Blue Journey Unified Team

Blue Journey Unified Programs (BJUP) offer adults living with SCI/D opportunities to play, train and compete year around in open water sport disciplines of paddleboarding, swimming and kayak. The program offers pool training (swimming and prone paddleboarding) in the winter and open-water prone paddleboarding, kayak and swimming programming 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.  Prone paddleboarding, kayaking and open water swimming are globally practiced activities that are all components of international open water sports as well as being individual aquatic sport disciplines practiced at open water venues around the world. In prone paddleboarding participants lie down face first on special race boards and move through the water using their hands and arms. The sport provides a unique opportunity for people with SCI/D to participate in an activity with minimal need for adapted equipment or accommodation. When people with and without SCI/D paddle next to each other it is virtually impossible to discern who arrived at the beach in a wheelchair. The inclusion of racing kayaks known as surf skis provide those who may have physical barriers to laying down prone or who prefer a different activity the chance to enhance their strength, endurance and balance that allows them to explore local waters side by side with those with and without SCI/D. Swimming is recognized as a valuable rehabilitation and exercise modality for anyone with or without a physical challenge. The addition of open water opportunities with professional coaches allows participants to immerse themselves in an outdoor activity that also frees them from many limitations they may find on land.  
     To do all this, BJUP creates communities of people with and without SCI/D that come together on a regular basis to train and socialize.  This sustainable, ongoing program focus creates opportunities for people with SCI/D to paddle with friends and family for recreation and/or athletic training and competition in both adaptive and non-adaptive sports events. Swimming, paddleboarding and kayaking 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 innovative program:

• Brings together a community of adult athletes and professionals in sustainable partnerships
• Provides people with SCI the opportunity to train, play or compete 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, multi-discipline aquatic events, and other non-aquatic activities with BJUP team members
• Increased Quality of life measured by Spinal Cord Injury--Quality of Life (SCI-QOL)