Using Your Wheelchair at a Skate Park

If you enjoy extreme sports and living your life full of action, you may be on the hunt for activities that you can enjoy while in your wheelchair. Luckily, today there are a number of companies out there who make it their goal to allow wheelchair users to live life to the extreme by constantly developing new products and technologies. Even if you don’t have a chair that has been designed with extreme sports in mind, you can still find ways to enjoy yourself. If you have a skate park in your area, there are many things you can do. 

There are many athletes, such as Aaron “Wheelz” Fotheringham, who have taken on the challenge of being in a wheelchair and turned it into something amazing. These wheelchair users haven’t let their disabilities hold them back. Rather, they’ve embraced their limitations and gone farther than anyone before them. There are now wheelchair athletes excelling in tennis, basketball, rugby, skiing, and many other extreme sports.

Since you have the advantage of having wheels on you at all times, you can first start out by testing out the ramps that will be found in your local skate park. It’s important that you protect yourself when attempting any tricks, so a helmet and mouth guard are always advised. Your chair may have its limitations, but regardless, you should be able to at least use a few ramps and test your limits. If you love the thrill that you get from the activity, you may want to consider taking things a bit further and investing in a chair that will allow you to be as active as you would like.

Certain wheelchairs are created with certain extreme sports in mind, but if you are an all around dare devil, there are chairs to suite your needs. The Invacare ® Top End® Pro-2 All Sport Wheelchair, for example, was created for basically any sport that is played on a court – basketball, floor hockey, tennis, and badmitton, to name a few. With performance sport wheels, high pressure tires, a seat cushion, side guards, rear frame protector, single swivel anti-tip bar and a positioning strap, this chair will allow you to take on nearly any sport you desire.

If you aren’t as much into sports as you are into going to the extremes in the great outdoors, the Invacare® Top End® Crossfire may be the chair for you. This chair will allow you to tackle nearly any terrain, so whether you love to hunt, hike, fish, or kayak, the Crossfire will get you there.

Regardless of what adventure it is that you wish to find, your wheelchair doesn’t have to hold you back. Even if you can’t afford to invest in a high-tech chair at the moment, you can begin to test your limits in the chair that you have. Look to the many great wheelchair athletes for inspiration, and get to your local skate park to see what you can do.