Aspergers guide to the gym

 

 

Hi, this article is based on my own personal experience and not professional research. Having said that here is my tips for the gym.

It is often great to have a friend at the gym to provide encouragement and to keep  you going. It is hard to keep oneself on track and a person will come up with any excuse for missing the gym. If they have another person that they are accountable to, they can still make up excuses but it is slightly harder. It is very hard to make friends at the gym on the treadmill over so don’t count on conversations with strangers. The most you will ever get out of conversation is “Are you done with that machine?” which the polite response is yes, if you are done with it. Or “Are you using that machine?” You may get slightly more conversation out of the gym staff if you ask for help using the machine or if you are asking about programs they are offering. However, you have to be pretty lonely if you are going to seek this approach for conversation. Which is just fine for most people with Aspergers so don’t hesitate to ask for help.

If you cannot get someone to go with you, many people find it beneficial to have an ipod or some device to listen to music through to make the time move faster. If you are lucky there will some hard-bodied males or females to look at and drool over which will make the time move faster. There will also be overweight people to make you realize you are not the only one who has it hard. If you are overweight, that is alright too. It is important to eat well and exercise no matter what your body size.

Muscle strengthening will probably take longer than other people so don’t add too much weight when you go. The reason why muscle training takes longer is because the part of how are muscles are wired which makes motor control an extra challenge for us. If you add too much weight too quickly you are likely to hurt yourself. Besides, what’s the point if you have Aspergers you will never be a star athlete anyway, so take it easy on your body. The most you can hope for is to stay in good shape.

Figure out what your exercise goals are and train for them. Having Aspergers, we are different and our muscle control works differently. What this means is that muscles and endurance from one type of exercise will not transfer as well to other forms of exercise as it does for other people. If you want to be a cyclist, work on the bike. Work on the elliptical trainer will not benefit us as much in a cross-training way as it will for other people. For example, I want to run in the half-marathon so I will jog, working on the bike would not help me reach my goals.

For people who don’t have Aspergers but find my advice useful that is because I believe that we are all on a spectrum of sorts from the highest functioning athletes to people who are unable to look after themselves because of their autism.

Aspergers on excuses for why I don’t want to go to the gym

Top 6 worst excuses for going to the gym in my head right now.

 

It doesn’t really matter since girls won’t like me either way! This may be true but working out to look sexy for the opposite gender is only one of many reasons to go to the gym. Not going because girls won’t be interested in you so you shouldn’t worry about how you look or your health is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Your good looks are getting you into the door it’s your personality that gets in the way. Maintain what you got and strive to improve.

I have already missed the gym a bunch of days this week I may as well just start working out next week! It doesn’t matter how many days you miss going to the gym what is important is going to the gym the days you can. Also it is never too late to start the positive momentum of getting yourself to the gym as much as possible.

I am lazy, tired sitting behind a desk all day makes me want to nap! You are always lazy. Your job is not physically intensive, I get it sitting for a long time makes anyone lethargic, but stop being so pathetic.

What the heck am I training for I am not an athlete anymore! You were never much of an athlete to begin with. People with mental disabilities are already seen as fat and ugly every single time someone who is 500 pounds is seen on television. So stop feeling sorry for yourself and go to the gym and let people with the negative stereotypes know that they are wrong, we aren’t all like that.  

I wanna nap! So go do what you need to do first and once you are done you can nap as much as you like. You can nap away the rest of the night if you have to. If that’s your idea of a good Saturday night!

I work too hard with my job I deserve to do whatever I want with my time-off! There’s a difference between working alot of hours and working hard. 

The excuse that you should go watch comedy instead was taken away from you when comedy at the corner was cancelled.

 

Aspergers on Olympics 2

At the end of the Olympics I question whether I was right in my previous post about the Olympics. Is it really a waste of money? Yes it is a lot of money but who can say that they weren’t carried away as the Canadian women’s soccer team almost upset the American powerhouse only to lose due to some bad refereeing. Is this really the best time to decide whether the olympics are a good use of money when people are so emotional? I don’t know I mean right now I’m thinking libraries are so unromantic, who cares about health care when that money could be used for knocking that superior look off of the American Women’s soccer team.

Is there anything that can be as uplifting as watching the South African man without legs compete against men with legs? I mean as a person with Aspergers I felt like his triumph was all of our triumph giving a kick in the groin to the status quo. And on such a grand stage. If you ask me that is absolutely priceless and can not be factored into dollars and pennies.  There is no spreadsheet that can calculate the good feeling that came out of that. Watching Usain Bolt demolish everyone in grand fashion was amazing and it did not cost Canadians a penny. Did it have to be Canadian’s to beat the American female soccer team that would have brought me joy or would anyone beating them make me happy? Could Canada really just enjoy the Olympics from the sidelines, and have the incredible joy and satisfaction from the games I think so. 

We didn’t even achieve our goal of finishing in the top 12 because smaller countries such as Hungary finished with better performances than we did. Is it because they are Hungarier than we are? Maybe Canadians are just not meant to be athletes and we are better as musicians and in other fields of endeavor? Winnipeg definitely kicks ass in improv with Crumbs, and Outside joke so maybe that should be our calling card instead of sports. If we gave them the money I think we would get a much better return on the dollar. If we are generous I think maybe Hot Thespian Action could use a few dollars to compete against the Americans and also some money to me for setting up this alternative.

Aspergers on the olympics

                         

 

 

 

Canada is not doing so hot in this year’s olympics and I am more than okay with that. A person has to begin to ask how much money should we putting towards winning Olympic medals which helps one or two individuals instead of putting the money towards a more worthwhile cause. Canada’s health care system needs to be rehauled wait times are often too long. Immigrants are still struggling, and libraries budgets are getting cut drastically. Yet somehow, Canada has 27 million dollars to put into the olympic athletes. The return on putting tax dollars into libraries is 10x greater in every way than putting the money into the olympic athletes.

I say let the athletes do sports as a hobby like the rest of us and have a day job to support themselves. IF they win and its a major if then they will get major corporation dollars to endorse everything. It’s like taxing people so the Winnipeg Jet’s Kane can live like a king on 10 million dollars. Let the people who care about it make special donations. Or even put a discretionary clause into taxes and give people the option give Cindy Klassen the money or give it to a library or a soup kitchen for the homeless. Some people argue but we need the athletes as role models, don’t we have enough role models in parents, teachers firemen and Dancing Gabe. Katniss is going to be as big or a bigger influence for Canadian children to take up archery than any of our athletes will be. The arguement that people won’t play sports without these people is ridiculous people play sports because they are fun not because joe-shmoo does it .

Let’s at least put the money into obscure sports that no one else is putting money into in order to get the most bang for the buck.

 

Also, the idea of supporting one man over another simply because he is Canadian is kind of ridiculous. What if I have more in common with the Australian and would have a better time over a beer than the man from Canada just because he’s from the same place that  I am from.  That is my two cents on the olympics.