What Happens When You Start Treating Someone Like an Athlete

When Jack first started training with us, he had a goal.

Actually, he had several. He wanted to be stronger for wheelchair basketball. He wanted to continue adaptive skiing. He wanted to spend more time riding his Bowhead bike. And he wanted his picture on the wall.

At the time, we were training out of Boss Sports Performance, a facility in Bend, OR filled with banners of professional and Olympic athletes who had trained there. Jack looked up and told me he wanted his picture up there, too. Not because he wanted attention. Because he wanted to be recognized as an athlete. And honestly, that's something many individuals with disabilities rarely get the opportunity to experience.

People are quick to celebrate participation. They're quick to celebrate attendance. They're quick to celebrate simply showing up. But athletes want more than participation. Athletes want goals. Athletes want progress. Athletes want to get better.

​Jack was no different.

​The Goal Was Never the Gym

One of the biggest misconceptions people have about strength training is that it's about becoming good at exercising. For Jack, it wasn't. He already lived an active life.

He played wheelchair basketball. He spent winters adaptive skiing. He loved getting outside on his Bowhead bike. The challenge wasn't finding activities he enjoyed. The challenge was having the strength to do more of them.

In wheelchair basketball, strength matters. The stronger he became, the easier it was to propel his chair up and down the court. The easier it became to create power behind his shot. The easier it became to stay active throughout a game.

The same was true for skiing. The same was true for riding. The stronger Jack became, the more freedom he had to participate in the activities he loved.

That's why strength training mattered. Not because of what happened inside the gym. Because of what happened outside of it.

​Building Confidence Through Strength

Like many of the athletes we work with, Jack didn't need a miracle. He didn't need a specialized machine. He didn't need someone lowering expectations. He needed a coach. He needed someone who believed he was capable of getting stronger and who was willing to hold him to the same standards we would hold any other athlete.

So that's what we did.

We started with the basics. We focused on movement quality, consistency, and building confidence. Then we gradually increased the challenge. More resistance. More responsibility. More expectations. Over time, the weights went up. More importantly, so did Jack's confidence.

And that's something we see all the time. When people start getting stronger, they start seeing themselves differently. The individual who once thought they couldn't do something begins to wonder what else might be possible.

Strength changes more than muscles. It changes belief.

​More Than a BANNER

The truth is, Jack has yet to earn his banner.  But over time, I realized that wasn't really what he was after anyway. The picture was simply a symbol.

What Jack wanted was to be seen the same way everyone else in that facility was seen. As an athlete. Not as someone receiving services. Not as someone who needed special treatment. Not as someone people felt sorry for.

An athlete.

Someone with goals. Someone willing to work. Someone capable of improving. That's what kept him showing up. Not the possibility of a banner. The opportunity to pursue something meaningful. And that's what we tried to provide every time he came through the door.