Combining a passive/active exercise bike with synchronised FES (Functional Electrical Stimulation) is a well-researched and well-known exercise modality for persons to use after a spinal cord injury or other neurological condition.  One of the benefits often sought by our spinal cord injured clients is preservation of bone density and we will look at the evidence for this in this article. Bone is a dynamic tissue - it responds to the needs placed upon it - getting stronger under load and weaker in the absence of load. Paralysis after a spinal cord injury and lack of activity that loads the bones results in a loss of bone strength and increased risk of fractures.. FES Cycing is one way of helping to prevent this.

FES Cycling with the RehaMove system is a foundation in Claire’s routine. In this short video she describes how she discovered FES Cycling, why she felt it was important to continue to exercise the parts that were paralysed as well as the parts that weren’t, and the benefits she has seen from doing so.

We have always wanted our FES Cycling clients to be comfortable to make changes to their stimulation settings over time. Knowing when and how to changing settings is not difficult - when you know how. The video below was recorded to address that topic. The
video has English subtitles and a transcripy of the audio is given below.

In these articles, we have looked at strength and conditioning training to see if this more familiar territory might give us a structure with which we might approach training for neurorehabilitation. In this final article we have introduced the important of rest and recovery. The best results from training are achieved when there is an optimal balance between the training dose and rest and recovery. This has many unknowns but we can rely on the vital importance of sleep hygene, nutritional status and maintaining. as far as possible, low levels of negative stress.

In this article, we explore the second most important training principle from strength and conditioning which considers the “Dose” of training - in other words the Volume, Intensity and Frequency of training. We look at how these factors relate to neurorehabilitation and learning.

Neuroplasticity and neurogenesis are topics that inspire hope of recovery for many following a neurological condition. How do we bring hope into reality? Forms of movement, technology, and frequent, intensive exercise promise to assist recovery even if goal setting remains a challenge. This article looks at all of this as another form of training and suggests that adherence to a programme must be fundamental to success.