The Role of Strength Training for Parents of Autistic Kids | Terry Brown

[stef]

​My eldest son is 6 years old, non-verbal and has autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and sensory processing disorder. Some days are great, some days are bad, but most days are challenging.

With any challenging lifestyle, your overall work capacity is important. If Work = Force x Distance, an obvious solution to increase Work capacity would be to increase the amount of Force you can actually produce.

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[Iron Pit Strength]

My son, age 29, is on the autism spectrum. He is verbal, and, for most things, is physically independent, but not enough so to allow him to live alone; thus, he's living with my wife and I. He's 5'-11" and skinny, about 140 lbs. I'm working on that. I have him in the basement gym twice a week (three times a week wouldn't work due to the number of activities he has) and we're trying to make him bigger and stronger. We've made him somewhat stronger; bigger, not so much.

As Terry alluded to, autistic kids love routine. My son is a fanatic about keeping all of the bars and plates in their prescribed location in our gym, and I'm 100% OK with that.

Due to my wife's influence, my son is unfailingly polite. To increase the efficiency of his workouts, I had to stipulate, "Ethan, when we're in the gym, I'm not going to say 'please'. When I tell you to put a 10 lb. plate on the barbell, just do it." "OK, Dad."

So, the next workout, I say, "Ethan, put a ten on the barbell". He dutifully put the plate on the barbell, and then said, "Thanks for not saying 'please', Dad". He simply can't help being polite. That's OK.

Working out is a great bonding experience for us, and, hopefully I can eventually succeed in putting some weight on him. Some day, I'll need his strength to help my wife and I, and if we do things right, Ethan will be able to do any heavy tasks that are needed.