• Replies 21 replies
  • Subscribers 95 subscribers
  • Views 427 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Autism and the gym

Billy87

I am currently training to be a personal trainer and it has really occured to me that when I start up I want to work with other autistic people like me, some of whom might by reluctant or overwhelmed about going to the gym and other similar places. 
Personally, I have always struggled with the gym, I can find it an intimidating place, loud music (usually painfully bad RnB, not like it's anything decent like a bit of punk rock), posers, guys with way better bodies than mine etc. It's often put me off getting fit. 
Fortunatley, now I have found a gym I am comfortable in and really enjoy going to but its taken me many years. 

I just wanted to know other people's experiences of gyms and fitness in general so I can have an idea how I can help other autistic people like me when I'm qualified 

Parents

  • It may just be me, but two aspects which I don't find comfortable or welcoming about the gyms which I have visited before are:

    1) when they are in the same building as swimming pools / steam rooms (shrieking young swimmers, chemical smell of pool water treatment and high humidity), and

    2) gym personnel who insist on telling me what equipment would be "ideal" for me (...when they have not even asked me / listened to me about what might have brought me to the gym in the first place).  For example, for some reason (forever a mystery to me), a gym instructor kept on, and on, talking about a piece of equipment with a vibration plate - despite my having explained my vestibular experience included getting a travel sick feeling from even using old fashioned bathroom scale!  (The person completely seemed to overlook that I hadn't come to work on core strength - but needed to work on improving and evening-out my upper body strength ...as I had been doing too much heavy digging on my allotment and noticed I had favoured one arm too heavily rather than spreading the wear).

Reply

  • It may just be me, but two aspects which I don't find comfortable or welcoming about the gyms which I have visited before are:

    1) when they are in the same building as swimming pools / steam rooms (shrieking young swimmers, chemical smell of pool water treatment and high humidity), and

    2) gym personnel who insist on telling me what equipment would be "ideal" for me (...when they have not even asked me / listened to me about what might have brought me to the gym in the first place).  For example, for some reason (forever a mystery to me), a gym instructor kept on, and on, talking about a piece of equipment with a vibration plate - despite my having explained my vestibular experience included getting a travel sick feeling from even using old fashioned bathroom scale!  (The person completely seemed to overlook that I hadn't come to work on core strength - but needed to work on improving and evening-out my upper body strength ...as I had been doing too much heavy digging on my allotment and noticed I had favoured one arm too heavily rather than spreading the wear).

Children
No Data