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What A Workout

NVWG’s Adaptive Fitness Changes Makes Athletes Sweat

 

After the first full day of National Veterans Wheelchair Games (NVWG) competition, U.S. Army veteran WD Foster acknowledged the new adaptive fitness competition changes left him with quite a sweat Friday afternoon.

After allowing athletes to have 15 seconds to rest in between each set of activities, organizers revamped the format this year at the 43rd NVWG at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.

U.S. Army veteran WD Foster competes in the fitness challenge at the 2024 NVWG in New Orleans. (Photo by Christopher Di Virgilio).

 

This year, Class 1A, 1B and 1C wheelchair athletes had to go hard for three minutes to do a Buy In 100-meter Ski Erg, then did an as many rounds as possible (AMRAP), which included a 12 lap-to-overhead (1As having no load/arms only and 1B/1C having 10 pounds/7.5 pounds), eight Russian twists and three box/jump U-turns with their wheelchair in a rectangle area before getting a 30-second rest. Then, they repeated the process all over again. Class 2/3 and 4/5 had to do a Buy In of 200 meters on the Ski Erg, and then a 12 lap-to-overhead (Class 2/3s having 25 pounds/15 pounds and Class 4/5 having 35 pounds/25 pounds), eight Russian twists and three box/jump U-turns with their wheelchair in a rectangle area before getting a 30-second rest and then having to do the same process once more.

It was a tiring six minutes for Foster. But the 61-year-old Army veteran thought he handled it well, even despite dealing with an injured right shoulder. A Birmingham, Ala., resident and Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) Mid-South Chapter member, Foster sustained a level T10 spinal-cord injury in 2007. He’s been doing adaptive fitness since it started a couple years ago, and he liked the new changes.

“I think changing the format like this is probably a lot closer to what type of shape you’re in.  This is a lot more challenging. It definitely is,” says Foster. “It really pushed me. It pushed me.”

Meanwhile, Air Force veteran Roger Titus liked it so much that he did it on Thursday, and again on Friday.

U.S. Air Force veteran Roger Titus has a second go at the fitness challenge at the 2024 NVWG in New Orleans. (Photo by Christopher Di Virgilio).

 

A PVA Tri-States Chapter member, the 62-year-old has multiple sclerosis (MS) and is a left below-the-knee amputee. He was diagnosed with MS in 2006 and also had a spinal-cord injury (SCI) that left him paralyzed for four years. Thanks to rehab, the paralysis went away before he later had his leg amputated in 2020 because of an infection from a jellyfish sting.

Titus, who served from 1982 to 1986 in communications, says he’ll keep doing the challenge every day it’s offered.

“I’m very motivated to not be down and to not let anything get me down,” Titus says. “I like this one because this is constant. Last year, we had 15-second breaks between each thing. Now, you just go boom, boom, boom, and it’s better. It raises your heartbeat, that’s for sure.”

Besides adaptive fitness, wheelchair athletes competed in archery, softball, power soccer, football basketball, esports and the obstacle course known as “slalom” on Friday.

Air Force veteran Houston Thomas competed in archery earlier in the morning — and had a blast thanks to a competitor, 60-year-old Army veteran and former U.S. Paralympic archery team member Martha Chavez-Barnett (Fresno, Calif.), down at the far end who left him impressed.

U.S. Air Force veteran Houston Thomas gets in the zone during archery at the 2024 NVWG in New Orleans. (Photo by Christopher Di Virgilio).

 

“I saw you shooting and I was like, ‘I gotta get my game up!’” Thomas said to her afterward.

This marked Thomas’ first NVWG. He was recently injured after sustaining a level T12 SCI on Feb. 17, 2023, when he was thrown from a tactical vehicle in a training exercise in Tinian, an island in the North Mariana Islands.

He found archery because he wanted to compete in a chair against able-bodied individuals and be just as competitive. He’s participated in the Warrior Games before and is shooting to make the 2028 Los Angeles U.S. Paralympic team in the sport.

“All the other sports, I have to be in a special chair. So, I have to be in a basketball chair, a rugby chair, there’s no sport where I can compete against able-body just the way they are. Right? So, I compete at home against able-body, and it is what it is,” says Thomas, a San Antonio resident. “No one cares that I’m in a chair. It’s not any different.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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