Obsessions...

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...some come and go, some stick around for my son.

Like another member, he is somewhat obsessed with a girl in his class. He's been obsessed with her for 3 years now. Not to the point that anything bad has happened, but he copies her, imitates her odd voices, mannerisms, etc... That one I get.

Recently, he is starting to take an interest in fitness. Back in the day I was quite into it. Now that I'm physically able to do it again, I'm ramping up. Of course, as an 8-year-old boy, he's watching Dad. Then, in true 8-year-old Aspie fashion, he is head over heels into it. Reading, watching, trying... For now he knows that he is limited to situps/crunches and pushups. He also understands why he cannot lift weights yet, as he is only 8 years old, and still growing. Issue is, he's paper thin, and he wants a "six pack" now. He ripped off 75 situps last night before I literally had to stop him. About 10 minutes later, he rips off another 75, then in bed, he does another 22 before I stopped him. Part of me loves the fact that he's interested but part of me is worried that he will obsess when we're not next to him. I know he could have worse issues, but still...

Anyone's child exhibited obsessions with fitness? It only worries me a little because it's a self-image thing as much as a fitness thing for him. He understands healthy, and doesn't really like candy or sweet stuff- he'd rather eat fruit. His Cub Scout "I like to eat" page included Asparagus, plums, apples, carrots, tomatoes, and "anything but chocolate ice cream" which he does NOT like. I don't want to squelch it since it could help him gain a good self image. At the same time I'm torn because, well, it is a self image thing and that can go bad too if he doesn't end up understanding the point. I know that's our part to convey, but... Thoughts?

Actually your child can lift weights, I know in China and the Eastern Bloc countries for Olympic lifting, they start their kids out lifting early, actually around 6-8 years old. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IDqX1eMFmA That's Lu Xiaojun, as you can see, he's bigger than the people around him, in the Chinese system he'd have been lifting since 6-8 years old. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A-m9W-3_9M 8 year old kid in China clean and jerking 165lbs at 95lb bodyweight.

Where the misconception about lifting weights stunting growth comes from is a few things. If your child lifts without eating more, then it'll stunt his growth, due to muscles needing calcium to contract and also, if you have a very low bodyfat level at a young age, I forget the exact process, but fat has leptin, and growth hormone will only be released if there's leptin, without growth hormone, no bone growth. Gymnasts tend to have this problem, gymnastics is arguably harder on the body than any weightlifting could be (but we put our kids through that no problem) but since there's an effort to keep their bodyfat/bodyweight low in gymnastics, a lot of kids don't grow tall. Anecdotally, I heard a story of two twins, one being a gymnast and one being a swimmer, the swimmer was 6 inches taller than the gymnast. Also, BODYBUILDING as a kid is bad, because of the low bodyfat thing needed for it (I'll get to the "abs" thing in a minute...) Lastly, the only other way lifting can "stunt growth" is if he breaks a bone and breaks a growth plate, but that's just as likely to happen playing soccer or football as lifting, if not significantly less likely to happen while lifting.

tl;dr, if your kid wants to lift weights, he needs to eat more, that's all.

The sixpack thing worries me, though. It's very much a modern male beauty standard. In the 50s and 60s nobody cared about six pack abs. The only option for your son to have a six pack is to be at a low bodyfat percentage. Your abs start showing "six pack" definition at around 10% bodyfat. He can do all the crunches/situps/ab machines in the world and will not have a six pack unless his bodyfat is low like that. Maybe those'll give him abdominal hypertrophy (I kinda doubt it) but will not by themselves give him a six pack. And while you're growing, you probably don't want bodyfat that low. You don't want your kid to be fat either mind you, but yeah. So I find it worrying he's like 8 and worried about a "six pack" like adults are, it shows a lot of what the media is doing. As a kid I wanted to be strong like Goku from Dragonball Z or something, I didn't give a s**t about "six packs" until like middle school when I was told it was sexy. That is worrying for me to hear.

As far as Aspergers itself, I have NVLD also, as a kid I was super obsessed with sports, not really with working out, though. Mainly from my own inadequacy. I was really bad at sports, really uncoordinated (now I know due to my NVLD mostly) so I'd like, go home, and throw a baseball in the air and hit it and go get it again, and just do this for hours a day. Basically from when I got home from school til dark on many days. Or replace it with a soccer ball, kickball, football, etc, kicking it over a tree or whatever. Pitching a baseball. I'd just practice like hell. And all this practice, despite putting almost professional amounts of time and effort into it, only got me to be competitive with the other kids at recess. Kinda sad, but oh well.

As an adult (I'm 21 now,) I've recently gotten back into athletics, after stopping as a teenager for a variety of reasons. My 2 big sports now are figure skating and Olympic style weightlifting. I'd guess they're on the "obsession" level. As an adult compared to being a kid, the playing field is more level for me and my NVLD/Aspergers, as I can use research and planning and general "smarts" to get over my lack of natural athletic ability. As a kid I had no Internet to research, so even though it was "obsession" level, I couldn't compensate in that fashion.

So I don't know what to say besides that, good luck and I hope your kid does well. BTW, maybe sign him up for gymnastics? Then he'll get super strong and athletic, and later in life he'll appreciate the female social connections he made and the learning to socialize with females, and since it's an individual sport, it's more self paced, which is important at least for me. But if he can do gymnastics, then he'll be able to do any other sport, just don't let him get too obsessed with the vanity of six pack abs, I definitely don't see that as good. Also, maybe buy him a weight set. I had one in like 4th grade my dad bought me that I'd overhead press with. Just a standard weight set, fairly cheap, unless he does something to hurt himself with it (possibly supervise him? I dunno, my dad didn't, I didn't hurt myself lifting ever when I was a kid), he'll be fine.

Awesome reply!

Spot on with growth plates, for those reading and not familiar- I think the biggest issue we were having with the weight training was the possibility of growth plate injuries, since his ligaments right now would be stronger than his growth plates, so unlike an adult with bones stronger than ligaments who would injure a ligament vs. a joint, he would injure a growth plate. But, it looks like the reading I've been doing lately is saying that indeed, the link is not there for strength training. They occur from sports as 1000knives said- but the movements and control of the conditions are very different in strength training.

The analogy you gave about gymnasts makes perfect sense to me, and we did actually give him a choice on gymnastics, but I think this year he was in the mood for something else, so he played baseball this spring instead. He didn't seem to be too into gymnastics as a possibility this fall, but he would love to do Tae-Kwon-Do. We're trying to see how we can fit it all in for him amongst Cub Scouts, and needed down time. Swimming would have been another possibility, ironically, but my wife's friend had a daughter who was on a swim team, and she was there way too much for it to be feasible for our son. Bummer, he's a fish, and I think he would do really well.

I think his first foray would be in with the usual weight-of-body resistance type things, like pushups, squats, situps, just general easy to do things that he can focus on. If he truly gets into the program, he can probably do some resistance with bands, etc, until we can figure out a system at home. There is a YMCA near my work that I go to that actually has smaller kid-sized machines that he can use, but it's not feasible through the week as it is about 120 miles form our house. I may let him try some this weekend just to see if he likes it. I would love nothing more than for him to be able to get on a path early to protect his health and fitness. His mind is open right now, and I'd love for that to happen.

We did chat about the six-pack thing, and he does now understand that a lot of things that he thought would control it, may not. For instance, one of his friends has said definition, but he doesn't do anything active at all. He doesn't eat, and he's super skinny, he's defined by default. Wish I had that problem... lol! Then, another friend plays football, basketball, runs, and enjoys a light fitness regimen- and he has nothing of the sort. He accepts that it is about fitness and health first, and if he gains that definition in a few years, that's cool too. As he said- "I just want to be healthy inside, even if it may not be obvious on the outside" so he got it last night. I think his mind was cleared up a bit.

He seems to be willing to listen better about moderation also, we only had to do 35 situps last night. I'm going to try to get him to take a day off tonight and see how that goes... I was curious how the Aspie "O" played into things like this, and it seems like the normal 'immersion' type of "O" so that's understandable and seems to be what he would be headed toward. We can live with that...

Thanks for the detailed info in your reply!

Well, machines certainly aren't like, the devil or anything, but for athletic purposes they have kinda limited use. Like, they're good for specific purposes, ie, if you need to strengthen a specific muscle for physical therapy or correcting a muscular imbalance, but doing a whole circuit of machines won't help you build much muscle or increase athletic performance. The reason why is, the machines usually only work a few muscles, and leave out the others. Like, leg press vs squat is an example of this. There's a lot of people that can leg press huge weight, ie, leg press 600lbs or something, but if they were to actually squat the weight, they'd only be able to squat like...125lbs or something, because their back and other muscles aren't able to handle the weight. So it'd be better for him to concentrate either on bodyweight exercises or compound weight exercises for this reason, as they work the body more equally than a machine would.

Oh well, good to hear all that, though, definitely good he's not taking the couch potato/video game path many people with Aspergers end up taking. Make sure he stays off that path through high school, too.

You might also consider resitance bands if you are really concerned about free weights. At least it is something.

If you are REALLY concerned about free weights, you could get him a dvd program like "insanity" no weights, it's all body weight resistance. It will get you cut if you do it and stick with it.

Yeah, we're going to do some bands if he continues on. The machines thing was sort of an "intro" for him at the Y this weekend. Since we wouldn't be there more than 2-3 times a month max, it would be just for him to try some different things. We'd be doing more bodyweight and band type things, if he chooses to go that route. If not, it's all good. He seems to enjoy his situps and pushups right now. He did 50 situps last night, and 50 situps this morning. Tonight is pushups... lol!

If we get to the free weights thing, that would be cool. I'd rather do that at home with him anyhow as he grows up...

Get him to do Olympic style weightlifting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwQTeFD0OKQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jCldLNE9ss

Have your child become a real life superhero.

For you, 1000knives

He ate it up for an hour... 5-10 lbs. plate weights depending on the exercise. He did an entire circuit, and made me run 10 laps around the track. He was like a mini drill Sargent!