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Athletics, Sports

ChrisTX1968

ChrisTX1968

New Member
Hi all, new member, I am 55. With a late diagnosis, I am trying to unpack a lot of years of life! My experience with sports is a mixed bag - I always had a niche and did well in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and lacrosse. In each sport I did certain things well, and others not at all. I could rebound in basketball and score inside, but other aspects of the game seemed invisible to me. Teammates were invisible. I felt like a robot who did his tasks, and when home. I did hype focus each time to started a new sport, with a significant amount of time practicing on my own. Over the last two months I have worked on my baseball swing in the back yard, while purchasing a collection of different wood bats, and measuring the diameter of each bat every 1", so I could compare them side by side in Excel. I feel like saying "no joke, I did this", but I don't have to here. :)
 
I would not consider my self an "Athlete", but i usually go for a long walk once every week.
I stay away from sodas now too.
 
I used to like sports a lot but now am down to just walking. But when I did I steered more towards individual sports like surfing, swimming, hiking and climbing, etc. I did do the team stuff to be social and it was fun at times and good for keeping things interesting but the individual stuff was my mainstay.
 
The only sports I've ever done as a team was swimming. I was on a swim team in high school for about 3 months and later quit. I performed very well, but in spite of that, I always felt like I was just another cog in the machine. I never understood the point of doing this and my teammates never were very encouraging to me at all, even when we were winning.
 
FreeDiver said:
I performed very well, but in spite of that, I always felt like I was just another cog in the machine.
Click to expand...
That resonates with me...in basketball my best play was always the 1st quarter, maybe some of the 2nd...after that loss of focus, loss of connection with the team, loss of just the purpose of it.
 
ChrisTX1968 said:
Hi all, new member, I am 55. With a late diagnosis, I am trying to unpack a lot of years of life! My experience with sports is a mixed bag - I always had a niche and did well in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and lacrosse. In each sport I did certain things well, and others not at all. I could rebound in basketball and score inside, but other aspects of the game seemed invisible to me. Teammates were invisible. I felt like a robot who did his tasks, and when home. I did hype focus each time to started a new sport, with a significant amount of time practicing on my own. Over the last two months I have worked on my baseball swing in the back yard, while purchasing a collection of different wood bats, and measuring the diameter of each bat every 1", so I could compare them side by side in Excel. I feel like saying "no joke, I did this", but I don't have to here. :)
Click to expand...
You sound like my nephew. Athletic Aspie. he is a great hockey player, university grad, science.
 
Team sports are my bane. Not only was I picked last for the teams in gym class, but there was another aspie in the lineup sometimes and he would always get picked just before me. I suppose the social comm. issue makes us poor at team players even if we are athletic otherwise. Awhile ago someone told me about a cognitive testing app. When I tested myself, my hand-eye-coordination score was 8-out-of-800. I almost couldn't believe it was that bad, so I did another test involving bouncing a ball against the wall and counting repetitions completed in 30 seconds. I couldn't even complete the test at any speed.

However, since I have remained very light throughout my life, a have done OK with running. I also am OK with sports requiring average coordination, biking, skiing and water skiing.

Welcome to the forums. You are lucky to have played team sports. Did you find it easier to make friends though team sports than through other activities?
 
I hear you about getting into the technical side of things. I'm an absolute amateur at walks and runs but I have an unusual familiarity with shoes and racing, and I also track my mileage on each pair of shoe.
 
I enjoy physical exercise such as cycling or swimming, things I can do by myself, but not team sports. I was never particularly good at sports and this is common for people on the spectrum, but there are also those who are good at them and get great pleasure out of them.
 
I used to play soccer. Like you. I did certain things well, others not at all. I was a goalkeeper for some time because I had no fear to jump in front of things and to collide with other players. But I was a somewhat beter defender. They usually passed me. But since I can run extremely quickly I always catched up again and could kick the ball away from the player before they could score. But shooting and ball control were not my thing.
Same with baseball/softball. I could hit the ball very hard and get homeruns. But I could not throw if my life depended on it.
Always liked powerlifting aswell, but never done it seriously.

I`m a natural born sprinter, and medium short distances I do pretty well also. But I don`t like running. So there's that problem.
 
I was captain of the soccer team in high school, and I have always been very good at most sports (but not basketball or baseball.)
I have played club soccer too, when I was a bit younger.
I always wanted to play rugby but never went to a school that had a team.

Now I mostly hike, walk and occasionally run, since I don’t have the time or really any opportunity to play organized sports.

I’m not good at swimming at all though, I actually can’t swim because I don’t seem to have the upper body strength. Some injuries and medical problems have not helped with that.
 
It was rather late in life that I realized that team sports are about learning to work in groups. My sport is bicycling, because it rewards clear thinking very well, and has enormous practical advantages too. I've only ever raced the clock, never drafting another competitor.
 
kenaij said:
I used to play soccer. Like you. I did certain things well, others not at all. I was a goalkeeper for some time because I had no fear to jump in front of things and to collide with other players. But I was a somewhat beter defender. They usually passed me. But since I can run extremely quickly I always catched up again and could kick the ball away from the player before they could score. But shooting and ball control were not my thing.
Same with baseball/softball. I could hit the ball very hard and get homeruns. But I could not throw if my life depended on it.
Always liked powerlifting aswell, but never done it seriously.

I`m a natural born sprinter, and medium short distances I do pretty well also. But I don`t like running. So there's that problem.
Click to expand...
I had a big bat and like you could hit them hard and long. As fast as my bat speed was, I could not throw over like 60 mph. I ended up at first base due to fielding limitations.
 
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