August 1st, 2025

The Flemmers are running a survey to find out how wheelchair users prefer to exercise. They’re even giving away a $100 Prezzy Card to five lucky people who complete the survey. The winners will be drawn at random 

Click here to take the survey.  

Dr Rory and Dr Claire Flemmer developed the Octal Wheels wheelchair to make exercise more fun. It looks like a manual wheelchair you see every day, except it has features aimed to make movement easier and faster than a standard wheelchair.    

The Octal Wheels has special handles on the push rims that you push and pull in a stroke motion, which propels you forward. The New Zealand-based developers say this is easier on your shoulders than repeatedly pushing the push rims forward, as you would with a regular manual wheelchair.   

The developers tested the Octal Wheels against a standard manual wheelchair and say they found that it: 

• goes three times as fast  

• only needs a third of the force to operate 

• only has a tenth of the jerk (which is what hurts your shoulders) 

• gives you a full cardio workout. 

Other key features of the Octal Wheels include: 

• three gears for travelling at different speeds 

• a cross slope function that means one arm doesn’t have to work harder when you’re travelling on a surface that slops to one side 

• anti-rollback for when you are travelling up a hill, ramp, or slope – if you stop pushing, you stay still and don’t roll backwards. 

 You can read more about the Octal Wheels in this article on Firstport.