Hesperian Health Guides

Strengthening Exercises to Get Arms Ready to Walk with Crutches

In this chapter:

EXERCISE SHEET 6

boy with strong upper arm muscle
OBJECTIVE
These exercises help make your arms stronger so that you can walk with crutches.
A boy walking with crutches
Boy sitting up straight on a table trying to lift himself up
Boy sitting up straight on a table lifting himself up
Sit like this and lift yourself up with your arms. Go up and down until your arms are so tired you cannot lift yourself another time.
girl sitting straight up lifting herself up with bricks under her hands
Note: If the child’s arms are too short to lift himself up on open hands, he can use his fists.
a fist on a table
It is better to use bricks or books to lift yourself higher.


child lifting himself with elbows out and a child lifting himself up with elbows in
and not like this.
Try to lift yourself with your elbows out, like this,
a hand holding a handgrip
Hand grasping sawed-off crutch.
boy lifting himself out of a wheelchair
To practice for using crutches, make “handgrips.” Or use a sawed-off crutch. Or you can do these exercises in your wheelchair.

child in wheelchair weight lifting liquid container with the help of a pulley

— pulley
Weight lifting. Increase the weight little by little as the arms get stronger.

Do these exercises 3 or 4 times a day. Every day try to lift yourself more times without resting, until you can do it 50 times.



This page was updated:04 Apr 2024