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Aspies and Athleticism

Simply a Bibliophile

Simply a Bibliophile

Well-Known Member
As most people know, it's a very stereotypical halmark of Asperger's to have exactly zero athletic talent and to hate team sports.

I relate to the latter wholeheartedly. I hate team sports. Hate, hate, HATE team sports. Basketball, soccer, you name it, I can't do it.

But I've found that running is a very calming part of my life. I'm on a cross country team and I've had reasonable success competing scholastically over the last year. So I'm wondering, is the reason I'm good at it the fact that neither track nor cross country are team sports, or do I just not display this specific halmark of the syndrome?

Are there any other athletes here, and if so, what sport(s) do you do?
 
I am a bit more athletic than most Aspies, and I also do enjoy some team sports. My favorite sport to play is soccer; I have played on a few teams, always as goalie. I love playing goal, and am not too bad at it. I wasn't good enough to make my high school soccer team, but I'll gladly play for fun.
 
In my high school days I was very good at Hockey and Football were I played mostly defense. I was best at blocking shots and keeping the
other team busy so we could score. Hockey was absolutely my favorite. I was voted my teams MVP for 4yrs helping to keep our rivals nearly scoreless.
High aggression sports I was great at but others where precision was important not so much!:bounce:
 
Right now I lift weights. In high school, I ran cross country and wrestled (both individual sports, and I never made varsity in either.)
 
Sports and games requiring individual accuracy I've picked up pretty quickly. By that I mean things like archery, bowling, golf. Team sports I was never terrific at because of the need to anticipate others' movements. The one I managed to succeed at for some time was volleyball. Being tall and left handed actually gave me an advantage up at the net. Currently the only athletic activities I participate in are trail running and street cycling.
 
Back in my school days I was terrible at team sports. I didn't dislike playing them at all. In fact I quite enjoyed many of them. I juyst happened to stink at them, lol. I haven't done any as an adult, but I no longer have much interest in it. Besides I have never had the co-ordination for that sort of thing. I did get into skiing years ago, and that I loved. I plan to take it up again perhaps this winter. My BF loves to play golf as well, so I am learning that sport this season. I'm awful at it, but I love being out in the sun, haha.
 
I follow the writings of a guy called Arthur Jones who applied science to weight resistance training back in the late seventies. In fact, Arthur Jone's research into "intensity" vs frequency are practically identical to Roger Bannister's application (prior to breaking the sub 4 minute mile).
I think most aspies would find Arthur Jones writings fascinating as he was a very logical guy.
I still do weights today but now only one hard session per week and not so heavy as in the past.
Anyway, Jones dabbles into kinetics as well as intensity of effort. His machines were designed to exercise a muscle through the full range of motion without momentum or angle varying the degrees of resistance.

Simply a Bibliophile said:
As most people know, it's a very stereotypical halmark of Asperger's to have exactly zero athletic talent and to hate team sports.

I relate to the latter wholeheartedly. I hate team sports. Hate, hate, HATE team sports. Basketball, soccer, you name it, I can't do it.

But I've found that running is a very calming part of my life. I'm on a cross country team and I've had reasonable success competing scholastically over the last year. So I'm wondering, is the reason I'm good at it the fact that neither track nor cross country are team sports, or do I just not display this specific halmark of the syndrome?

Are there any other athletes here, and if so, what sport(s) do you do?
Click to expand...
 
Sports in general isn't my strong point. I was never interested much nor been any good at sports. However, I have recently become more interested in sports after attending the London Olympics. I have also started to exercise/workout and care about my health. I still find sports boring to watch on television though, unless it is something big/important like the Olympics then maybe I will make an exception.
 
I love sports. I make it clear to others, though, I am relatively weaker in team sports, though I acknowledge it's really fun.
 
I was never good at sports and I especially disliked team sports where I was always the last one to be picked. It is is not that I am completely uncoordinated but I really can't focus on them and I usually just hung back away from my team members and out of the action. I have also never developed any interest in watching sports. My teenage son is a big baseball fan and I am lucky that my dad also shares that interest so He (my son) has someone to talk with.
 
I was always middle of the road. Not bad, but not quite good enough to go very far in sports. I missed my calling because later on I discovered i was awesome with a rifle. I was a born natural because my left eye is dominant but my right arm that holds the aim steady is my stronger one. I naturally do aiming sports like archery, billiards etc. left handed. It was a handicap shooting pool because I used my weaker arm to aim.

I suppose it is all for the best though because I tried hunting a couple of times and really did not enjoy it. I did like shooting clay pigeons at the shooting range though. Also, who knows, if I pursued it enough I might have wound up in the armed services shooting at humans: not good.
 
I'm also cross-dominant (right handed, left-eye dominant). I didn't know that would aid oneself in shooting a rifle, though; I've never shot one before.
 
buckyboy14 said:
I'm also cross-dominant (right handed, left-eye dominant). I didn't know that would aid oneself in shooting a rifle, though; I've never shot one before.
Click to expand...

Give it a try. I would be curious to know if you would just naturally pick it up and shoot left handed. I did that without even knowing I it. I have read that some baseball players are better hitters for the same reason. Their dominant eye is closer to the pitcher giving them a very slight time advantage.
 
I hate team sports. Also, I am not a competitive person. I do enjoy yoga though or calming activities like walking with my dogs. When I was young, my parents forced me to take baseball. I would sit down at the back of the back of the field and pick flowers.
 
I don't like team sports but I am built athletically and I am good at tennis, boxing, and any hunting/fishing sports. I can't run, I look stupid and have a bad foot, but otherwise I'm pretty good despite my coordination.
 
Oh god, running. I can't remember the last time I ran and wasn't dead last. Every day in gym class, we had to run laps, and I was always last, by multiple laps.
 
When I saw the title of this thread, I wanted to comment that running is an exception within the category of sports, but then I read your acknowledgement of running. Cross-country is my main sport as well, and it's barely a sport like hockey or football is. For me, running is a mental exercise much more than it is a physical one.
 
I played roller derby for a while, then decided to be a referee instead. It was hard being on a team of people with a bunch of cliques, so refereeing was much easier.

Other than that, i'm not very good at anything else besides roller skating. Nor do i have any interest in sporting activities.
 
I have never been good at competitive or team sports because I didn't have the skills to keep up. Other players got mad at me because I made mistakes that cost the team points. But I joined my school's ski club in eighth grade (a long, long time ago). It didn't matter how good I was because I wasn't holding anyone else back, so I stuck with it and took lessons. I was a slow but disciplined learner, and eventually I became very good at it. Today I am an advanced skier, but I still don't compete. We have local ski racing teams, and I can do fairly well in a race, but racing is more of a social activity. I want to be doing my own thing on the slopes, not waiting for my turn to race, or hanging out with other racers.

I have also been a member of a health club for more than 20 years. Again, no competition, but just working on building strength and endurance. As I get older I believe strength training is essential for good health, and the strong muscles help me avoid getting injured when I ski.
 
I am an aspergers patient as of 1 year ago, and all throughout my childhood i obsessed with sports. Everyone that i tried i was good at: soccer,baseball,tennis, golf, archery, rifle and shotgun shooting. And i was always on allstars for team sports like baseball and soccer. Anyways i went on to stick with Golf and i ended up playing for the University of Utah div 1 ncaa and played to the number 1 spot while i did play, then school got really hard and couldnt play no more. Now my obsession is weightlifting. I am very good at it and i know how to eat correctly as I study nutrition as well. I weigh 226 lbs 5'11''. So im big now. My point going onto now is that i do really well at SOLO sports or hobbies. I eventually began to hate team sports because someone else could impact you to win or lose. i couldnt stand that and so i gave golf more effort and stuck with it. It helps to be an aspie because i had such great attention to detail in sports. I felt like i had a 6 sense of where i was on the field in relation to other players or where the ball was. But sports allowed me to apply my focus and competitiveness, and stress into a channel and get it out. School did the opposite, as i have adhd as well which makes it very tough on me. So sports masked my symptoms because i was always winning and kids liked me because i was good at everything. It wasnt until i became uneligible to play golf that i eventually became aware of my diagnoses and then life got harder because i couldnt mask my poor grades with sport success anymore. but now i have become aware that i can apply for disabilities at my university and that gives me hope. Because i know deep down i can do school, its just i have difficulty in un-major-related topics and cant focus in on those.
 
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