Spinal cord injury (SCI) is one of the most devastating conditions endured by humans. These patients face problems involving excretory control, respiratory regulation, increased chance of infection, pressure ulcers, and impaired sexual functioning, in addition to the characteristic paralysis and loss of sensation. Care is expensive and rarely results in recovery of functioning because the central nervous system fails to repair itself after injury. Despite their impaired brain-body connection, spinal animals exhibit stepping that is stereotypical, controlled, and, at times, highly functional. Research has shown that this spontaneous recovery of function after SCI is not the result of the development of a new brainless pattern or based on the regeneration of axons connecting to suprapsinal structures, but the expression of the spinal component of the normal locomotion program. One of the most promising therapeutic interventions for spinal cord injury, which is based on this hypothesis, is treadmill training, where a patient is supported over a moving treadmill, which facilitates stepping. With training, healthy cells in the cord are called-upon to guide this stepping and they eventually become integrated into the neural networks allowing the spinal subjects to regain locomotor functioning. The current work explores the limitations of this treatment by investigating the effects of variables known to alter spontaneous recovery of locomotion. Effects of age at spinal cord injury, presence of peripheral injury, and methylprednisolone administration on recovery of stepping competence after treadmill training and on cellular survival in the cord were tested. Although each of these variables did impact spontaneous recovery in non-trained animals, none had an effect on the recoveries of trained animals. Treadmill training, then, is a highly effective therapy that protects against detrimental variables, and should become the yardstick by which all newly developed SCI interventions are measured. Not only is it effective, but step training is also relatively cheap, non-invasive, safe, and easily combined with other treatments. Although complete restoration of a damaged nervous system may be impossible to attain, patients do have good reason to hope for fulfilling and comfortable lives after injury.