---
title: "Houston’s New Special Strong Helps Those with Disabilities"
url: https://burnaze.com/article/7838a5a0-581f-432c-8756-6b36b55df2b9
source: "Franchising.com"
original_url: https://www.franchising.com/news/20210504_houstons_new_special_strong_helps_those_with_disabilities.html
category: "Fitness"
industry: "Fitness"
published: 2021-05-04T12:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-11-01T02:28:28.419Z
image: https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1540497077202-7c8a3999166f?w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop
---

# Houston’s New Special Strong Helps Those with Disabilities

**TL;DR:** Special Strong, a fitness franchise, is opening a new location in Houston to help individuals with disabilities through adaptive fitness. The location is owned by Mike Lutey, who was inspired by the company's founder Daniel Stein's videos on LinkedIn.

*originally published in Franchising.com on 2021-05-04. [Read the original](https://www.franchising.com/news/20210504_houstons_new_special_strong_helps_those_with_disabilities.html).*

## Story

For individuals with physical and mental disabilities, as well as those suffering from progressive neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy or a wide range of similar ‘wasting’ disorders, the impact of social isolation and physical limitations has made life especially difficult, says Mike Lutey who owns a new franchise opening soon to help strengthen the community in Houston area regain and help those with disabilities move forward with a little targeted physical strength and social coaching.

There has never been a better time to introduce a holistic approach to individualized and personalized strength building.

‘People, people, people... It’s all about people,” says Lutey. “Surprisingly there are not many community-based outlets out there teaching disabled persons in a step-by-step fashion how to help themselves: empowering themselves with the confidence they need, on all levels, to become better acclimated to the challenges of daily living.”

He continues: We teach upper cross-body strength training. Recent studies have shown that this type of training not only help musculoskeletal development in the upper body, but improved circulation and speeds the release of key proteins and enzymes that have a terrific positive effect on the brain as well as emotions.”

And Lutey emphasizes that the program is fun for participants of all ages. We offer one-on-one training and classes for kids, young adults, seniors and anyone with mental, physical, and/or cognitive disabilities. For older adults we offer specialized personal training individualized for each person.

“This is what we call “adaptive fitness” for individuals, and we plan to partner with small gyms for physical space for activities.”

Mike grew up in Montana and was working as a vice president for a large retail company. He says Special Strong founder Daniel Stein's videos on Linkedin: “It was a match made in heaven for both of us,” says Lutey.

His mom worked with kids with special needs - through special outreach to help families and helping them find good programs for their kids and to spread awareness of special needs.

“We are excited to be part of this community and to provide much needed help for those with disabilities,” he says.

## Entities

- Franchising.com (publication)
- franchise expansion (topic)
- Fitness (sector)
- houston (location)
- fitness franchise (topic)
- LinkedIn (company)
- Special Strong (company)
- Daniel Stein (person)
- disability support (topic)
- adaptive fitness (topic)

---
Originally reported by Franchising.com (https://www.franchising.com/news/20210504_houstons_new_special_strong_helps_those_with_disabilities.html). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/7838a5a0-581f-432c-8756-6b36b55df2b9).