/Him)
September 6, 2023
Sport is for Every Body Season 1
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Episode
8

Making fitness inclusive for all abilities with Brendan Aylward

This is episode 08 and today I talk with Brendan Aylward who is working hard to make the fitness industry more inclusive for people with disability in the United States and beyond.

Live Transcript

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Show Notes

In this Episode

This is episode 08 and today I talk with Brendan Aylward who is working hard to make the fitness industry more inclusive for people with disability in the United States and beyond.

About our guest

Brendan Aylward is the owner of Unified Health and Performance, President of AdaptX, and Director of The Rick Hoyt Research Lab. His work revolves around making the fitness industry more accessible for individuals with intellectual and physical disabilities.

Highlights

In today's chat, we discuss how Brendan found his way into this work as well as how he engages clients and adapts his programs and the gym environment. We also learn about some of the amazing work he is doing to educate gym instructors and owners to create inclusive gym environments for people of all abilities.

00:00 Introduction

02:13 Brendan's Backstory

06:29 About Unified Health and Performance

09:05 The need for adaptive equipment in the gym

11:28 People with and without disability in the gym

15:37 Engaging clients

21:22 Networks and partnerships

23:04 Adapting training sessions

29:03 Retaining clients

31:58 How clients are funded

34:27 Accessibility in the gym

39:19 About AdaptX

46:46 Quickfire questions

50:28 Brendan top inclusion tip

52:27 How to connect with Brendan

53:22 Conclusion

Mentions

Links


Join the ISD Community

Join the ISD Mailing list at https://isd.ck.page/tips 

Join the ISD Community Group on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/InclusiveSportDesign 

Visit the ISD Community Hub

Follow ISD

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IncSportDesign 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/incsportdesign 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/12952451 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCECVtQQFNjuGxE35K_e06Eg 

Resources

Below is a list of resources related to today's episode plus some of the tools we use. If you think these tools can help you too, please check them out. If you make a purchase via the links below ISD earns a small commission or other benefit. This supports ISD to keep helping inclusion happen in sport.

Special Olympics Unified Sports : https://www.specialolympics.org/what-we-do/sports/unified-sports

Descript: We use Descript to edit this podcast (and other media content) including generating transcripts, adding captions to ensure accessibility and to generally make it look and sound awesome for you. Check out Descript for yourself here.

UserWay: We use UserWay to ensure our web and digital assets are accessible for everyone. (You can see it in action on the ISD website). Check out UserWay for yourself here.

ConvertKit: We use convertKit to email the ISD community including sending out our weekly inclusion tips. Check out ConvertKit here.

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