Why this Start TODAY member with cerebral palsy is encouraging everyone to move

When Nicole Luongo participates in an online exercise class, she might encounter something she can’t do, such as lunges. Having cerebral palsy makes it challenging for her to lunge, but she’s figured out a way to do it — she uses a chair for balance. That chair helps in a variety of exercises, including modified planks and burpees.

“I’m the queen of modification,” Luongo, 50, of Plantation, Florida, tells TODAY.com. “I modify probably almost every workout.” Luongo has a “mild” form of cerebral palsy (CP), a collection of motor disorders that impact someone’s movement, balance and posture, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s considered the “most common motor disability in childhood,” and it’s caused abnormal brain development that influences the ability to control muscles, the CDC says.

Luongo always enjoyed exercise and recalls watching exercise shows from people like Denise Austin on ESPN as a teen. At first, she bought an exercise bike and rode it in her room. Soon, she progressed. She got a Nordic track allowing her to “ski” an activity she might not be able to do otherwise. As trends changed, Luongo tried new workouts. Her evolving interest keeps exercise fun.

“I joined a gym, and I would take the group fitness classes there,” Luongo says. “I loved that they had a combination or cardio and strength (training).”

When faced with something she could not do, such as step aerobics, Luongo edited her workout. For example, she would do the same routine as the rest of the class without stepping up and down.

“The last thing I’m going to do is jeopardize me falling,” she explains. “I would just do without the step because you don’t need it.”

Being adaptable helped Luongo sustain exercise practices throughout her lifetime. She’s willing to try new ways of exercising and she is not afraid to do things differently so it works with her body. In fact, she uses her experience to encourage others in Start TODAY.

“I think a lot of people might shy away from exercise — whether they have a disability or not — but absolutely more so if they have a physical disability and they have limitations. They might see all these people jumping around and go, ‘Well I can’t do that,’” Luongo says. “You may not be able to do exactly what the instructors are doing, but I can guarantee you there’s a modification for almost every move.”

While Luongo loves Start TODAY, she doesn’t closely follow the walking programs. Though she did participate in the June challenge of walking 10,000 steps a day — in her own way, of course.

“I just marched around my house and just regular walking,” she says.

In addition to walking, she also participated in exercise videos she finds online, where she gets most of her workouts from these days. To make sure she gets the most out of each class, she watches it first so she knows where she might need to make changes that work with her body. She exercises Monday through Friday and does yoga on Sundays.

“I mainly do yoga because it’s supposed to be really good for you,” she says.

Right now, she’s focused on high intensity interval training.

“I love HIIT workouts,” she says. “They really get the heart rate up and they’re fun because you’re doing short intervals.”

She loves combining strength and cardio in one workout so that she’s “killing two birds with one stone.” Weightlifting is another area where she needs to modify what she does. At about 4 feet 9 inches tall, she can’t do a lot of heavy squats or overhead lifts without compromising her form — so she lifts lighter weights. She encourages others who aren’t sure what sort of exercise to do to follow some simple advice.

“I’m a big proponent of listening to your body,” she says. “You don’t have to kill yourself, in my opinion. Exercise should be fun. You should do what you love.”

As a writer and disability advocate, Luongo created "What Cerebral Palsy Looks Like" and the "Go Green for CP" campaign in 2019, encouraging people to wear green and buildings to display green lights to increase awareness of cerebral palsy. She hopes that more gyms and exercise spaces become more accessible. Most disabled people know how to adapt their workouts, but they’re held back by structural limitations, she notes.

“Adaptability is a necessity in our lives,” she says. “So many people with disability, they (don't) even have access.”

Luongo says she has friends in wheelchairs, for example, who can’t attend a gym because there isn’t a ramp. Making exercise space more accessible could allow even more people to enjoy physical fitness.

“Anybody can exercise. It doesn’t matter what disability you have. It doesn’t matter the level of your disability. It doesn’t matter your age,” she says. “All that matters is that you have a desire to take care of your body, to respect your body, to move your body.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com