Blue Journey Unified

Blue Journey Unified Programs (BJUP) offer people living with SCI in pool training (swimming and prone paddleboarding) in the winter and open-water prone paddleboarding in the summer. In prone paddleboarding participants lie down face first on a lifeguard racing board-style craft and move through the water using their hands and arms. The sport provides a unique opportunity for people with SCI to participate in an athletic/recreational activity with minimal need for special equipment or accommodation. When people with and without SCI paddle next to each other it is virtually impossible to discern who arrived at the beach in a wheelchair.
     To do all this, BJUP creates communities of people with and without SCI that come together on a regular basis to train and socialize.  This sustainable, ongoing program focus creates opportunities for people with SCI to paddle with friends and family for recreation and/or athletic training and competition in both adaptive and non-adaptive sports events. Swimming and paddleboarding can increase physical and emotional well-being and ameliorate secondary conditions commonly experienced by people with SCI, including poor posture, muscle imbalances, compromised skin integrity, decreased cardio-vascular and pulmonary health, and muscle spasticity.

Blue Journey Unified Paddleboarding’s innovative program:

• Brings together a community of athletes and professionals in sustainable partnerships
• Provides people with SCI the opportunity to train and paddle recreationally alongside non-SCI friends and family and compete athletically in both adaptive and non-adaptive community sports events
  
• Provides an activity that increases flexibility as a result of the unique prone position, sense of balance from the work involved in staying on the board, and endurance, cardiovascular health, strength, and resulting mobility from the regular physical activity.

Measurable goals for BJUP include:

• Increased physical capacity and wellbeing measured by flexibility, endurance, strength, mobility, and sense of balance
• Increased community participation measured by attendance at or participation in BJUP practice sessions, paddleboarding events, and other non-paddleboarding activities with BJUP team members
• Increased Quality of life measured by Spinal Cord Injury--Quality of Life (SCI-QOL)