'I am striving to show what people with disabilities are capable of when exercise is inclusive, adaptable, and meaningful'

University of Kansas faculty are striving to advance knowledge, interpret our world, solve problems, spark innovation, create beauty and catalyze imagination through their research, scholarship and creative activity. Through the “I Am Striving” series, we’ll learn more about what inspires KU researchers, as well as the goals and impact of their work. 

Q&A with Lyndsie Koon, associate director of the Research & Training Center on Independent Living and assistant research professor in KU's Life Span Institute  

Explain your research as you would explain it to someone outside your field, such as your grandparents. 

My research focuses on documenting and demonstrating the capabilities of people with mobility disabilities through inclusive, community-based exercise programs known as functional fitness.

What does your research look like? What methods do you use? 

I work with currently active functional fitness gyms and people with mobility disabilities to test the health effects of this functional fitness program. We look at change following participation in functional fitness and things like physical function, both perceived and objective physical function. We look at general health. We look at social connection. We look at things like confidence and competence. 

We include survey research and exit interviews so we have some rich qualitative data to understand the context of their experience. And then we also do a lot of objective health testing. We've done everything from body composition scans to strength and mobility assessments, balance assessments, things like that, that look at objective physical function. 

What inspires your research? Why are you passionate about this work? 

I was originally inspired by people with mobility disabilities who were already participating in functional fitness. They were kind of showing the world what they could do, and they were showing the world the effects that it had on their health — both their disability-related health and any secondary conditions. 

At the same time that people with disabilities were already participating in this exercise, important decision makers, like health care providers, were still questioning whether this form of exercise was safe, effective or even appropriate for people with disabilities. So my goal was to build the evidence base to show that this is not only safe and effective, but it's an inclusive and meaningful form of community-based participation and exercise beyond traditional rehabilitation.

How does your research directly impact your field, society, Kansas and the world? 

We're doing community-based research, so we partnered with a functional fitness program that was already operational and already inclusive for people with disabilities. This is not lab-based, so people who participates in this program can continue with the program afterwards. The findings are immediately replicable to other currently operational functional fitness sites that have not yet included people with disabilities. 

Over 60% of our research participants choose to stay with the program once it's complete. So it's not just, "You're done with the research, now you have to go home and figure out how to be physically active." Participants can opt to stay with the program. And again, over 60% do — which kind of signifies that this is internally important to them. Many participants have become advocates for this type of exercise and include their peers with disabilities. Now they've also fully integrated themselves into these functional fitness communities. They join in benchmark workouts such as The Murph Challenge, which is a really popular Memorial Day workout. They go to all the gym activities and build the circle.

What is a recent study/example of work you’d like to share? 

One thing I'm particularly proud of is maintaining the participation. I have a former participant who recently broke her hip and has moved into an assisted living facility. The last time I spoke to her, she said, "I'm still excited to come back to CrossFit" — even though she's now moved into what some might assume is a pretty sedentary lifestyle in assisted living. It's not just an exercise program for participants. It's become an identity and a really strong source of community for them. 

What do you hope are some of the outcomes of your research and work? 

I hope to change the expectations around what people with mobility disabilities are capable of doing. I hope that this empirical spotlight will support health care providers viewing this as a potential avenue for community-based exercise and something that is appropriate and safe for people with disabilities. And I would also like to see more inclusive, functional fitness sites. One of the best parts about this work is that it's immediately replicable and can be implemented across community-based settings.