A Weightlifter’s Guide to Autism

As you all can tell, I’m training to be Arvada’s Strongest Man.*

This picture was taken right before I hoisted this 250kg boulder clear above my head in a clean overhead press.**

Ok, *not really, and **not hardly.

But with my typical workout routine altered during leave, I ended up rekindling a latent enthusiasm (early 90’s World’s Strongest Man competitions, back when I lived in the same country as Magnús Ver Magnússon) and took up deadlifting the rocks in my yard. I mean, if you’re out watching kiddos, what better way to risk splintering your back build strength and stay fit?

I had to adjust, practice, and study weightlifting a bit, since it wasn’t my typical kettlebell/HIIT slaughter. A couple things stood out.

1. Rocks can be heavy, and they can hurt
2. Weightlifting tips apply to the autistic experience

Here’s how.

Lifting heavy, not hard. Weightlifting and powerlifting focus on the heavy and the increasingly heavy — not just high-frequency, high-reps. Heavy builds strength. Going hard, not so much. It’s the same with autism, where some of the heavy items aren’t things we can’t do a lot.

I’ll never be able to manage certain large audiences, environments, tasks, even certain people — but over time, I build strength and I don’t wear out. And that’s so I don’t wear out and buckle and start detesting and withdrawing. We can’t just go hard and full bore on situations and with people who drive deep discomfort and anxieties in us, whichever they are. Enduring strength comes from a paced approach.

Low repetitions, greater gains. You build more strength from lifting heavy over fewer repetitions than lifting lighter over many reps. (Are there some cases where the obverse is true? Yep, and give me until the next post, k?) And similarly in my life autistic, I need to pack on the strength (mental, emotional, even physical) to get through the recurrence of some events.

For my neurotypical audience, this can be hard. We might not be able to manage “visit X” or “event Y” as frequently as you do. And that lack of frequency might make you think we don’t ever want to go through XYZ at all.

That’s not entirely it.

Just let us treat it like weightlifting. We can’t overtrain. We’re often trying to build strength. And it isn’t always about trying it light and often. Sometimes it can’t be light. And if it’s heavy, let us do the heavy lifting the right way.