The main benefit of the Freedom Chair’s lever system is that it makes it easier to push than a regular wheelchair. The levers engage larger upper body muscles to amplify your force. The strength required depends on what you are trying to do in the chair.
Adaptive Hunting with Ty Hockett
In 2009, Ty was in a truck that hit a rough patch of dirt and rolled three times, ejecting him 25 feet into the air. Ty sustained a severe spinal cord injury and was diagnosed as a C5 quadriplegic. Even after leaving Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals, his life as a hunter and outdoorsman seemed to be in jeopardy.
Configuring the GRIT Freedom Chair for Taller Riders
If you’re 6’2 or taller, your legs and torso are likely a bit longer than most. GRIT engineers have worked closely with hundreds of wheelchair riders of all shapes and sizes to design an all-terrain wheelchair that can adjust and adapt accordingly.
GRIT Rider Spotlight: Tim “Gator” Glassmire
The GRIT team has become a daily dose of reality and I have been invited by other riders to join them in a 5K race. I have never run, driven, or even watched a 5K race . . . this should be interesting.
So You’ve Never Used a Manual Wheelchair Before?
Over 30% of GRIT Freedom Chair riders have never used a manual wheelchair before. Individuals with difficulty walking find that the GRIT Freedom Chair enables easier travel over long distances and rough terrain than their walkers, canes, or crutches.
Rider Spotlight (Kids’ Edition): Ollie
We were also interested in the fact that the GRIT Freedom Chair offers good cardiovascular exercise. Aside from physical therapy, walking on the treadmill, and the occasional wheelchair racing event, a kid with CP typically doesn’t get enough opportunities to burn off as much energy as he needs to.
Rider Spotlight (Kids Edition): Jayden the Scout
Jayden, one of our new Bear Scouts, has Arthrogryposis. He cannot move his legs and has been through 9 surgeries since he was born. After I saw him in that chair, I saw this was a whole new quality of life for him.
Science: The Secret Behind the GRIT Freedom Chair
We remember when the GRIT Freedom Chair was a brainstorming session on a whiteboard, in a long-neglected building in the northwest corner of the MIT campus, in a room we affectionately called the “MIT Mobility Lab.”
6 Awesome Design Features of the GRIT Freedom Chair
We like to think of the GRIT Freedom Chair as the best of beauty and brains: it’s visually appealing and efficiently engineered, and it took years of dedication, multiple prototypes, and a lot of feedback from wheelchair riders to get here.