Can an Aspie be athletic??

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YES YES Definitely YES
My main special interest is the balance art of slacklining. While it may have taken me longer to get the basics down and to start getting good than the average person the power of special interest should never be underestimated.
Slacklining takes focus, concentration, relaxation, and strength, all things that don't come naturally to me but with lots of dedication and hard work over the last two years I've gone from shaking as I tried nervously to take steps on a 20' line to walking lines houndreds of feet long(my personal best is 360') with solid posture and confidence.
Anybody wanting to do something physical that can be done alone and is more of an art then a sport should check out slacklining, the mental and physical benefits I've gotten from slacking are unmeasurable.

Serena DeJusus - Mixed Martial Arts Fighter

In the video she discusses how sensory sensitivities hurt her effort in a loss that devastated her for a period of time.

I couldn't do team sports but I was an above average swimmer. When I was young my Mum was approached about having me trained with a view to going to the olympics but she declined. She didn't feel I would have had time to be a kid.
I have also done equestrian sports up until recently. I loved riding and was good at it. It requires balance, strength, particularly core strength and coordination. I grew up riding so it always felt natural. I think it would be hard to start as an adult.

Wyatt Kunkee - Autistic rodeo athlete

Although I am pretty uncoordinated compared to a neurotypical, I am a VERY fast runner. I did soccer, rugby and long distance running, and have excelled in these areas over the course of my life because of the heavy emphasis on sprinting and endurance. Sports like rugby I played even though I HATE physical contact, but I was such a fast runner that I was barely touched the whole season. Our team even won the regional championships, and I was first line!

I have also played badminton and tennis. When I first started I was very unsuccessful because I am so uncoordinated and could not even figure out how to properly hit the birdie, but I made up for it with technique, practice and game strategy (the most important skill of all). Even though I was actually only successful with scoring the point in badminton a fraction of the times I hit the birdie(compared to teammates) because I am uncoordinated, I actually hit the birdie more times on average than the other players. This is because I anticipated where the birdie would go using game strategy and mathematical assumptions (something I am very good at). So I ended up scoring around the same amount of points as my other teammates even though with my disability, because I just played smarter and was not tricked into getting smashed with the birdie.

To be honest here though, if you are one of the autistics who has dyspraxia as a symptom like me, you most likely will never be a professional athlete. I was just able to keep up with my high school teammates because of a combination of luck and mathematics. I was still horribly uncoordinated, and everyone was painfully aware of this, but I was able to just squeeze into the athletic scene despite this. I succeeded in high school athletics but I would never survive in a more competitive league because I am just not naturally talented enough. I will probably never be able to learn the proper badminton and tennis techniques even though I was a decently average player on a badminton team, because I just do not have the physical capabilities of an allistic.

Yes, absolutely... I used to play rugby, was shortlisted to play for England Under 21's. Played county. Was offered scholarships for swimming and athletics ( represented SW england in javaline and discuss, just missed out on the tripple jump by 3 cm for the nationals), nationals clay shooting 3 times and many other sports... I was at boarding school, so sport became my escape and interest, was fully focused on what i was doing and needed to be doing it several times a day seven days a week. Even at home, would mountain bike 80 miles+miles .. would push myself to the point of almost dropping and sometimes did... Had a very tough time with people in school more so when living there 7 days a week so was my only escape. Was also fortunate that the school i was at had good sporting facilities , so was able to use them with ease...

There is also a well know surfer on the spectrum... I think it is more common than people realise.. and yes it is a mind frame i think. Because i had the facilities on hand... Now its kinda the reverse! ha... putting my body through so much stress when younger has finally caught up... and it is VERY hard to get back into. I understand why many say its important to exercise as it releases dopamine, which you become addicted to... But now i dont have those facilities as well as injuries from sports i can also understand how hard it can be putting what energy one has into such an area as you tend to expend it to just get through the day...

Mountain bikes are practically ritual for me too. I did that same thing the other night on my jump rig, just spun in granny gear past my limits up one little hill until I felt halfway to rigor mortis & responded in kind. Cue pasta.

Not going to see much more than 40 mile rides at this altitude though lol.

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Tarick El-Abour is described as the first Autistic proffessional baseball player in this article. I am pretty sure there have been and are undiagnosed or closeted autistics in proffessional baseball. I would like to find another source besides a local paper to confirm he is the first openly autistic pro baseball player. Continued success to him.

My father is also an aspie and he runs marathons in spare time. He is now 50 yrs old but last time he finished in 5 hours.

I struggled with motor skills when I was younger and it took me forever to learn to walk, bike, and swim, but since then I've been pretty athletic. I played soccer through school and was pretty good even though I was extremely isolated from my teams.

As an adult, I'm still athletic and I compete in powerlifting competitions and hold some state records. I also had a special interest in juggling and learned to juggle 5 balls and do all kinds of tricks that required a lot of coordination. I actually think my aspie traits have helped me because I'm able to really hyper-focus on what I'm learning and completely obsess until I get it right.

I have a black belt in two different styles of martial arts and used to compete in 5k runs as a teenager. A big part of distance running is mental though. I might not be the best but I think I'm athletic.

In my case, yes. I could be athletic. I don't have any physical or motor issues -- I'm even better than an average female overall, whether it's strength, endurance, flexibility, balance, etc...

Except, I don't have the motivation to be an athlete. I have the means, but no drive nor focus for it.


My problems would had anything to do with two things:
Syncing-- which is for team sports. Something I probably wouldn't figure out soon. Maybe I never would have.
And most of all, time reaction -- which is really important in many ways. Something I couldn't improve well in a long run no matter what I did, no matter how focus I was. Even if it's a bit enough for average, I have this weird upper limit like an unbreakable ceiling I couldn't pass through.

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"Not that they'd be Olympians or major league sports hot-shots, but higher-than-average athletic."

by definition, one half of the population is "higher-than-average athletic". and how do you define athletic? strength? agility? speed? a particular sport?

and the solar system contains plenty of autistics.

so, the chances that at least two autistics in the solar system, are "higher-than-average athletic" are pretty high.

and you ask "Can An Aspie Be Athletic"? it's like, which aspie?

some NTs and some autistics can't be "athletic" per se. some of them do not have the potential to be "athletic".