In this episode, we talk with Dr. Christen Mendonca, a postdoctoral researcher with the School of Health Professions Research Collaborative at University of Alabama at Birmingham. His work centers on exercise and wellness for people with disabilities, rehabilitation, and creating more inclusive approaches to health and physical activity. In 2025, he was named the inaugural WINNERS Postdoctoral Fellow, where he leads translational research aimed at improving quality of life for individuals with Rett syndrome and their families. Based in Birmingham, Alabama, Christen is also an accomplished adapted athlete whose lived experience informs his research, advocacy, and dedication to advancing inclusive, person-centered care.

A full episode transcript is available below or on Buzzsprout.

Get notified about new episodes by subscribing on your favorite streaming apps, or follow our social media channels on Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn to stay updated with new episode announcements. 

Where to check out Wellness, Health & Everything Else: A NCHPAD Podcast

Buzzsprout website (no subscription required): https://www.buzzsprout.com/2397451

Streaming apps for podcasts: https://tr.ee/_AxhoopNgN

Episode Transcript

Quick Navigation (click the linked text below to jump to a new section)

• Intro
• Christen’s personal and professional background
• How he’s combined research, fitness, gaming, and disability advocacy into his career
• Christen addresses the biggest gaps in accessibility in gaming and recreation
• The importance of including people with disabilities directly in the research process
• How Christen’s lived experience has shaped the questions he asks in his research
• How his perspective on health and wellness has evolved from his days as a trainer to his current work
• The connection of personal training, rehabilitation science, and assistive technology
• Christen’s work with the WINNERS project
• What participants in the WINNERS project can expect
• How the WINNERS project approaches motivation and sustainability differently
• Christen’s final thoughts

*Edited for clarity*

Host 0:03

Welcome to Wellness, Health and Everything Else: a NCHPAD Podcast. NCHPAD is the National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability – the nation’s premier center dedicated to promoting the health and wellness of everyone. In each episode, we explore topics at the intersection of health, wellness and mobility limitations. If you have an idea for a topic, would like to learn more about a topic or are interested in our free resources, programs and partnership opportunities, email us at nchpad@uab.edu, give us a call at 866-866-8896 or check out our website at nchpad.org.

Music Interlude

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Christen Mendonca. Christen is a postdoctoral researcher within the School of Health Professions Research Collaborative at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His work focuses on exercise for individuals with a disability, rehabilitation, and inclusive wellness. He earned his Ph.D. in Rehabilitation Sciences from Drexel University, where his work focused on the intersection of assistive technology, applied neuroscience, and user-centered research.

In 2025, he was named the inaugural WINNERS Postdoctoral Fellow, leading translational research to improve the quality of life for individuals with Rett syndrome and their families.

Based in Birmingham, Alabama, Christen is also an active adapted athlete, bringing lived experience into his research, advocacy, and commitment to advancing inclusive, person-centered care.

Host 1:40

Kristen started the episode by telling us more about himself and his professional background.

Dr. Christen Mendonca 1:45

My research focuses on building accessible exercise systems for people with disabilities that are scalable and increase their participation. I’m also an adaptive athlete who got started in their career in fitness. So I also have a lot of personal experience to draw from, not only from the fitness realm, but the sports training realm and my participation in sports myself. So not only am I studying accessibility, but I’m also navigating a lot of the obstacles that come with it myself.

Host 2:17

Christen discussed how he’s combined research, fitness, gaming, and disability advocacy into his career and what pushed him toward this path.

Dr. Christen Mendonca 2:25

When I think back on my personal experiences, it was definitely being in the fitness industry, especially at the time that I was in the early 2000s. I got very good at adapting exercises for myself. But as I got into personal training, one of my tenets to people that I was teaching was that you can be good at training people just like you, but what are you going to do when your clientele isn’t like you at all? And so I started to look at adaptation and accessibility from a more systemic level. And what I realized was, even though I was good at adapting exercise for myself, I had no idea how to scale that to people with other disabilities and other adaptive tech. So I’m a part-time wheelchair user, and I also use crutches, but I knew very little about how to adapt for, say, individuals that used other assistive devices, like a walker or a wheelchair. And so that was really important to me as I wanted to do something at a higher level. And I realized that there was a lack of opportunity that was typically due to a lack of access to fitness for people with a disability.

And then when I got into adaptive sports here in my years in the Collaborative, I realized that I didn’t get into this sooner in my life because I didn’t have the opportunities for it. And even when I saw that there was an opportunity available, nobody mentioned that I qualified. I had no idea that I qualified for something like wheelchair sports, which I play now. And so I felt like I was in this gap between individuals that did not have a disability and individuals that had a disability, with this community around it, where they could compete in sports and exercise together. And so over the course of time, I realized that I needed to expand my horizons and I could have a greater impact. Instead of training one individual or a small group, I could do research that focused on scalability and getting that out to many individuals to increase their health.

Host 4:39

Accessibility in gaming and recreation has improved over the years, but Christen addressed where he sees the biggest gaps.

Dr. Christen Mendonca 4:46

I think the biggest gap that I see is the inconsistency of accessibility. What I mean by that is from my personal experiences and from research and rehabilitation, you can make a really good system. But if you don’t take into account things like cost, complexity, and scalability, then it still may not be accessible, meaning that you may have worked on something that was meant to be an adaptive piece of equipment to increase accessibility, but you created a whole new gap elsewhere. And so I see an inconsistency in accessibility, and I think that that leads to a drop in participation, right? We tend to think a lot about motivation and adherence and compliance, but really I know myself from my own personal experiences that sometimes I’m highly motivated to participate and other times I’m not. And so what I really felt was the biggest gap was how do we increase the opportunities for people and how do we make the environment more supportive of them, and let the motivation, the compliance, and the adherence come naturally.

Host 6:04

We asked Christen about the importance of including people with disabilities directly in the research process, not just as participants but as collaborators and leaders.

Dr. Christen Mendonca 6:13

Well, I think it’s vital and crucial. I think that being a person with a disability myself and a researcher is good. I have a perspective that is unique, and it helps me design better programs and better studies based on that. But it’s also dangerous because there’s the danger that I say to myself, well, I have a disability. I know research, I must have all the tools ready to create the best program for someone. And that’s almost always going to be false. So I think it’s vital to include many people with disabilities, as many as you can, you know, realistically, and also have a group that’s representative of the stakeholders that are going to be participants in your study. There’s always things that you can learn from individuals who use a chair primarily, maybe ambulatory with limitations, and use an assistive device, maybe a combination of both. So there are so many different iterations of that. And everybody has different needs and desires and wants and things that affect things like motivation and participation, that you’re really hampering the impact of your research if you’re not including people that are going to be your stakeholders right from the get-go. So not only from asking better questions to designing better methods and even interpreting the results, but also having people, having your stakeholders — so, in our case, people with disabilities — being involved right from the get-go is crucial.

Host 7:46

Christen talked about how his lived experience as both a researcher and an adapted athlete has shaped the questions he asks in his research.

Dr. Christen Mendonca 7:53

Well, my career has evolved over time. So I started in fitness, mainly personal training and strength and conditioning, and really focusing on building capacity, either for one individual or a group of like-minded individuals, say a sports team, right? And so, really focusing on designing a program that was going to build the most capacity that I could muster. Then I started to think about how I was a strength and conditioning coach who happened to have a disability. It was coincidental. It wasn’t part of my focus. And I started to think, well, how can I adapt what I do and help people with disabilities and help them on a larger scale, which was what led me to rehab science. Well, rehab science is more about adapting to an environment and improving function. So I started to think about that from a program standpoint. And then I thought, well, how do we make this more scalable? How do we go from capacity to real-world participation in an environment? And to me, it was assistive tech. So that’s where I added the assistive technology part into it. To me, it’s a bridge that bridges someone’s capacity to the environment and the activity that they want to participate in.

Host 9:14

Christen shared how his perspective on health and wellness has evolved from his days as a trainer to his current work at UAB.

Dr. Christen Mendonca 9:21

Well, it’s evolved quite a bit. And I think the industry and the art and the science have all evolved. Now, I would say not enough, but that’s a fair criticism of myself as well. I think that when I first started, I fell into the trap of really being concerned with the best form, the best way to do this, the best way to do that. And what I didn’t realize was that I was putting a lot of a lot of stake on motivation. And it made me wonder why some people that I worked with had a lot of motivation, and some people didn’t. And then as time went on, I noticed how my motivation also ebbed and flowed. And so I think that I learned that it wasn’t something you could consistently rely on to help people comply or adhere to a program.

And so I think what I thought of was how do we design programs that are simpler for people to follow, are more adaptable and flexible, but also from the standpoint of how do you start this program back up if you fall off? So, how does it account for people’s varying levels of motivation? How does it account for a bad day or a bad week? So I started to really wonder less from a workout standpoint. I guess the simple way to say it is I concentrated less on a workout and more on a program. And then it evolved even further when I got into rehab and adaptive tech because I realized that a good program can help one person at a time, a small group at a time.

But if you really work on a system and scale it up, then you can have a positive impact on a lot more people. A specific example of this would be my research into adaptive video gaming. What I realized was that in rehab, we had a lot of these really great high-tech proprietary systems that could do some really wonderful things with video games and virtual reality. And very few, if any, have ever made it to market, let alone been widespread enough in order to motivate people to participate in exercise regularly. Then you had things in video gaming, such as the Wii and exercise video games, that were pretty fun. And they got people moving around and laughing and even created a party atmosphere in some sense. But my question was, “Well, what do you do when you want a new game or a fresh game?” There are plenty of games being developed. I thought it was a great idea, but I kept seeing people design a specific system, and typically it was meant to work with a specific game or at least a very small proportion of games compared to overall. And so what I thought was, how do we design a system that would allow us to swap games in and out at will? This also opened up the opportunity for new research questions. What games make a good exercise? What games don’t lend themselves well or are not cohesive with exercise movement? And so that work particularly evolved my thinking on health and wellness from having a good program to having a good system in place to help you sustain activity over the long term.

Host 12:55

Christen has worked in personal training, rehabilitation science, and assistive technology. We asked how these worlds connect in ways people may not realize.

Dr. Christen Mendonca 13:04

Well, to me, they all play off of each other because my work in fitness really helped me to understand that you have potential and there are ways to increase your capacity and realize that potential. And some of it may be surprising. You know, I thought that I started to get inspiration from places that I didn’t expect to. So, for instance, in designing programs for individuals that were standard family, so to speak, and actually taking concepts that I was inspired by through reading about powerlifting. I didn’t tell them that I was doing powerlifting with them, but some of the concepts were able to help them.

And so I started to look for inspiration in plenty of places, using dance with individuals who would never be motivated to participate in dance. And then so with rehab and adapting their function, I started to see that people were getting inspired from different things that you may not initially be aware of. And one of the studies that really inspired me was a program for children with cerebral palsy who were undergoing what’s called constraint therapy. So, for our listeners, constraint therapy means that you typically have a stronger side and a weaker side, as a lot of children with cerebral palsy do. And what they will do is they will bind, usually with a cast or a sling, they’ll bind their stronger side and have them do activities with their weaker side to help strengthen it and get them used to using it. And it works, it’s very effective, but you have to do it for quite a bit of time. And I probably don’t have to illustrate how boring and tedious this could be for children. And so what this study did was they had a camp for kids who all had some sort of weakness on one side, and they all had cerebral palsy. And what they did was they applied a sling that was pretty comfortable to their strong side, but then they dressed up as pirates and had sword fights. They went on adventures, they conducted plays, they played games. And I’ve just found that so inspiring because a lot of times with assistive tech, the danger is in creating something that you think is going to be helpful, but may actually recreate their disability digitally. I’ve seen this with some of the systems that try to work with adaptive video gaming. And I wanted to make sure that I was avoiding that.

And so through my work in rehab, I really was trying to find inspiration everywhere and trying to see what worked for other individuals that I really thought would be helpful in what I did. And so I would say that they meet in this area where there’s a science to it, but there’s also an art to it as well. And I really think that you have to keep an open mind when you’re looking for inspiration because it’s everywhere. So you have, you know, building capacity, there are plenty of ways to go about it. I wouldn’t say that there’s one right way. And then the same thing goes for adapting function and rehab. And so when we’re trying to create that bridge through adaptive tech, you’re really looking to keep it flexible because participation can only take you as far as the opportunities you have and the access you have to those opportunities. So to me, the accessibility part is an intersection there, especially for people with disabilities. It doesn’t matter how many good workouts I write from a fitness standpoint or how many good rehab programs I develop, or even the systems that we build, if they’re not providing an inclusive opportunity for someone and they’re not fully accessible, then they’re really being hampered. And so I feel like the accessibility part is a linchpin to all three worlds.

Host 17:04

Here’s Christen discussing his work with the WINNERS project.

Dr. Christen Mendonca 17:06

The WINNERS Project is the Wellness Innovation Network, where we’re trying to provide a nurturing environment for individuals with Rett syndrome, their loved ones, and their caretakers. The WINNERS program is the result of a lot of hard work through the Collaborative here, and generous donation and work from the SUKI Foundation. And our main goal is to promote and improve the quality of life for girls with Rett syndrome, women with Rett syndrome, their loved ones, and their caretakers. With a focus on remote telehealth applications, simply because Rett syndrome is one of the rare diseases. So, less than one in 10,000 births.

And I can tell you that one of the real challenges in disability research is getting high numbers of participants. A lot of people seem to think, well, it’s just that, you know, people don’t want to do studies or they don’t want to commit to doing a study or being a participant, but I don’t find that true. I just find that you have to be really mindful of how concentrated a population might be in an area. And so with something such as Rett syndrome, I think it’s vital to look at remote tech and how this can be implemented to bring people together. And so the WINNERS program is really designed to create a supportive environment that individuals and their families can use to bolster their participation and also provide an accessible bridge between clinical outcomes and health care and wellness. Because for many people with disabilities, including those with Rett syndrome, there’s also a gap there. So not only are there many other gaps, but a big one is the gap between the healthcare and their wellness. And so we really think of WINNERS as a system that can act as a stopgap there to help support these individuals and improve their quality of life.

Host 19:17

Christen discussed what participants in the WINNERS project can expect.

Dr. Christen Mendonca 19:22

We’re looking at the WINNERS project as a three-stage implementation. So from day one, we’re actually looking to involve individuals with Rett syndrome, their families, and caretakers in the collaboration process with us. So in year one, we’re focusing on gathering information from experts, clinicians, but also families and the individuals with Rett syndrome themselves, to see what their needs and wants are and what factors we can implement into a program that will truly increase their quality of life. So, somebody could expect from this first year, we’re interviewing families to get their thoughts on using telehealth and exercise, and what works and what doesn’t.

From the experts, we’re looking to go beyond what the research is saying and what some of these researchers actually think from their experiences doing the research and clinicians working with families. What have they seen work? What have they seen that needs to be better so that we can improve? And so that’s what they could expect from day one.

And year two, we’re going to start piloting. So we’re going to have something we’re going to we’re starting with physical activity and nutrition. We want to have something that’s engaging, fun, motivated, but also simple, that provides support to the individual with Rett syndrome, but also provides support to their caregivers, because they can have quite a burden as well. And so we’re actually looking to alleviate some of that burden as we pilot this program.

Then in year three, we’re looking to scale it up nationally, and we ultimately hope to have an online platform that combines our physical activity program, nutritional program for individuals, as well as other components such as mindfulness, maybe components that help them sleep better, so on and so forth, where individuals with Rett syndrome can use this online platform, and their caretakers and families can also be part of it as well, and do things like track goals, communicate with professionals, communicate with each other for support, and then also find new information and opportunities that may be available.

Host 21:48

One of the biggest challenges in health promotion is keeping people engaged long-term. Here’s how the WINNERS project approaches motivation and sustainability differently.

Dr. Christen Mendonca 21:57

I think one of the big differences with how we’re approaching the WINNERS program is that we’re not looking at motivation as a binary on or off, meaning that somebody’s not ever 100% motivated, and they’re never 0% motivated. And they’re also never at one single number. It ebbs and flows over time. And so we’re looking at that and trying to figure out and develop this program so that it’s dynamic enough and flexible enough to create a supportive environment because a supportive environment can affect everything, including their motivation and their engagement. And so, in order to maximize the engagement, we really need something that’s going to work with individuals. It has to be widely available, it has to be little to no cost, and it has to provide the options that people need in a way that’s simple. Some online platforms can be complex to navigate, and some can be easy, but they all can be improved. And so we’re really looking for the best way to motivate people wherever they’re at on that day and building it from the ground up with that in mind.

I think very aligned with NCHPAD, I look at accessibility as something that’s all too often added in or reactive. And I think that this can take place with a lot of online platforms and systems, even some that are built for individuals with disability. To me, I think that you need to start with accessibility from the ground up and have it built in in order to have the maximum impact. And so I think those two components, both looking at motivation as a spectrum and that we already expect it to ebb and flow with everyone, including myself, and then having accessibility features that are very specific to this population, built right in. I think that’s the best path to being inclusive. You know, there’s always a danger when creating a specific program that if you make it overly specific, you may be actually promoting separation and isolation. And we certainly don’t want to do that. And so what we’re looking at is a system that’s dynamic and flexible, like we already have in NCHPAD. And what components will work well, and what components do we need to adapt in order to cater to the specific needs of individuals with Rett syndrome and their loved ones

Host 24:33

Here are Christen’s final thoughts.

Dr. Christen Mendonca 24:36

I think my final thought for everyone would be that participation is everything. And you’re not alone. A lot of the obstacles you may feel about participating in something or what guides you to shy away from something or not participate, is the same thing everybody faces. I’ve had the pleasure of training elite athletes and just everyday people with and without disabilities. And what I find is that a lot of the anxieties may manifest differently, but they’re all the same. And so, I think that we’re all connected in that way. You may need special adaptations. An environment may not be as welcoming as it needs to be, but there are people out there like me and a lot of others here who are really looking at how to bring everyone together. And so we want to be specialized, and we want to create things that cater to you. But what I’m saying to everyone is really think about what helps you participate in activities that enable you to move and what makes you shy away from that, and be mindful of that. And if you have the opportunity, let us know because we learn a lot from that, and just get out and move. Everybody should be. Find what you like, find what motivates you and spurs you on, and do that.

Host 25:52

Thanks for listening to Wellness, Health and Everything Else. For a full episode transcript, visit our website and find the episode in the podcasts and videos section or in the episode details on streaming apps. If you have questions about NCHPAD’s free resources, programs and partnership opportunities, email us at nchpad@uab.edu, call us at 866-866-8896 or check out our website at nchpad.org.