The rack reborn

I am revisiting the rack because a lot has happened in the time that I have been using it! My legs are very unforgiving and the issue with spastic diplegia which is the Pacific form of cerebral palsy that I have is the muscles in my legs are incredibly strong especially around my inner thighs and hips, this is because my spine does not produce a chemical to relax my muscles. The strength in my legs has destroyed three racks in the time I last put a post up on the web. I end up bending the box steel that makes up the frame of the machine. I was lucky enough to find a stretching machine made by Century (incredibly well made and strong) the frame seems to Cope with the stresses my legs put upon it, but the original ratchet gear wore out very quickly and could not cope with spasms in my legs,
I went to an amazing charity called Remap which designs and makes objects specifically for disability I told them about the ratchet gear not being able to cope with the stress my legs put upon it and when I release the tension of the gear my legs slam together which jars them and causes spasms which in turn defeats the object of exercising on the machine. They replaced the ratchet with an two ton hydraulic bottle jack which you can release the pressure slowly so instead of a slam I can bleed the hydraulic winch and gently put my legs together. Some might say it's a little overkill to have two tons of pressure between my thighs separating my legs, but my legs are even fighting against the hydraulic jack.

Things I have also done

The white objects in the photograph are night splints these are normally use to go to bed with so that my ankles are not so tight in the morning, I use them on the rack because when I am stretching my toes point out and I need to keep my ankles at 90° for the process to work effectively. There is also two Velcro strips on each leg rest this is because my hamstrings are short and I need to keep my legs flat so when I am stretching the straps stop my legs from bending.


Richard Brown from Remap Basingstoke also realigned my plotter as it was cutting a little wonky. He also said that when the 3-D printer. Is working he would organising some projects to do to test it out, it would be handy for Remap to have access to a cheap 3-D printer.

The rack has come

The rack has come I will take a few evenings to get used to it, my plan is to use it as a normal peace of furniture as I do not like breaking my time up into sessions this way I can read a book or watch some TV. For those that may be interested I will keep a basic record of progress.

uncomfortable process

yesterday I purchased a rack, my plan is to keep an account of the times that I use the machine and how it improves the walking. I have decided to stretch my legs in this way for a couple of reasons. On Tuesday I twisted a little wrong while emptying a bag of crap into a skip this resulted in the loss of three days of work, and a very grumpy me! To be fair it was not the work alone which resulted in the injury I have been swimming and going to the gym a lot lately and the muscles in my legs are not too forgiving when it comes to letting go of tension when they are being made to do something, the main purpose of the rack is to pull muscles so that it can prevent the buildup of tension therefore preventing spasms. It is quite a uncomfortable process but I would rather have the uncomfort at times when I am watching the TV of an evening than bugering myself up during the day. The way the machine polls the muscles should help my posture and gait which should disguise the fact that I have cerebral palsy. I do not think I am a vain man and the way that I walk does not bother me in general, well perhaps if I for over trip or stumble in public. But my appearance does seem to affect the way people perceive what I can do,

The process is slow one and not a quick fix, so this record will encourage me and point out improvements no matter how small. It's worth pointing out that this is not a cure, cerebral palsy is a condition and if I stop using the rack my legs will revert back to how they are.