When we built adaptive training into Cobra Command in Basehor, we believed it worked. We could see it in our athletes (like Frankie). But belief and proof are two different things, and for the people who shape what health care and fitness look like for people with disabilities, proof is what moves the needle. So one of the things we’re proudest of isn’t something you’ll see on the gym floor. It’s a research partnership with the University of Kansas.
We run our Adaptive Athletes in Motion program using the coaching standard of our partner Bloc Life, whose whole belief is that effective fitness has no physical prerequisites. Bloc Life shapes how we coach. KU is helping prove what that coaching actually does.
Real scientists, real funding, studying real athletes
Our adaptive program is a formally enrolled site in a research study led by Dr. Lyndsie Koon, an assistant research professor at the KU Life Span Institute, where she also serves as associate director of the Research and Training Center on Independent Living. Dr. Koon studies what happens when people with mobility disabilities take part in high-intensity functional training, the same kind of real, scaled, community-based fitness we run every day at Cobra Command. Her work is part of a set of pilot projects across the Greater Kansas City area, funded by a three-year, $750,000 grant from the federal National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research.
In plain terms: serious scientists, with serious funding, are studying whether what we do actually works. And they’re doing it with programs like ours.
What the research actually measures
This isn’t a feel-good survey. Dr. Koon’s team looks at hard outcomes and human ones side by side: whether people keep participating in functional fitness, changes in physical function both perceived and objective, general health, social connection, and things like confidence and competence. Not just “can they lift more,” but “are they healthier, more connected, and more capable in their real lives.”
That is the entire thesis of our program, being measured by people whose job is to stay skeptical until the data says otherwise.
Why this matters so much
The problem Dr. Koon set out to solve, in her own words:
“At the same time that people with disabilities were already participating in this exercise, important decision-makers like healthcare providers were still questioning whether this form of exercise was effective or appropriate for people with disabilities. My goal was to build the evidence base to show that this is not only safe and effective, but an inclusive and meaningful form of community-based exercise beyond traditional rehabilitation. I hope to change the expectations around what people with mobility disabilities are capable of.”
That last line is the whole reason we, here at Cobra Command, do this.
Her research speaks to a real gap. For a long time, high-intensity functional training like this sat outside what the health system pictured for people with disabilities, so the recognized options stayed thin and the evidence stayed thinner. Dr. Koon is building that evidence, and every athlete in our program is part of it.
What it means for the people we serve
If you or someone you love has a mobility disability, this is bigger than one gym’s opinion. It means the work happening at Cobra Command is being documented and measured by researchers whose goal is to change how doctors, insurers, and the whole health system think about what’s possible.
It means that when we say this is safe, effective, and meaningful, we’re not just asking you to take our word for it. There is science being built underneath it.
And it means that by training here, you’re not only getting stronger. You’re helping expand what the world expects for people with disabilities, and helping make the case for more places like this.
Bigger than Basehor
This is why we keep saying the program is bigger than our four walls. Good intentions help the people in one building. Evidence changes systems. If functional fitness can be shown, rigorously, to improve real health and real independence for people with mobility disabilities, that finding doesn’t stay in Basehor. It reaches gyms, clinics, and decision-makers far beyond us, and it helps more of these spaces get built.
We are honored to be part of that work.
If you want to be part of it too, or you know someone who’s been looking for a gym built with them in mind, book a free No Sweat Intro. Come find out what you’re capable of. The science is on your side.
See you in the gym,
Jill
