Physical Activity“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”

– Jim Rohn

Introduction

Staying healthy is a key part of reaching goals. Working on goals requires energy, strength, and overall wellbeing. Physical activity can support staying healthy and reduce the negative impacts of health conditions which may be a barrier to reaching goals.

In the Physical Activity session, participants can identify their current level of physical activity, learn about the benefits of increased activity, explore new activities to try, and practice strategies for staying motivated.

Content SummaryIntroduction: Examine ways to stay motivated and overcome physical activity barriers, cover short- and long-term benefits to staying active and explore basic facts and misconceptions around physical activity as a place to start viewing it as a way to support goalsExploring Activities: Exploring activities that work out different areas of the body, and types of activities and activity levels of various intensities is a way to identify personal physical activity needs and preferencesIncreasing Activity: Using an activity level checklist is helpful to discover ways to increase physical activity, and make sure to stay safe while doing soPlanning: Organizing types of equipment, locations, exercise tips and available support into a personal plan is key to increasing activity

Learning Objectives

The Physical Activity session helps participants discover how physical activity affects overall wellbeing, which includes physical, mental, social, and emotional health.

Participants learn how being active can help them feel good, so they are able to pursue goals. They learn how to increase activity in small ways that will ultimately have a large positive impact on their overall health and wellbeing.

Disability Community Partnership Shaped Content

In the development of this session, CIL project partners highlighted how many people with disabilities may face unique barriers to engaging in physical activity, such as negative or discriminatory public attitudes, inaccessible gyms, pain, fatigue, and expensive or unfamiliar equipment.

Project partners identified how important support is in order to overcome these barriers and maintain motivation. This session emphasizes support as key to increasing and enjoying physical activity as a way to maintain energy and stamina to work on goals.

© 2018 RTC: Rural. This project is supported by grant #90DP0073 from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research within the Administration on Community Living, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contents and opinions expressed reflect those of the author(s), are not necessarily those of the funding agency, and should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

Healthy Community Living is a program to support

opportunities for people with disabilities to live well and

participate fully in their communities.

It includes two peer-led independent living skills

workshops, Community Living Skills and Living Well in the Community, which are each

divided into ten specific content sessions.

RTC:Rural used an iterative participatory curriculum

development (IPCD) process to involve key stakeholder

engagement in the development, implementation, and evaluation

of each workshop.

Each workshop has been developed through partnerships with people with disabilities with the Association of Programs for

Rural Independent Living (APRIL) and Centers for Independent

Living (CILs).

The HCL Snapshots series explores how partner

participation through the IPCD process was fundamental in shaping the HCL program to improve people’s wellbeing by providing support, health promotion, education, and

opportunities for people with disabilities to succeed in reaching personal goals.