Adam Gorlitsky has accomplished what many thought was impossible, setting Guinness World Records as a marathon runner thanks to determination and the help of a robotic walking device. After partnering with Clemson Adaptive Sports and Recreation on an exoskeleton race at the Palmetto Games, he’s teamed up with Clemson University engineers to advance a powerful mobility technology for the masses.


Adam Gorlitsky pulls off his black tennis shoes, raises the arm on his wheelchair and hoists himself into an exoskeleton arranged in a seated position on a black stool. He slips his feet into a pair of red Pumas and straps his legs and midsection into the device. His father hands him two crutches. As Gorlitsky stands, the exoskeleton whirs to life. His legs quiver for a few seconds, but because he is in such phenomenal shape, they quickly recover. Gorlitsky then begins to walk through a courtyard. 

None of this was supposed to be possible. 

After Gorlitsky’s car wreck at 19 years old, doctors told him his walking days were over. But the number of steps he has taken since then has numbered in the millions. Gorlitsky, now 38, holds world records for the fastest marathon and half-marathon in a robotic walking device and runs the nonprofit he founded, I Got Legs. Now, this elite athlete, one of the world’s most experienced exoskeleton walkers, is teaming up with Clemson University researchers on a shared goal of bringing exoskeletons to the masses. 

Gorlitsky is offering his experience and expertise to exoskeleton research led by Jessica Avilés and Divya Srinivasan, both faculty members in the Department of Industrial Engineering. But they aren’t the only ones leaving Tiger tracks in the field. Mechanical engineer Ge Lv is also playing a leading role in advancing the technology.

Black and white photograph of Adam Gorlitsky sitting in a wheelchair, holding his exoskeleton

All four say they are optimistic that exoskeletons will become widely available, although it will take years to overcome technical, financial and safety hurdles. It will also take time for perceptions to shift so that the devices are more socially accepted.

It’s worth pursuing, they say, because exoskeletons hold so much promise. They could help soldiers carry heavy loads, workers avoid overuse injuries and senior citizens climb stairs. Exoskeletons could provide new hope to people who have had strokes or sustained spinal cord injuries, allowing them to walk again. And those are just a few of the many ways the research team says that the technology can transform how people work and live.

An exciting technology

Srinivasan, the McQueen Quattlebaum Professor of Industrial Engineering, says exoskeletons could be as common as wheelchairs in as little as 10 years.

“The market is burgeoning, people are investing more into exoskeleton research, and the military has been the reason for huge leaps forward so far,” Srinivasan says. “That day is a certainty. The only question is when.”

Lv, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, says exoskeletons are in the early stages of development and that it could take several decades for them to become widely available. Yet he remains cautiously optimistic.

“When I’m standing or walking in my exoskeleton, I don’t feel disabled, I don’t feel able-bodied, I feel re-enabled. “It’s really empowering. I kind of feel like I am unstoppable.”

— Adam Gorlitsky

“When I started this research as a graduate student, there was a very small group of people working on these kinds of devices,” he says. “But nowadays, I’m seeing more and more funding resources putting their emphasis on assistive devices and technologies like this. I’m also seeing an increased number of people working on exoskeleton research.”

Avilés, an assistant professor of industrial engineering, says a growing number of startups make exoskeletons for the everyday user. Some sports and outdoor companies, for example, are creating exoskeletons that would allow people who are aging or injured to go hiking, she says.

“It’s possible that these will become everyday devices that people will use,” Avilés says. “There are a lot of questions we need to answer before we get there.”

Re-enabled

Some exoskeletons, such as the one Gorlitsky uses, help people engage in activities that wouldn’t otherwise be possible for them. Others lessen the effort and pain of possible but uncomfortable activities, such as lifting boxes. A few exoskeletons can even be laced into clothing so that only the wearer knows it is there. 

Cost ranges from about $1,000 for some consumer brands to more than $100,000 for state-of-the-art devices. Medicare recently started covering some exoskeletons, raising hopes that they will become more affordable.

Gorlitsky first had the opportunity to try an exoskeleton about 10 years after his spinal cord was severed in a single-car accident on his way home from college. He was fitted at a spinal cord injury center in Charleston, South Carolina, near his home at the time. 

“When I’m standing or walking in my exoskeleton, I don’t feel disabled, I don’t feel able-bodied, I feel re-enabled,” Gorlitsky says. “It’s really empowering. I kind of feel like I am unstoppable.”

So unstoppable that when he stood for the first time with his exoskeleton in August 2015, he decided to enter the 6.2-mile Cooper River Bridge Run, an event that attracts about 35,000 runners and walkers to Charleston’s most iconic bridge. Gorlitsky saw the event as an opportunity to help raise the down payment he would need for his ReWalk exoskeleton, a device that cost about $85,000. He kicked off fundraising on December 30, 2015 — 10 years to the day after his accident.

Gorlitsky says the seven months of training were intense. During the first four, he could practice walking at a clinic only once or twice a week. Later, he was able to take the exoskeleton around his neighborhood.

Adam Gorlitsky standing up in his exoskeleton while holding his crutches
Exoskeletons are devices worn outside the body to assist with movement. They come in a wide variety for the upper and lower body, some powered by batteries and motors, some by hydraulics and some by springs. 

Breaking records

When April 2, 2016, arrived, Gorlitsky completed the Cooper River Bridge Run — all 17,932 steps of it — in under seven hours. He remembers feeling a sense of relief when he crossed the finish line.

“Walking seven hours and that many steps — at that point, you’re just delirious,” he says.

Even so, Gorlitsky’s athletic career in an exoskeleton was just getting started. By January 2020, he completed the Charleston Marathon in 33 hours, 16 minutes, 28 seconds, setting the record for the fastest marathon in a robotic walking device, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Guinness also credits him with the fastest half-marathon in a robotic walking device, with a time of 11:54:45, achieved in February 2023 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Breaking records is a team endeavor, and Gorlitsky’s father, Stan, is a key team member. He follows his son in a car at about 1 mph, helps with battery changes and walks behind him for safety on hills.

But their endeavors are about more than one individual’s achievement as the Gorlitskys also draw attention to a cause. The mission of I Got Legs is to help paralyzed athletes walk again by expanding access to exoskeletons and advancing their research and development — a snug fit for the work the younger Gorlitsky is doing with Clemson. 

Gorlitsky first became involved in Clemson research about two years ago after moving from the Charleston area to Greenville, South Carolina. He partnered with Clemson Adaptive Sports and Recreation on an exoskeleton race at the Palmetto Games. From there, he connected with Avilés, Srinivasan and their advisee, Duleepa Subasinghe Ph.D. ’26.

Together, they are now conducting research to help people with spinal cord injuries find the best exoskeletons and training plans so that they can participate in sports, such as marathon racing. Avilés serves as the principal investigator, and their work is funded by Clemson’s Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute.

Accelerating research

Gorlitsky brings a unique, multifaceted view to the research. With more than 3.7 million steps taken over nine years, few, if any, people with spinal cord injuries have had more firsthand experience with powered exoskeletons than he has. Gorlitsky also helps others raise funds to gain access to the technology, and he is interested in developing his own exoskeleton. 

“I can understand the hardships of acquiring one, as well as the research and development, too,” he says.

Avilés says the more time she spends with Gorlitsky, the more she sees how the technology can be improved.

“It can offer a lot for people who aren’t able to walk, and I still think we can do a lot with the technology — make it less clunky, more user-friendly, lighter and more accessible,” she says.

Srinivasan says it’s uncommon to find someone with a spinal cord injury who can use an exoskeleton as well as Gorlitsky can. An expert user like him can talk through what is possible and what is not, sometimes saving years of work, she says.

“In that sense, he’s really accelerating our research,” Srinivasan says. “That’s one piece of it. The second piece is his awareness, interest and advocacy for the technology itself. It’s one thing to go and convince a person to work with you. It’s another when the person is already so committed to advancing that research field.”

Pretty much anyone who sees Gorlitsky walking with his exoskeleton takes a moment to say, “Wow.” But those steps are sweat-breaking work, even with the battery and motors powering the exoskeleton. Gorlitsky, who grew up playing basketball and running cross-country, is in terrific shape, giving him an advantage. But researchers say extending the benefits of exoskeletons to a broader group of users will take some work. 

Adapting to individuals

Each of Clemson’s exoskeleton researchers focuses on a specific area of advancing the technology, often complementing each other’s expertise and sharing tips on the best lab equipment.

Lv says one of the big challenges with powered exoskeletons is adapting them to each individual. It takes hours for a team of engineers and therapists to configure an exoskeleton’s control system for one person to execute a single type of movement, such as walking across a flat surface. Another type of movement, such as climbing steps, takes more time.

The research Lv is leading with the support of a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation is aimed at helping exoskeletons adapt to individuals on their own.

“A key feature of this research is the ability to rapidly customize the exoskeleton, greatly reducing the time needed to tailor the device to an individual’s specific needs and tasks,” he says.

Srinivasan, the senior exoskeleton researcher at Clemson, has focused her work on determining how to make the devices more user-friendly and to understand their long-term consequences.

“This field hasn’t been around long enough for us to know what happens if a person uses an exoskeleton day in and day out for years,” she says. “What happens to their bodies? What happens to their minds? So that’s where our research comes in. We are simultaneously trying to improve design and figure out what the right use cases are but also evaluate the impacts of the technology on the health and well-being of the people who use them over longer durations of time.”

Next Steps

Avilés says her work is keenly focused on the human being wearing the exoskeleton.

“It’s going to users and asking, ‘What do you want from this device?’ and then, ‘How can I facilitate that?’” she says. “If I can understand what the person needs as an individual — how their body moves, what their muscles are doing, how hard they are working, and what their hopes and dreams are with this device — then I take that and go to people who are developing new exoskeleton devices and say, ‘This is how we can meet in the middle. This is really what the user needs.’”

Gorlitsky, who sees exoskeletons becoming widely available in 10 to 20 years, says he uses his primarily for recreation. He demonstrates on a sweltering afternoon in August 2024 in a courtyard outside the Greenville lab where he works with Avilés and Srinivasan. Using crutches for upper-body support, he cruises at about the same pace as someone hurrying to class. 

When Gorlitsky finishes, he
returns to the stool to start taking
off the exoskeleton. 

It felt good, he says, to walk around.

Gorlitsky can sometimes be found cranking his hand bike on the Prisma Health Swamp Rabbit Trail, participating in local road races and working for his family’s e-commerce companies. The next challenge in his sights?

Stairs.

“I could maybe start out doing Clemson’s (football) stadium first,” he says. “But I think it would be kind of fun to tour around the country doing NFL pro football stadiums.”

Unstoppable, indeed.


Paul Alongi is a writer in the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences.


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