Leaders in fitness equipment manufacturing, Pulse Fitness has donated two Concept2 rowing machines to Neurokinex, a specialist activity-based neurorehabilitation charity, to provide vital support in the ongoing recovery of its clients.

Pulse Fitness is an award-winning fitness manufacturer providing top of the range solutions to both the leisure and private sector for over 40 years. Meanwhile, Neurokinex is a specialist organisation with sites at Bristol, Gatwick and Hemel Hempstead. Each of the specially equipped centres helps to enhance the lives of adults and children living with partial or complete paralysis.

As a not-for-profit organisation, Neurokinex relies heavily on donations, grants and funding programmes to safeguard its world-leading rehab programmes. Top quality equipment is key to its protocols and this donation from Pulse Fitness will enhance its lifechanging therapies for clients. The donated Concept2 rowing machines, worth over £1,000 each, have been specially adapted to support the broad range of client abilities present at Neurokinex. The machines are involved in the day-to-day training of Neurokinex clients and dependent on the client’s goals and capabilities, trainers can adapt how the client uses the machine to attain the best outcomes. The rowers are particularly beneficial for targeting global strength improvements of the core, upper and lower extremities and increasing cardiovascular fitness which is vital to reduce the risk of co-morbidites associated with spinal cord injury.

The machines will also play a key role in this year’s Step Up Challenge – the Neurokinex annual event that raises vital funds to keep its Step-Up Scheme open. An initiative that provides a lifechanging set of six free rehab sessions to adults and children with a new spinal cord injury, the Step Up Scheme provides a lifeline for newly injured people wanting to access the world-class Neurokinex facilities and expertise. It costs Neurokinex £420 per person to provide the Scheme and without donations it simply can’t continue.

This year’s Step Up Challenge will see the Neurokinex community kayak or row as far as they can go. Neurokinex trainer Laurence Green will attempt to kayak 250KM in a week while Neurokinex clients and trainers will aim to match his distance on the new Concept2 rowers.

“We are hugely grateful to Pulse Fitness for its generosity in giving us two Concept2 rowing machines,” says Harvey Sihota, Neurokinex CEO and founder. “We have been hoping to add rowing to our programmes for a while and within days of the rowers arriving, our trainers were busy adapting exercises to suit a range of clients. This is certainly a very versatile piece of kit and our clients will benefit greatly from this new way of exercising to build strength, improve core stability and raise their heart rate.”

“Over the last four decades, we have had the pleasure of installing and providing fitness equipment to a multitude of gyms, facilities and operators; seeing first-hand the positive benefits that movement and exercise can bring,” says Chris Johnson, Managing Director of Pulse Fitness. “So, it is a real honour to be working with Neurokinex who use the power of movement to create life-changing impacts each and every day. It has been great to see how the rowing machines are being incorporated into the training of different clients and how just one piece of kit can be used in so many different ways. We hope the donation continues to help clients at each of the centres progress in their individual rehabilitation journeys and we look forward to working with Neurokinex again in the near future.”