SummaryThe case material consisted of 17 pupils at the Norrbacka Institute Schools. Cerebral palsy (CP) was present in 7 cases (mediam age 19 years), and paraplegia of other origin‐chiefly myelomeningocele‐in 10 (median age 17 years). All had severe motor but not mental handicaps, and had to use a wheel‐chair for their daily activities.Physical training was carried out for 30 minutes twice a week for 6 weeks, concurrently with the ordinary gymnastics. It consisted of fast wheel‐chair driving, exercising with medicine balls and dumb‐bells, and levering movements in a wheel‐chair and on parallel bars.Exercise tests were made on an ergometer bicycle for arm work; the loads were submaximal for all pupils, and also maximal for 8 in the paraplegia group. Identical submaximal tests were carried out before and after the training period, together with determination of the oxygen uptake, heart rate, blood lactate concentration and roentgenological heart volume.In the CP group, the blood lactate concentration was lower after training than before it. In the paraplegia group, significantly lower values were recorded after training for oxygen uptake, heart rate and blood lactate. No change in heart volume was detected in either group.In the 8 pupils in the paraplegia group who could perform maximal work, a 40% increase was noted after training.The better training results in the paraplegia group can be explained by the more severe handicap in the CP group, in which the arms were also involved in most cases. The heart rate during training was an average 140 beats/min in the paraplegia group, but only 115 beats/min in the CP group.The results show that these severely handicapped adolescents were able to improve their working capacity, despite training being of fairly mild intensity and carried out during a relatively short period. This implies that the ordinary gymnastic lessons were inadequate for improving the pupils' working capacity, and should therefore be complemented by a training programme of the type described. A better working capacity is highly desirable for their performance at school, as well as during their activity of daily living.It is concluded that this type of training should be included in the conventional habilitation programme for children and adolescents with motor handicaps o