Exercise & Autism, with Mark Fleming | EDB 231
Autism self-advocate and personal trainer Mark Fleming discusses the importance of exercise for the neurodivergent.
(28 minutes) Mark Fleming is a certified personal trainer. He has a Bachelor degree in Exercise Science and a Masters in Human Performance in 2017 from University of Alabama. Mark is the president and founder of Equally Fit, a personal training studio for those of all abilities. Their goal is to use functional training that not only incorporates strength and cardiovascular training but also incorporates some things within the exercise that can help improve motor planning, improve social skills, and balance.
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Introducing Mark Fleming
DR HACKIE REITMAN (HR):
Hi, I’m Dr. Hackie Reitman. Welcome to another episode of Exploring Different Brains. And today, we’re very fortunate to have Mark Fleming, where not only is an excellent personal trainer, and does so many good things, he just happens to also be on the autism spectrum. And he is our featured guest today, Mark, welcome.
MARK FLEMING (MF):
Thanks for having me on Dr. Hackie.
HR:
Well, thanks for being here. We really appreciate it. Why don’t you introduce yourself to our audience more properly?
MF:
Yeah, sure. So my name is Mark Fleming. I run and operate a personal training gym in Tampa, Florida called equally fit that works with individuals with disabilities. I have a master’s degree in exercise science. And yeah, that’s, that’s a pretty basic of background of who I am.
HR:
Well, that’s Listen, you do a lot, a lot of interesting things. Tell us about how you were diagnosed?
MF:
Yeah, sure. So originally, I was diagnosed at the age of three, which I just found out how that came about. With going through preschool. My teachers called me the R word because I couldn’t hold a pair of scissors. So like any new parent would do, they freaked out and took their child to the pediatrician. The pediatrician sat me down, and had me name things outside the window there. And so I named them one by one. He didn’t have any problem with it. Then he said, Mark, open the door. And so as I went to open the door, I was using the friction from my wrist to open the door instead of using my fingers. And so he looked at my mom’s like, there’s definitely something different about him, but he’s not anywhere stupid. And so from there, I got PDD NOLS. And I was able to get the therapies for speech, occupational and physical therapy. After a few years in each of those, I graduated out of them. And after moving to Tampa, when I was about 11 years old, due to new schools and new setting all these new things, I ended up getting re evaluated and got diagnosed with Asperger’s.
HR:
Well, you know, these diagnoses, they take a while. And I you know, personally, I think of it in terms of we all have different neuro distinct traits. Has your diagnosis helped you?
MF:
I believe so I won’t be as focused on what I do. Once I finally found my area of study in college, I actually excelled. I went from a 212 to six, and maybe a year and a half, which I was towards the end of my college career. So anybody that’s been in college, it’s very hard to get your grades up after a certain time. And then once I got into grad school, I was a D student, which I hadn’t been my entire life. And so I was able to excel academically once I paired my interest up with academics,
HR:
And what degrees did you achieve?
MF:
I have a bachelor’s in exercise science and human performance, and a master’s degree in exercise science.
HR:
And where exactly is your facility located?
MF:
We are located in Tampa, Florida.
HR:
And what is the website people can go to to find your place?
MF:
It is www.equallyfit.com
HR:
Equally Fit what a fitting name, I would say. Now, here are different brains were of the philosophy that all of our brains are different. And how do you personalize your personal training to the individual’s brain? For instance, you are you approach each person differently? Like say an autistic individual wrapping slack autism?
MF:
Yes, every individual even each individual within that narrow type. So what I like to do during my consultations is get to know that individual as much as possible. So I get to know their disability, how it affects them, what’s their learning style, everything that I can within that short 45 minute timeframe, so that when we get into a session, I’m not having to worry about sensory issues, I’m not worried about, oh, they actually have ADHD. They’re there. They’re just running around everywhere, and having to adjust on the fly. Because having autism myself having those quicksand changes can hurt me as well. So being thoroughly prepared for each and every client, depending on who exactly they are, helps not only me, but them as well.
HR:
Well, I think, would you just hit the nail on the head, you know, individualizing, this two to one now. If you’re a neuro distinct individual in our audience, and you don’t know where to start, you want to start getting into shape and beginning exercise. What advice do you have for that individual?
MF:
Just get started, take it easy. Go for for short walks, add just a little bit every single day can help quite a bit. That’s what I try to do with my clients is that, especially since a lot of them are artistic, and having those changes can be overwhelming, you know, I have to hide some of the weight changes sometimes. Because they, they’re like, Oh, my gosh, I just did a five way increase. And it’s, it’s like, Yes, you were ready for it. But in their minds, it’s like, oh, no, this is a change. So just take it nice and easy. And understand when your body needs to rest as well. A lot of people like to go go go at the beginning of an exercise regimen. But you also need rest. athletes and people like that they they’ve been doing their routines for years to where their bodies are used to recovering a lot faster. And being able to deal with those loads. If you’re just sitting around every day, your body’s not into that your brain is not accustomed to that. And even when your brain is not accustomed to that it’s going to tell you, hey, you don’t need to be doing this even if it really likes the exercise.
HR:
What do you see is yourself as the biggest challenge to an autistic individual and getting started? What is the biggest challenge?
MF:
Probably just the thought process, the knowing that, Oh, no, I have to go to the gym, which has all these people or the sounds these lights. Or, well, I don’t really want to do cross it or run marathons. And so a lot of that stuff holds even the neurotypical person back and in their their exercise journey, their fitness journey. And so you just got to understand that when it comes to all that stuff, you can work out in your home, you can work outside, you can work out anywhere that you’re most comfortable. And then like you, you determine your goals, you can, if you don’t want to run a marathon, that’s fine, you can walk everyday you can do whatever you want, that’s within your goals.
HR:
Let’s talk a little bit about from your point of view, and with your education and experience. To an autistic individual tell us the benefits of exercise.
MF:
Oh, they’re numerous. I think I had a whole exercise physiology class on benefits of exercise not directed at individuals with autism, but individuals as a whole. When you specifically talk individuals with autism, I think the best thing is, is reduction of stress. As an individual with autism, we live with a lot of stress within our lives on a daily basis, just from social anxiety to dealing with sensory issues. All that stuff my thought process is is that when you build muscle and you exercise, you create create a greater connection between the brain and the muscle. And that’s a sensory kind of thing. And for me, I don’t know if there’s any way in the future we can prove this, but I think that the brain can actually alter how it receives that communication with all the other senses as well, which can improve those sensory responses and thus reduce some of that sensory stress. It helps with sleep. it resets the circadian system within our brains to wear Hey, we’re supposed to be going asleep when it gets dark and waking up when it gets light. But we live in such a technological events, era of our society that we can stay up till we, we don’t even have to go to bed if we don’t want to. So exercise can help with that. It limits it limits stem behavior. So a lot of people may think that’s wrong. But if you sit around just stimming, all day, you’re not getting anything done, and you’re not being productive in getting along with your life, right? Because we really want individuals with autism, to not just have a healthy life, but be as productive as they can be. And if they’re stimming, because of all the stress and everything else, they’re not, they’re not improving their lives and other facets. And I think the last one is, it can help with social interaction, if you’re working out, you are focusing on working out, you know, a lot of the times when I have clients in here, with we talk a lot during it, they actually don’t realize the exercise has happened, you know, they’re just going along their day, one of the best things for me growing up was sports, because with sports, you have to communicate every little thing about where you are, where what you’re doing. And you have to be able to do it in a split second, right. And so, with sports, if your main goal is to win and be competitive, you’re focusing on on that and you’re forgetting, oh, no, I really don’t like talking, you know. And so that really, really helped me growing up, I think those are probably the four best things exercise can do for individuals with autism.
HR:
That’s great. And you know, one of the things that challenges all of us, but especially if you happen to be on the spectrum, or transitions, say from high school to college, and you’ve developed some particular regimens for people undergoing such transitions. Could you elaborate on that?
MF:
Yeah, so that was in college, we helped individuals with disabilities that were in a transition program, kind of learn how to work out so we only focused on that aspect. They took the bus to the gym, we met them at the gym, and we worked out with them, taught them the different machines and exercises, and just had a good time with them. My kid was, that was the start of when I started to kind of think about doing what I’m doing now as a profession. Because I had such a great time with the individual I had, because we were just, it was a match it right off the bat because I was big in alabama football. He was big in alabama football. So every single day, we just talked alabama football, and there were no like, nothing went wrong, you know, at all, he just did what we were doing, because we were talking about alabama football. And so it was just a great experience to be able to be a part of that program.
HR:
Well, you’ve touched on something that, you know, with our neuro distinct interns and mentees here, and that if you can find something that you love doing, you’re good at doing, or want to be good at doing. And you can make a good living doing it and help other people when you’re doing it. You hit the jackpot. It sounds like you’ve hit a jackpot to yourself.
MF:
Yeah, and it took a while though, to be honest, because I was really focused on being an athlete. And once I didn’t work I I was lost for for for a few years. Because what I keep telling people is that even if you’re interested in something, you have to find the parallel path. You know, it’s not always, oh, I’m interested in sports. So I have to play a sport. It’s, oh, I’m interested in sports. Well, guess what exercise runs right along that, right. And so I didn’t even know about exercise science and all that. until I was about to graduate, I didn’t have a degree path. I had 120 some hours I just needed all my all my friends were graduating and I wanted to get out too. So I kind of just picked the thing that I had the most credits for and being not the greatest student I had a lot of electives that included sports and that trans position to exercise science.
HR:
That is very, very interesting. What a great, what a great story. You wind up doing what you love doing? And you’re very, very fortunate? How can our audience learn more about you?
MF:
Well, you can go to the website equallyfit.com. On Facebook, you can follow me there. I’m on Instagram. But the majority of the stuff is probably going to be on the website that details, the things I do and keeps up to date with the business. And in all that fun stuff.
HR:
You’ve co authored an article in the Journal of strength and conditioning research supplements on the influence of foam rolling on vertical jump performance. Could you talk about that a little bit?
MF:
Yeah, so it was a I helped a, a doctoral candidate at that time conduct this study, it was me and three other masters level students. And pretty much what we did is we had, we had a bunch of participants come in, and we we tested their vertical jump without any modalities before. And then we did foam rolling before. And then we did dynamic stretching before. And so what we were looking at was, did foam rolling actually help performance when it came to vertical jump. And so what we found is it really didn’t, compared to everything else, but we were also mainly using people off the street, you know, other other students and stuff like that. So, but it was a really great experience and was very rewarding to kind of go through that process and be able to do the research side because that’s, that’s really fun as well.
HR:
That’s very cool. No, you were introduced to us by our mutual friend Maisie Soetantyo. How long you known Maisie?
MF:
Actually, I just met her this year to be honest, she she’s amazing. I reached out to her because she wanted to, to interview an individual that had autism that was working in the workforce, because that’s one of her passions is to help individuals with autism, get in the workforce. And so just sharing my story and whatnot, she was thrilled to have me on and and she was like, you know, like there’s these people in Florida, you need to talk to.
HR:
Tell us about the website throughtheseautisticeyes.com. Also,
MF:
Yeah, so that’s a blog I started a few years back probably four or five years ago, I haven’t kept up with it very much. But it’s just some some of my thoughts on some of the concerns within the autism community, what I think is, is going on and stuff like that. Maybe one day when the business kind of slows down a little bit more, maybe I’ll get more more to it. But I was kind of in a self discovery phase still then about who I was and how autism affected me and all that stuff. So that’s why I was writing all of that I I keep it mainly just to keep it but it’s it’s really interesting, the stuff I came up with and, and go back and read it sometimes. And it’s it’s still enlightening.
HR:
I see on your resume. You’ve had some experience, which I’d like you to talk about with our wheelchair athletes.
MF:
Yeah. So I was kind of the team manager for for a little over maybe almost a year with the men’s wheelchair basketball team at the University of Alabama. And so what I did was a lot of the grunt work, which is pretty typical for a undergrad to do. But working even doing that stuff. I got to see the incredible athleticism that a individual in a wheelchair can have, you know, like I played during our downtime. I played horse with some of them. And they’re they’re two, two and a half feet shorter. than me, using only arms and beating the dead horse, you know, there there, there was a guy that could lean on his chair balance on his chair and make shots. And I’m sitting there like, I’m like, a lot closer to the basket, and you’re beating me. You know, and, and so it’s just amazing what the body can do when you train it specifically for a certain thing. And when people believe that you can do something, you know it, they weren’t able to do that just by themselves. They had people around them, that train them that said, hey, let’s try it this way. Let’s go to the gym, let’s do all this stuff. And they were able to, I mean, I still believe Alabama has the most national championships for wheelchair basketball, which is amazing, because it’s a growing sport and everything like that. But yeah, it’s just, it’s just really amazing when you actually get to see some of those sports up close.
HR:
Can you talk a little bit about the overlap– because I know you did some work in Applied Behavior Analysis, working with autistic individuals — the overlap between behavior, behavior, modification, and exercise.
MF:
Well, a lot of stuff that I was taught and that I do now, with exercise and personal training is exactly the same, you know, you’re looking to create a positive reinforcement for an individual that is doing exercise so that they continue doing that behavior. Obviously, it’s not the same when it comes to negative behaviors and stuff like that. There’s scope of practices, you can’t cross. But there’s definitely a lot of similarities. And that’s why when I went into ABA, I was able to be very good at understanding the concepts because I already went through getting my certification as a personal trainer and going through all the school I went to try to help modify people’s behavior towards exercise.
HR:
Do you have any virtual programs? Like say one of our listeners down here in South Florida wanted you to help train their autistic 15 year old at home? Do you have anything available like that?
MF:
Yes, we do have virtual sessions that we do offer. It’s a little different than here because I have to work with whatever the individual has. But I had an individual that due to COVID had to work out at home. All he had at home were two big textbooks. And guess what? He lost 135 pounds. With two textbooks, that’s what we were able to do. So it’s definitely possible with anything and with with a competent trainer that knows how to use the environment, and what you have to work out.
HR:
Is there anything else you’d like to cover today for our audience to learn more about?
MF:
I don’t think so. I think that pretty much covers it all. I did recently start a position as a board member for the Tampa Autism-Friendly Advisory Board here in Tampa, which I thought it was just really really cool that I get to help this city become more autism friendly and provide insight on a a regular basis. You know that I’m earshot away from the mayor of Tampa, you know, and that that she approved me to be on this board is is ridiculous, in my opinion, because I don’t consider myself all that. Big, you know?
HR:
Well, you are because you you are that big, because you are looking at things on an individual basis, which is what, what it takes he can it’s not one size fits all in this world. You’re doing it I salute you. Thank you. Sometimes people like yourself, don’t realize the great resource you are because there are not a lot of you that I know. Do you know have a lot of colleagues who offer the same expertise around the country that as you do in this arena with those of us whose brains are a little bit different.
MF:
There are a couple out there and they’re kind of doing their own thing. I’ve reached out to the big ones and learn from them and, and took what I thought it would work for me and in my thought processes. But we’re all different, we all do things a little differently. And Autism is kind of different in, in a lot of different areas. So even though there are a few, there’s probably no one out there that is like me, I know, there’s only one individual that just started recently because someone sent me an article about you got competition is that a lady somewhere up north, decided she was going to open a gym, and she has autism. So but there’s, there’s it’s few and far between. I know, some individuals that are p teachers that have reached out I know, some that work with athletes, but not many want to get in this field, working with special needs. Because they’re the thought process is what my thought process is when I first started thinking about it, there, there’s it’s very hard to make a living, you know, and, and it came down to the point where it didn’t matter to me whether I was going to make this lavish living or not, I enjoyed it. And I am helping people. You know, I’m helping people just like me, they’re not going to make the same mistakes I did. Because being in in my gym, I’m not just their personal trainer, you know, I’m telling them my life story, I’m helping them with their, their issues. I’m helping parents understand their kids. I’m doing all these other things that a normal personal trainer may not completely be able to do.
HR:
Mark, what is one thing you think that people don’t think about when it comes to autism, and physical training?
MF:
That we are capable that we can do what we want to when it comes to working out. A lot of times when it comes to PT and OT, there comes goals that we complete. And then exercise and training stop. Because it’s Oh, they accomplish this goal? Well, in reality, they need to continue those skills just like any other skill you’re learning, or else you’re gonna lose it. And so you got to understand that they can do it and that it is possible for them to be active their entire lives.
HR:
Well, Mark Fleming it’s been such a pleasure having you here. We will hope you’ll come back again with us. Thank you so much for being with us today here at Different Brains.
MF:
Thank you so much for having me.
