Start Strong, Have a 'Super' Finish

Super. That’s exactly what it was, Super. Great feeling, huh, Giants fans? Something a Jets fan may never have… but that is a post for another day. For now, it’s a Big Blue Sky and all is well with your world.

Imagine what it must be like to be Eli Manning this week. On Sunday, he is not only the focus of the biggest event in the world, he delivers, to a record-breaking audience no less. Over 115 million viewers in multiple countries saw Eli Manning lead his team to a Championship,  and in doing so, becomes a media darling and the best quarterback in the history of New York City sports (sorry "Broadway Joe" Willie Namath fans). Eli is named Super Bowl MVP, gets a beautiful Corvette, has interview after interview, people everywhere shower him with glory, his family was there, with huge smiles, and they're probably still smiling.

On Monday Eli flew to Disney World in Orlando to make hay with the ‘Big Mouse’ and film some commercials and then jetted back to the Big Apple the same day to appear on ‘Late Night with David Letterman’. Next day, it was an 11 a.m. parade in New York’s City ‘Canyon of Heroes’ with his teammates, then off to the newly christened ‘Met Life-Giants’ Stadium for a rally with politicians and ‘anybody-who-is-anybody’ galore and it’s only Tuesday. Eli started strong and Eli finished strong.

Giant Coach Tom Coughlin’s message to his team in late 2011 was simple: Finish. That’s it, finish. The Giants have been getting a bad rap the past few years as they started the season strong but they could not finish strong. Talk radio, sports TV, newspapers, you name it, it was all the same, the Giants could not finish strong.

Finish. What a strong, solid and important message, Finish. In the real world, our world, we have to finish. In the world of disability where therapy is king, we need to finish. Let’s face it, not many people have that gym rat ‘I-need –to-work-out-every-day’ mentality, but we all need the thought to finish our therapy every day. Why? As we work on our specific exercises we build confidence to move about our lives in a capable way.

Therapy can be tedious and tiresome for many people. Seriously, how many actually look forward to 50 leg raises every morning, I mean besides me? And I don’t even have legs. It can also be somewhat confusing as the tasks at hand should be positioned by someone with knowledge and understanding of your needs such as a therapist.

One example is let’s say you are somewhat mobile but need to use a wheelchair on long outings. What do you do, how do you get around in it? Does someone push you? Do you turn the wheels your self? Is it an automated chair?  The point here is that you need to understand that you will be going through different movements to get around, even if your chair is automated.

Here’s why. A wheelchair is positioned differently then a regular chair. It is lower and perhaps wider and may not have a solid seat as the seat may depress when you sit on it (all "Happy Days" jokes aside). The arms of the wheelchair may be higher up than you are used to and this may be a different height then what you are normally accustomed to using. So what can you do? First, see how you get out of the chair. You may need a cushion to sit on to accommodate the difference in height. You may use your arms more than normal and in a different way, which brings us back to the importance of therapy. In fact, therapy may be just you sitting and then standing and getting out of your chair ten times in a row. You may feel it in both your arms and legs. This includes automated wheelchairs as here again there may be a substantial height difference that requires more balance and better ‘sit-to-stand’ techniques. It may be simple but you will see how beneficial it can be as you may become more and more capable in this activity. Don’t go into an activity ‘cold’, in other words, finish and finish strong.

Another activity specific to a wheelchair is how to move away from the chair itself. There is typically a narrow passage-way that is unorthodox to many, especially people who may be an amputee. Typical amputees require a little more space to reach out as they move upward, so here is an opportunity to finish strong and practice moving away for the chair. The leg holder, where you rest your feet can sway once they are unlocked and you want to make sure they move away far enough where you have ample room to manage a standing position and finish strong.

Therapy provides techniques to enable us capabilities to support our needs in a variety of disciplines. In other words it helps us help ourselves so we too, can have a Super Finish.