Adapt & Triumph is designed to make exercise and meal planning fit users with disabilities, rather than asking them to adapt generic programs. The iOS app offers 204 exercises, along with stretches, and more than 400 recipes for people with amputations, burn injuries or other mobility limitations. Its creator, Tulsa engineer Kevon Martorell, 26, spent more than a year developing it.
Martorell works full time as an engineer at East Ech Flow Controls, designing smart sensors for city water systems, according to The Journal Record. Born in San Diego, he lived in Florida before moving to Oklahoma in 2015. His experience navigating disability and access informs the app’s focus.
The Experience Behind the Design
At 18 months old, Martorell suffered third-degree burns over 80% of his body after a water heater malfunctioned. Surgeons operated for more than 17 hours; his heart stopped for seven minutes before doctors revived him. Doctors told his mother, Jessie Martorell, that he might be permanently paralyzed and need life support if he survived, The Journal Record reported.
Martorell spent six months in a medically induced coma. He underwent seven to 10 surgeries a year during his first 11 years, and had survived more than 50 procedures by high school. He also played on his high school football and basketball teams.
Adapting After Amputation
At 18, doctors amputated Martorell’s right leg below the knee. Three severe infections followed over the next six months — two in the skin and one in the bone — destroying muscle tissue at the bottom of his leg and ruling out a standard prosthetic. He began using the hands-free iWalk adaptive crutch in 2019 and still relies on it every day.
Martorell also encountered barriers outside health care: a store manager once rejected him for a job, saying it was unsafe for him to work with his leg. Research on physical activity among people with disabilities points to a broader health gap. A study published on PubMed Central found that people with disabilities are less active and carry a greater burden of disease than people without disabilities, while leisure-time physical activity is strongly associated with better health across populations.
Turning Experience Into a Tool
Martorell came up with the app while exercising with his wife, Lashaun Martorell, then spent more than a year developing it. The self-funded LLC’s app is available on iOS and is being tested on Android. It tailors recipes and workouts to a user’s specific condition or disability.
“It makes sure to give you the curated recipes or workouts that are for your body,” Martorell said. The app’s slogan is “Adapt, Compete and Triumph,” and it has been introduced within the Amputee Coalition, The Journal Record reported.
The Access Gap
Research suggests adaptive exercise options remain limited. A U.S. observational study identified 268 adaptive exercise sites nationwide, an average of 2.68 sites per 100,000 adults with an ambulatory disability in each state, according to findings published on Rowan University’s research repository. The researchers concluded that areas with the largest populations of adults with ambulatory disabilities lacked sufficient access to adaptive exercise programs. They also found a negative correlation between a state’s share of residents with such disabilities and its availability of adaptive exercise sites.
National health context is also relevant, though it does not establish comparative physical-activity participation rates. The CDC’s archived page says a 2014 report found adults with disabilities who got no physical activity were 50% more likely to have diabetes, stroke, heart disease or cancer than those who got the recommended amount of activity. This general finding concerns adults with disabilities, not Adapt & Triumph users. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Adapt & Triumph is not the only digital effort in the space. Prosthetics manufacturer Ottobock offers the Movao app, which includes a fitness program developed with physiotherapists for people with arm and leg amputations. A fitness app designed with therapists for people with unilateral leg amputations is available in Movao.
Martorell has said he wants users to see that a condition or disability need not stand between them and their goals. Adapt & Triumph is one effort to put that idea into practical form, shaped by the barriers he has faced and the ways he has adapted.
