From his dreams of sporting glory as a boy to founding an accessible fitness app, Paralympic powerlifter and entrepreneur Ali Jawad opens up to Editor Melissa Holmes
Ali Jawad had a dream from the age of six. While watching the 1996 Olympic Games, Ali saw Michael Johnson win his historic double. From there, a dream was born. “When he was on the podium, he was very emotional,” Ali explains. “I was like, ‘I need to feel what he’s feeling’. And the only way to do that is to compete at that level.”
At 16, Ali – who was born without legs and has Crohn’s disease – discovered powerlifting. “A friend took me to a gym which was owned by a Paralympic powerlifting coach,” Ali reveals. “He said I had incredible potential and he’d attempt to coach me to the Paralympic Games.” Two and a half years later, Ali had his own Michael Johnson moment.
GAP IN THE MARKET
After a successful competitive career, during which he became World Champion at the 2014 IPC Powerlifting World Championships, Ali teamed up with sailing champion Sam Breary to found Accessercise. He says: “Even though disabled people wanted to be active and the industry wanted to be more inclusive, I felt there was a huge gap in terms of how many disabled people went to the gym.”
With more than 70,000 fitness apps available, Ali discovered there was no accessible fitness app specifically for disabled people. His research discovered that 81% of disabled people wanted a fitness tool based on their impairment. His idea took flight and, eight months later, Accessercise was built, with the aim of including at least 80 evidence-based and impairment-specific exercises for almost 200 impairments, so users can create their own gym workouts.
The Accessercise team is partnering with Future Fit to train personal trainers so they feel comfortable coaching disabled people. Ali personal trainers focusing on visual impairments. We’ve got two more coming this year, covering amputees and spinal cord injuries.”
EXERCISE EMPOWERMENT
The powerlifter, who uses his app several times a week, describes the culture at Accessercise as “dynamic” and says his small team of staff must be adaptable. But the hard work is worth it. “Users are empowered to create their own training sessions,” Ali enthuses, “whereas before they got told what to do by somebody that doesn’t know their impairment. This time they’re in full control.”
Ali feels things may be on the up for disabled founders. “We don’t get much luck in terms of funding. A lot of investors don’t see disability as a lucrative market. But there clearly is a market!” he says.
“Disabled people have problems that are daily recurrences, which means other people have them too,” he relates. “Whatever problems you have, if you can address it and scale it, then you’ve got a business. You just have to make people’s lives a little bit easier, and that’s what we’ve tried to do”.