NCHPAD was featured in a November 12 Washington Post article:

Spandex doesn't necessarily rule at the Gold's Gym in Gaithersburg, [Maryland]. Some of the gym's best weight lifters propel themselves by the arms to places where standard benches have been removed, permitting wheelchair athletes to pull alongside the racks of free weights. And several times a week, a few wheelchair exercisers puff along with other members of an aerobics class, relying on the club's owner and aerobics director, Margie Weiss, to adapt routines to their physical abilities. When they're done sweating, they can wash off in the club's wheel-in showers.

The lengths to which the Gaithersburg gym has gone to accommodate people with disabilities due to age, injury or illness may be somewhat unusual, but its interest in this population is not unique. Slowly the number of fitness centers welcoming disabled members and adapting equipment and classes to their needs is increasing, says James Rimmer, director of the National Center on Health, Physical Activity, and Disability (NCHPAD) in Chicago, an academic research center funded by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The gyms' outreach to the disabled, says Rimmer, is in part pragmatic -- a way to increase membership in a sour economy. Regardless of motive, however, the change is benefiting a group of people in critical need of exercise. For those with serious physical disabilities, exercise can be critical to maintaining mobility, coordination and function and offsetting the effects of debilitating conditions. Strength conditioning, says Rimmer, can help compensate for decreases in muscle contraction and range of motion that mark progression of a physical disability. Exercise can also improve the health of heart, lungs, muscles and bones and help build stamina needed for the demands of daily living -- such as propelling a manual wheelchair, getting around an office or house and transferring from bed to chair.