Podcasts about autism fitness

This episode goes beyond fitness, it's about cultivating flexibility, enhancing communication, and showing up fully in life when the world hasn't always made room for you to succeed. Dr. Graham Taylor sits down with Eric Chessen, founder of Autism Fitness and a trailblazer in adaptive fitness programming for individuals on the autism spectrum. With more than 20 years of experience supporting neurodiverse athletes, Eric created the PAC Profile—a distinctive framework that integrates physical, adaptive, and cognitive assessments to design truly meaningful fitness programs. Eric's work uniquely bridges exercise science and behavioral strategies, providing parents, educators, and professionals with practical tools to help individuals with autism develop strength, confidence, and greater independence. Through his comprehensive training and certification programs, Eric has empowered hundreds of professionals worldwide to make fitness accessible, effective, and impactful for this community. Join us as we explore the origins of Autism Fitness, Eric's innovative approach to merging physical fitness with behavioral learning, and the profound role adaptive fitness plays in enhancing independence and quality of life.   For more information about Autism Fitness and Eric Chessen, please visit: https://www.autismfitness.com For more information about Autism Fitness Pro Certification, please visit: https://www.autismfitness.com/Level1 For more information about Inclusive Fitness, please visit: https://inclusivefitness.com Connect with Autism Fitness on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/theautismfitness/ Connect with Autism Fitness on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/TheAutismFitness

In this episode, we sit down with Eric Chessen, founder of Autism Fitness. Eric explains the crucial role of fitness for individuals on the autism spectrum. We talk about common fitness misconceptions why fitness should be a fundamental aspect of health and well-being for autistic individuals. IG: @TheAutismFitness

In our latest episode of the Six Weeks to Fitness podcast, I had the honor of welcoming back a truly inspiring guest — Ed Richardson, certified personal trainer, entrepreneur, inventor, and founder of Jan Jo Fitness. Ed's personal story is powerful enough — losing 50 pounds at age 50 and reclaiming his own health. But today, Ed's impact stretches far beyond fitness transformations. For the past several years, he's dedicated a major part of his work to helping children on the autism spectrum, and what he shared during our conversation was nothing short of remarkable. Ed never set out to work with autistic children. In fact, the opportunity came unexpectedly when a colleague relocated and recommended Ed to step in. What began as a favor turned into a calling. Today, Ed trains boys and girls ranging from five to seventeen years old, tailoring fitness programs to their unique needs, abilities, and personalities. But as Ed explained, training these children is about so much more than exercise. It's about patience, trust, love, and connection. Every child he meets teaches him something new — about resilience, about courage, and about the power of genuine human care. He shared touching stories of breakthrough moments — like the young boy who couldn't even do a single push-up when they started. After months of consistent, patient work, that same boy surprised Ed by not only mastering the push-up but even doing clapping push-ups! Ed described moments like these as ones that truly bring tears to his eyes — moments of pride, not just for the kids, but for their families and for himself. Training children on the spectrum isn't without its challenges. Ed emphasized that every session requires adaptability — adjusting workouts on the spot depending on the child's mood, energy level, and emotional state. And not every match is perfect. Sometimes, Ed knows when it's time to step back and let a more specialized trainer step in — always keeping the child's best interests at heart. Perhaps the most important takeaway from our talk was this: you have to love this work. Children, especially those on the spectrum, can sense your energy and intention. If your heart isn't in it, they'll know. For Ed, it's not about the money — it's about making a real difference. As someone who has spent decades promoting health and fitness for children and families, hearing Ed's passion and commitment reminded me why we do what we do. It's about changing lives — one push-up, one smile, one connection at a time. If you missed this episode, I encourage you to tune in. It's a heartfelt reminder that when love leads the way, anything is possible. Stay fit, stay focused, and keep moving!

Gary is a part time Fitness Trainer that works with Autistic people. Gary being an Autism parent seeing results with sensory and exercise together has learned how to design simple programs that work.Tik Tok simplefitnessautism YouTube simplefitnessautism Instagram simplefitnessautism Facebook simplefitnessautism Cody's content: https://linktr.ee/cjones803 #podcast #purewisdompodcast #personalgrowth #motivation #mindset #facingfears #selfidentity #inspiration #selfimprovement #psychology #entrepreneurship #fitness #fitnessmotivation #business #career #dating #relationships #lifecoach #healthandwellness #workout #coaching Disclaimer: Any information discussed in this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and is not intended to act as a substitute for professional, medical, legal, educational, or financial advice. The following views and opinions are those of the individual and are not representative views or opinions of their company or organization. The views and opinions shared are intended only to inform, and discretion and professional assistance should be utilized when attempting any of the ideas discussed. Pure Wisdom Podcast, LLC, its host, its guest, or any company participating in advertising through this podcast is not responsible for comments generated by viewers which may be offensive or otherwise distasteful. Any content or conversation in this podcast is completely original and not inspired by any other platform or content creator. Any resemblance to another platform or content creator is purely coincidental and unintentional. No content or topics discussed in this podcast are intended to be offensive or hurtful. Pure Wisdom Podcast, LLC, its host, its guest, or any company participating in advertising through this podcast is not responsible for any misuse of this content.

Eric Chessen, founder of Autism Fitness, shares his journey to create effective fitness programs for neurodivergent individuals. He emphasizes the importance of understanding their unique needs and challenges as well as the role of fitness as a life skill. He states, “It's not just for sports or body composition. A lot of our focus is to support activities in daily living.” Eric also discusses the need to raise the standard of practice in the fitness industry to better serve the autism community.   For show notes, transcription, and to watch the video interview, visit www.allautismtalk.com.   All Autism Talk is sponsored by LEARN Behavioral (www.learnbehavioral.com)

As a mom of two sons on the Autism Spectrum, Maria has always been a strong advocate for resources that enhance the lives of Autistic individuals, especially resources that contribute to their physical well being. In this episode, Maria goes into a deep dive with Eric Chessen, Personal Trainer and Founder of Autism Fitness. Eric assesses physical, adaptive, and cognitive skills do develop truly meaningful, effective fitness and adapted programs for neurodiverse populations. Fitness is a life skill. Prioritizing exercise can build skills that enhance independence and quality of life. If you are someone you love is on the spectrum or as Eric would say “map,” this episode is a must listen from start to finish! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As a mom of two sons on the Autism Spectrum, Maria has always been a strong advocate for resources that enhance the lives of Autistic individuals, especially resources that contribute to their physical well being. In this episode, Maria goes into a deep dive with Eric Chessen, Personal Trainer and Founder of Autism Fitness. Eric assesses physical, adaptive, and cognitive skills do develop truly meaningful, effective fitness and adapted programs for neurodiverse populations. Fitness is a life skill. Prioritizing exercise can build skills that enhance independence and quality of life. If you are someone you love is on the spectrum or as Eric would say “map,” this episode is a must listen from start to finish! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join me, Dr. Mike T. Nelson, on the Flex Diet Podcast as I connect with Eric Chessen to delve into fitness for autism and neurodivergent populations. Eric shares insights on his certification program for trainers working with these communities. From discussing gym trends to understanding autism spectrum challenges, listeners will gain practical advice. Topics also include sensory-motor processing, effective coaching strategies, and the impact of neuromuscular control. Stay tuned for a rich conversation touching on the essence of adaptability in fitness.Sponsors:Tecton Life Ketone drink! https://tectonlife.com/ DRMIKE to save 20%Dr. Mike's Fitness Insider Newsletter: Sign up for free at https://miketnelson.com/.Episode Chapters:00:28 Discussion on Autism and Neurodivergent Populations00:50 Personal Anecdotes and Experiences01:32 Gym Trends and Training Observations02:23 Exploring Ketone Esters and Their Benefits04:22 Travel Woes and Flight Experiences06:42 Fitness for Neurodivergent Populations09:51 The Evolution of T Nation and Fitness Information22:06 Gym Etiquette and Social Dynamics29:37 Understanding the Autism Spectrum37:49 Understanding Neurodivergent Awareness and Change39:11 The Role of Society and Caretakers40:45 Challenges in Hygiene and Social Interactions42:20 Physical and Cognitive Training for Neurodivergent Individuals43:48 Developing Effective Training Methodologies45:36 Building Meaning and Motivation in Training47:45 The Importance of Simplified Coaching50:41 Exploring Sensory Processing and Motor Control01:11:56 The Complexity of Autism Diagnosis and Rates01:15:49 Conclusion and Certification Information Flex Diet Podcast Episodes You May Enjoy:Episode 199: The Neurology of Movement, Exercise and Training – An Interview Coach Dan Fichter of WannaGetFastEEpisode 285: Integrating Performance and Health with Expert Austin StoutConnect with EricWebsite: https://www.autismfitness.com/HomeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/theautismfitness/Get In Touch with Dr Mike:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drmiketnelson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn1aTbQqHglfNrENPm0GTpgEmail: https://miketnelson.com/contact-us/

Please welcome today's interview guest Autism Fitness Founder, Eric Chessen. Over the last two decades Eric has developed the autism and neuroadaptive fitness community because 20 years ago, Eric found nothing of meaning to serve this population. Globally, Autism Fitness offers education to trainers, therapists, parents, and teachers to help their loved ones develop fitness as a means to a better quality of life. Eric answers questions that shed light on the physical, cognitive, and social barriers to purposeful, outcomes-focused, and meaningful fitness programs the neurodivergent community navigates. Even beyond advocating for the neurodivergent population- Eric offers so much value on how to coach with the individual's human needs and specific learning capabilities as the top priority. Learn more about the World's Leading Certification for Autism and Neuroadaptive Fitness certification HERESAVE $75 on the Autism Fitness Certification!!Use code: Without LimitsFind Eric on Instagram@theautismfitnessLearn about physical therapy services at Reload hereLearn about fitness services at Reload here@reload.pt@malloryreilly_otDiggin' the intro/outro jam? Check out my friend, Joe Spinelli on SoundCloud! 

In this special episode James talks with his friend Tom Payne. Tom is one of the most dedicated, passionate, optimistic and inspiring people you'll ever meet, there just isn't enough room on Earth to fit his big heart. He wears many hats as fitness coach, personal trainer, martial artist, and DJ/rapper. He is a student of learning. He is continuously training - not just for himself, but to work towards earning certifications to ensure he is the best teacher and coach to his students. One of his true passions as health coach and educator is working with the special needs community, especially the autistic community. He has also earned his Level 1 Certified Professional certificate from Autism Fitness to better serve his special needs clients. Unfortunately Toms business location was affected by a tragic fire in Floral Park, NY on Monday, April 17. Just months before the fire, Tom was so proud to show off the recent expansion and upgrades to his gym. Within hours of the devastating fire, all Tom could think about was how disappointed his special needs students would be because they wouldn't have a place to train. And within just a couple of days, another local gym owner has generously lent Tom some space so he can continue training these students. Please join me in supporting Tom by donating and/or helping share this fundraiser so we can help Tom rebuild the House of Payne.

On this Podcast Episode we have a fantastic speaker in Eric Chessen. Our Speaker talks about what got him started with his career in Autism Fitness and how it eventually grew one-on-one with his clients. He goes into details how he figured out a coaching style that was suited for the autism and neuro adaptive population and how planning out every workout session first with his clients is a great way to prepare. He also talks about the advantages of doing workout repetitively and points out key reasons for its benefits. He explains the structure this workout creates and explains the fundamental goal of general fitness and conditioning programs. He goes and talks about the challenges he faced throughout his career and also the rewarding side of it all. He finishes the episode on how he eventually created the certification for autism fitness and caps off the episode with some advice for coaches that are looking into this side of the career path of the fitness world.   5:04 - 6:14 Eric Chessen talks about how he started working Autism Fitness   6:55 - 7:57 Opens up about himself adjusting to his new career path   8:51 - 9:45 Erick Chessen talks about how he wants to grow in this career path   11:24 - 12:53 How he figured out coaching for the autism neuro adaptive population   20:16 - 21:30 How he plans out every workout session with his clients   22:06 - 22:25 Eric Chessen talks about the advantages of doing a workout over and over again and how it benefits his clients   23:31 - 24:25 3 key points on doing repeating workouts   24:52 - 25:51 He then proceeds talks about what structure this workout creates and talks about the fundamental goal of general fitness and conditioning program   27:46 - 28:55 Eric on the challenges in communication with his clients and how he works around it   32:22 - 33:22 The most rewarding thing he gets from his clients   46:41 - 48:04 Eric shares his experience on how he got to his certification about autism fitness   57:45 - 58:34 Eric talks about how he handles some tough challenges with his clients   1:03:36 - 1:03:51 Advices to coaches that are interested in this field of fitness 1:05:20 - 1:05:58 What is Empathetic Coaching?

Show Notes:About EricYour program on paper needs to apply to the person/population standing in front of youBuild rapport and set expectations firstAlways give choices - which one do YOU want to do? Have to - sucks.The PAC Profile: Physical, Adaptive, CognitiveWhere do coaches struggle the most when working with people with neurodevelopmental disorders - Answer? OVERCOACHINGLabel, Demonstrate, Do and CueAccess and advocates Milestones to work towards - motor control through a full range of motion especially in the eccentric, baseline strength, being comfortable in the environment, and language development around needsBehavior Specific Praise - don't just say good job or you're awesome…. be specific with your praise! Have a hierarchy of priorities for meeting people where they're atHow did you come up with your Autism Fitness Certification?Get in Touch with Eric:Inclusive Fitness WebsiteAutism Fitness Website@theautismfitnessWhere you can find us next:Upcoming Level 2 CFSC events - Chicago - Reading, PA - Colorado Springs - Edmonton Canada - Boston @ MBSC - Wyckoff, NJ - Plano, TXPerform Better Summits - Providence August 26th - 28th Contact UsWebsite: http://movement-as-medicine.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/MovementAsMedicine/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/MovementAsMedicine

Jimmy Clare (@jimmyclarespeaker) is an personal trainer with autism who shares his story of overcoming labels, expectations and adversity to go after the life he wants instead of what others thought he'd achieve.   You can find out more about Jimmy over at crazyfitnessguy.com     Get your 2-month free trial of my Inner Circle here https://bit.ly/InnerCircle2MTrial   Join the FREE Facebook group for The Michael Brian Show at https://www.facebook.com/groups/themichaelbrianshow   Follow Mike on Facebook Instagram & Twitter

This episode features a conversation with Eric Chessen.  Eric created Autism Fitness, which is an educational company that teaches anyone working with the autistic community how to communicate, manage, train or teach the autistic population.   Eric also makes training equipment through his second company, Stronger Than U.  His main goal is to make more compact, yet super efficient equipment (made in the USA) that has multiple purposes while making storage a breeze.     Eric has been in the fitness industry for quite some time and has a lot of great knowledge to share, not to mention some awesome outlooks on communication, business, history, and the media.  Tune into this conversation with Eric Chessen! Eric Chessen InfoStronger Than U equipmentStronger Than U instagram pageAutism Fitness websiteCoach U's InformationCoach U PodcastGolf Mobility AcademyBrand UCatch me on InstagramFree Content on YouTube!

I have a unique interview today with Eric Chessen. It's kind of crazy that I did BJJ with Eric over 20 years ago, lost touch, and here he is on my podcast! A lot has happened to both of us in those 20 years.  I'm excited to bring this interview to you today because of Eric's unique perspective.  We discussed his experience doing a Tedx talk - everything from how it came about to lessons learned.  Eric also has a really unique and specialized niche, Autism Fitness. Don't tune out if you're not interested in working with this population. One of the best ways to learn is from people who are doing different things, as many of the lessons transfer over.  Finally, Eric has patented two types of gym equipment and he shares his experience in the fitness equipment manufacturing industry. Cool stuff! The most important thing I want you to get out of it is how much of Eric's success wasn't planned out. He simply worked hard and took advantage of opportunities as they came along. For example, he started his own certification but not until he has years of experience under his belt! Enjoy the show and as always, thanks for tuning in! By the way, be sure to connect with me on Instagram! Listen and grow! Billy  Here are some important links. Fitness Profits AutismFitness.com StrongerThanU.com Eric's Tedx talk Contact Billy directly about possibly doing coaching with him, visit https://yourfitnessmoneycoach.com/coaching-with-me/ and fill out the form. Listen/Subscribe to the show here: My podcast page Your Fitness Money Coach Itunes Stitcher Spotify IHeart Google You can also search for the Your Fitness Money Coach podcast on major podcast apps.

Eric Chessen has spent nearly two decades developing successful fitness and adapted PE programs for the autism and special needs populations. An exercise physiologist with an educational and clinical background in Applied Behavior Analysis, Eric created Autism Fitness first as his private practice with 1-to-1 and small group programs, building a dedicated team to evolve the company into the educational and certification leader in the industry. Eric has spent 17+ years as a consultant and fitness program director for Johns Hopkins Medical Institute, and his programs have been featured on Yahoo News, VICE Media, and he's recently presented at TEDx. Sponsor: https://mygosite.com/ Academy: https://clicksandbricksacademy.com/ Contact Eric: Website URL: https://autismfitness.com/about Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theautismfitness/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/autism-fitness/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheAutismFitness --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/clicksandbricks/support (https://anchor.fm/clicksandbricks/support) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eric Chessen has spent nearly two decades developing successful fitness and adapted PE programs for the autism and special needs populations. An exercise physiologist with an educational and clinical background in Applied Behavior Analysis, Eric created Autism Fitness first as his private practice with 1-to-1 and small group programs, building a dedicated team to evolve the company into the educational and certification leader in the industry. Eric has spent 17+ years as a consultant and fitness program director for Johns Hopkins Medical Institute, and his programs have been featured on Yahoo News, VICE Media, and he's recently presented at TEDx. Sponsor: https://mygosite.com/ Academy: https://clicksandbricksacademy.com/ Contact Eric: Website URL: https://autismfitness.com/about Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theautismfitness/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/autism-fitness/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheAutismFitness --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/clicksandbricks/support (https://anchor.fm/clicksandbricks/support) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With over 20 years of experience in the exercise science field, today's guest, Eric Chessen, Founder of Autism Fitness, merged his passion for helping adolescents, teens & adults with autism become more fit as well as develop life skills. Eric has an incredible 3 prong approach that includes: (PAC) Physical, Adaptive & Cognitive. In this interview, he will explain why all 3 are crucial in seeing progress in his clients. His understanding of all 3 prongs and how each client is different in these areas truly sets Eric apart. This interview is full of tips and strategies that he has developed. For example, we are all motivated differently when it comes to fitness, those on the Autism spectrum each have to be motivated in their own way so they understand why they are doing what they are doing. Tune in to this extraordinary interview. Please subscribe to The Autism Fitness on YouTube as well as follow Eric on FB and Instagram @TheAutismFitness. https://www.youtube.com/c/TheAutismfitness https://www.facebook.com/TheAutismFitness https://www.instagram.com/theautismfitness/ For more information from Eric, please visit is website www.AutismFitness.com Thank you for listening to another episode of the Perky Collar Radio Show. Warmest Regards, David M. Frankel Perky Collar Inventor, Perky, LLC Founder, Perky Collar Radio Show Host, Commercial Real Estate Broker & Business Broker www.PerkyLLC.com, www.BBOTC.net Feel free to join my Entrepreneur Group on Facebook www.Facebook.com/Groups/CharlotteEntrepreneurThinkTank Feel free to learn more about The Fenx and join fellow successful Entrepreneurs https://entrepreneurs-maclackey.thrivecart.com/the-fenx-monthly/?ref=cettsupport Feel free to connect with me on Linkedin www.Linkedin.com/in/DavidMFrankel --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/perkycollaradioshow/support

Welcome back to another awesome episode here at the whisk(e)y hole; we are welcoming another guest of honor tonight, the one and only: Jimmy Clare from CrazyFitnessGuy. Jimmy and Hermes chop it about personal struggles, bullying, autism, fitness, and how we all mange our lives in today's day and age. Enjoy!.If you liked this, and want to hear more, give us a follow and let us know! Or maybe you just want to tell us how awful we are? Comments help the algorithm, and we love to see ‘em! And as always, don't kill the messenger. .Connect with Jimmy Clare:Website - https://www.crazyfitnessguy.comYouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCURaLOhfWMPDiWjmlhowWNwInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/crazyfitnessguy/Twitter - https://twitter.com/CrazyFitnessGuy.~Beloved Sponsors~Rogue Ales & Spirits - https://www.rogue.com/ Exotic Fridge - https://www.instagram.com/exoticfridge .Join our DISCORD server!! https://discord.gg/z7Nbk2Fkv9 .Whiskey Fund (help support our podcast habit!):PayPal - hermesauslander@gmail.com  Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/hermesauslander . If you're interested in some of the stuff we use or maybe just some of the specific items discussed during the episode: check out these links. Full disclosure, we do get a monetary kickback from some of them. We seriously just want to keep doing this forever, and links like this make it possible. Thanks for your support!.Affiliate Links https://linktr.ee/equiplinks .Connect with Hermes:https://www.instagram.com/hermes_auslander/ .Connect with Morpheus:https://www.instagram.com/gamespainter723/ Support the show

Today we have episode number two with Eric Chessen. Eric is on a mission helping kids with Autism he has extensive work with individuals with developmental disabilities with specific focus on young individuals (4-21) with autism spectrum disorder. Particular emphasis on program and curriculum instruction and implementation of adaptive fitness programs as well as staff training. Innovative problem-solving techniques. Strong abilities in group settings. *Episode Highlights* *Ari* [00:07:13] And yet you've managed to produce enough results that you've now had 400 other plus people want to learn and create, as you know, learn your system and create that kind of effect in their communities and society. *Eric* [00:14:56] Yeah. You know, like anything else right now, it's a challenge. And there are certain aspects of it that that that we can that we can speak to or that we can we can take action on. So with our our certified pros who go through our our level one course. And they were I'm proud of the fact that we've been told our level one exam is one of the hardest, if not the hardest exam that they've ever taken in a in any type of certification course. And we also offer ongoing training and education for everyone who's gone through our our level one course as well, too. *Ari* [00:18:17] Right. And so what would be your approach? Because, you know, I believe that the issues with the differences in our communities of medical practitioners is one of language, of understanding. And if we can understand each other, we can collaborate more to get better results. So what would be your approach? *Eric* [00:24:17] Would you want everybody else coming and it's almost like the educated consumer. Hey, if someone has if a reputable car dealer has someone coming in who already knows all about that car, part of their job. *Ari* [00:38:39] Why aren't we taking. Why aren't you. I'll challenge you. Why are you not taking this to a set of geeks in a lab in white coats who only do you only do testing and love it. And yet what you're doing to have provable scientifically, not just clinical or anecdotal, but scientifically provable results? *Eric* [00:39:10] Well, we are we are doing that as well. We have won one of our loved one graduates who wrote a thesis paper on implementing the pack profile. We have some more interesting research that's going to be conducted in the next in the next year at Yale. So there will inevitably be cited scientific data or rigorous scientific study using a methodology, using a methodology that coincides with a paper that will wind up in a journal *Resources and Links* * *https://autismfitness.com/* * *https://www.facebook.com/eric.chessen* * *https://CreateANewTomorrow.com* * *https://www.facebook.com/arigronich* *Full Transcription* *Ari* [00:00:01] Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results. We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians, Paralympians, A-list actors and Fortune 1000 companies. If I did not get results, they did not get results. I realized that while powerful people who controlled the system want to keep the status quo. If I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are. Join me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as a chat with industry experts. Elite athletes thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. *Ari* [00:00:50] I'm Ari Gronich and this is. Create a new tomorrow podcast. *Ari* [00:01:00] Welcome back to the Create a new tomorrow show with our Gronich, the performance therapist. Today I have with me Eric Chessen, the founder of Autism Fitness. He is an exercise physiologist with an extensive background in applied behavior analysis. Eric's been working with the ASD population of all ages and abilities for nearly 20 years. *Ari* [00:01:24] He's produced some training for other fitness professionals to be able to do the same and actually has over four hundred people that he is trained to work with that population. Eric, welcome. *Eric* [00:01:38] Thank you. Are you happy to be here? Thanks for having me on. *Ari* [00:01:41] Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about your background. How does applied behavior analysis and autism go together and autism fitness go together? What what is what is that about? *Eric* [00:01:55] Yeah. So my background originally was as a personal trainer, working with general population, and I had an opportunity to start working with the autism population via a classmate that I had in graduate school. I was studying principles of human behavior and behavior analysis. So when I started working in the program and and getting what we would call dual training, continuing my education and fitness and exercise science, getting trained in the principles and practices of applied behavior analysis, I realized that there was this chasm, this big gap between disciplines. And over the course of a few years, I started taking on on the role of of being the bridge. I really look at it as being the educational bridge between the fitness world and the best that we have to offer and the best information that we have in on the fitness side and the autism population, meaning all of those people, family members, professionals, therapists associated with caring for and providing interventions for an education for the autism population. So, you know, in doing that and having created a methodology to pack profile, which is physical, adaptive and and cognitive. The reason that our program works and it works in a variety of different ways, but the reason it has been successful and has been externally validated by so many people is because it's based in sound principles from different fields of practice that are all related to the autism population. So what we did was we made strategies and and concepts that already had efficacy and we put them together in a system and then went about proving that the system works. And what's nice is I don't really have to prove that the system works anymore. Now I get to teach people how to incorporate and implement the system. *Ari* [00:04:04] Nice. Very nice. It sounds like you've done a lot of integration of different modalities from different professions within the medical world. Right *Eric* [00:04:14] So, yeah. *Eric* [00:04:16] And that's what I love to I love seeing similarities. Or you see a concept or you see a premise that works in one field of study or one area of life. And you see that, you see it work elsewhere. And when one of the things that we talk about in our program is what I refer to as Bonzai coaching, where we are taking away not only distraction, but we're taking away any excess that we don't need in the program. And I like the analogy because its one to give someone a visual, but it's also a way that we can ground ourselves both in programing and I think psycho psychologically, emotionally in what is the most important thing to do right now. Instead of trying to do everything, we want to focus on one or two really important things. And it's all about creating a hierarchy. And whenever I see something and again, in one field of practice or one, you know, you take something from engineering and you can apply it to it, to the study of nature or biology or chemistry. I love finding synchronicity three things, because that's how you have a concept or a premise that is transcendent. You know, it can be carried over from one space to another. Which again, is another reason why our system is work so well because we can speak the languages of all these different therapists and professionals. You know, we can speak to an occupational therapist knowing their world the same. We can teach it the same way we can speak to. Therapist or parent or or a speech pathologist, etcetera. *Ari* [00:06:05] Yeah, that to me. You're speaking my language, so to speak, because I always am telling people that if we're going to integrate our care and get the results that we want to get within the systems that we're creating, we have to learn how to speak the language of other modalities. We have to learn what they speak like, because in a lot of cases, a doctor does not speak the same language as a chiropractor who does not the same language as a massage therapist, who does not speak the same language as a personal trainer, etcetera. And the problem that I've seen within integration and integrating care is that if they don't speak the same language or they don't even know how to collaboratively speak that language, then you get the results that we really want and results. *Ari* [00:06:56] To me, I'm the performance therapist. That is the thing that I had to do. And in your case, you're working with an autistic population there. There are probably, at least at the beginning, wasn't a lot of expectation of results. *Eric* [00:07:13] Sure. *Ari* [00:07:13] And yet you've managed to produce enough results that you've now had 400 other plus people want to learn and create, as you know, learn your system and create that kind of effect in their communities and society. *Ari* [00:07:30] So, you know, part of this is about building a movement, creating a movement that is results based so that we can make our society a better place to live. *Ari* [00:07:45] And where where have you found both the the flaws, the obstacles, as well as the benefits in creating this movement that you've created? *Eric* [00:08:02] That the flaws in terms of flaws. I think the general. Misunderstanding and misappropriation of what fitness actually is. And I think that's systemic throughout. You look at the US, for example, in terms of the fitness industry and you get this. Tremendous gradient scale of practitioner quality, and that might be true of other fields. I don't know. I mean, I don't I don't know in in the medical community, for example, if we're talking about a general practitioner. I don't know what the span is from the least competent to the most competent and everything in between. But I'm sure for for you as well. And knowing the fitness industry, it's for that it's unregulated and there's no actual fitness trainer license in in the US. And you get the the easy almost the cheap way to go is to know is to invoke the social media clause and say, well, look what goes on on Instagram with fitness influence or look what goes on on YouTube. And I think the major issue is that we don't really have a filter for it because at the same time, the same argument that can be made for for licensing and for having structure. The the devil's advocate or the the argument against that would be I'm I know and I'm fortunate enough to be friends and colleagues with some of the most capable, competent, really remarkable fitness professionals in in the world who had their original certification. And after that, they said, screw it. I don't I don't need it. I'm just going to train and study and be mentored by people who really know what they're doing. I think for the average person or the general population, it is difficult to distinguish or to filter out good programing from good marketing or something that makes sense for someone with respect to an exercise protocol or not, because the majority of people who contact me or who have contacted me in the past about autism, fitness. If if they have at all try to fitness program for their son or daughter or if it's in a school, it has something to do with, you know, using a treadmill or or yoga. And you have to ask, you know, obviously, if if you really want to get into what's going on, you have to ask more questions. But I think that there is not enough understanding of what fitness is and what programing can look like and what what outcome measures should should be in place as well. So I think a general. Miss misconception or misappropriation of fitness? And also the industry as a whole. And when people ask me about Homebase, you know, should I just go get a fitness DVD or should I look up this program on YouTube? I say, well, I wouldn't get a home dentistry kit. I'd go to someone who knows what they're doing with that. And the analogy isn't 100 percent crossover there. But at the same time. You also have to think, well, there are some people out there who have a good amount of education and expertize. *Ari* [00:11:36] Right. *Ari* [00:11:36] So one of the things that I notice about people in general is that I have never walked in and or had somebody walk in and ask me if they could interview me to see if I was qualified to work with them. Oh, sure. And so I've seen this in medical and doctors and personal trainers and in therapists of all kinds. Somebody will ask a friend. Who do you know? OK. I'll go to that person. *Ari* [00:12:13] And they've never explored whether that person is right for their specific conditions. And the doctors. So one don't have enough time or aren't trained physical fitness, especially not trained in asking enough sufficient questions to be able to ascertain that an individualized program for somebody specific now with autism, you kind of have to go individual by individual. *Ari* [00:12:43] Find out exactly what that particular person is needing and tailor your sessions directly to that person, not towards a group of people who have a label, meaning not everybody with diabetes has to have the same training because you need to train somebody with diabetes differently than you'll train somebody with, say, a hormone imbalance, an injury to an ankle, et cetera. And so people don't know that they can interview their therapists, their trainers. They're those people to make sure that they are qualified, that we are a qualified bunch of people. And yes, in the fitness industry, we have no state or country wide licensing and board. We have individuals. So you may get somebody who took a two two day online course who's never trained a person in their life and have somebody who has run five marathons but has never done bodybuilding. And you might have somebody. Right, who has never had experienced overweight, who is now teaching you how to lose weight, that they don't have the experience of it. And so it becomes very difficult for a consumer to really figure out who the best person is for them. And that, to me, is definitely a system wide flaw. And especially when dealing and working with the autism population, because they have to have somebody who's qualified for that. *Ari* [00:14:34] So how do you make sure that the people that you've trained are qualified, especially during this time of covered, where everything that you're doing is online and it's very difficult to get somebody to take a course while they have somebody in their office at the same time that they can practice on, right? *Eric* [00:14:56] Yeah. You know, like anything else right now, it's a challenge. And there are certain aspects of it that that that we can that we can speak to or that we can we can take action on. So with our our certified pros who go through our our level one course. And they were I'm proud of the fact that we've been told our level one exam is one of the hardest, if not the hardest exam that they've ever taken in a in any type of certification course. And we also offer ongoing training and education for everyone who's gone through our our level one course as well, too. And it's the impetus of that attendee or that certified pro to keep getting that education. Because if you're you're unless you get the certification to just have the information, which I don't think is the case for most people who go through our program, you're going to have more questions. You're going to you're going to continue to. As soon as you implement that first program with that first athlete, you're going to have questions. So we wanted to prepare ourselves for that also. So we make ourselves available to our certified pros, whether that's doing ongoing and continuing education work at the level to program which develop. And this is something I found interesting. We we've had a few people ask us who haven't even gone through the Level one program. They'll email us and say, hey, after the level one program, can I go right into level two? And we explained this is not about having the information, is about using the information. So our level one certified pros can't even get into the level of curriculum until they've had a year experience using the level one protocols as well. So we we are working on on different ways. One in particular that we're going to implement next or at the start of twenty twenty one is for individuals who have their loved one certification to renew and to do continuing education credits with. Also, because we want the best out there and we want there to be a standard of practice. The whole basis of the curriculum is having a standard at the highest possible standard of practice for those who are delivering fitness and moving programs to this population. So far, our certified pros having that continued education because like anything else in the fitness or movement world, all of the. And I think this could be true of just about any pedagogy that has a clinical basis or clinical practice to it. All of the really relevant questions are going to come once you start using the information. *Ari* [00:17:47] Awesome. So how do you how would you approach, say, a doctor or a therapist who has I'm all about collaboration and power partners. So how would you approach a doctor or a therapist who has this population as their main population and say, I'd like to collaborate with you and I need from you this and I'm going to deliver that? *Ari* [00:18:17] Right. And so what would be your approach? Because, you know, I believe that the issues with the differences in our communities of medical practitioners is one of language, of understanding. And if we can understand each other, we can collaborate more to get better results. So what would be your approach? *Eric* [00:18:39] Asking questions, you know, for for any any practitioner in the medical community, in the in the fitness community and in any of those supporting fields. What does someone need or want? What does someone want to deliver? What what what do they want to offer to the clients or the patients or the athletes that they serve? And for. For example, we've had two developmental pediatricians now who have gone through the level one certification. I don't know that they are regularly running the programs, but they under this is a case where they wanted to understand the issue from the perspective of movement, because, as you said, medical professionals don't get a lot of fitness training in medical school. Right. So and it's not I don't think it's a case of needing to know everything. I think it's also important to know enough about something to know where your your amount of information is not enough and then you can refer out. So for a physician working with the autism population. I think there's there's a synergy in the practices for someone to be able to refer to me. And, you know, unfortunately, most of the time it'll be something to the effect of, oh, we have a lot of adolescents and teenagers on the autism spectrum in the pack in the practice who also happen to be obese because somewhere in the neighborhood, everything gets 43 or 44 percent of adolescents on the autism spectrum are clinically obese. So that would likely be the conversation there. But I and our certified pros are able to offer something special there in the way of we know how to do fitness programing for this population. And I'm not expecting that the physician is going to take my course and then start offering in-house fitness. Right. That's not their job, right? It shouldn't be their job. What you want is collaboration that that offers the best of of either practice the same way. I don't do any nutrition coaching for that. Do I know a little bit a little bit about nutrition? Yes. Do I have a certification or a degree in nutrition? No. But there are people who who do. So you find the people who are good at what you're not good at. And you know, enough to be able to distinguish who knows what they're talking about and who's just kind of making it up as they go along or doesn't know what they're. Doesn't know what they're doing. And you find those people and you find a way to collaborate or at least a way to refer. Right. *Ari* [00:21:25] So I had a DO take my course, the Performance Therapy Academy course. And she's a professor for over twenty five years teaching other DO's. And what she said at the end of my course is. This needs to be taught by the thousands. Because I need people that I can refer to. *Ari* [00:21:48] And that was the whole point of her taking the class, was to learn what I knew. Yeah. So that she knew who that who she could then send people to and who she could collaborate with. Right. And that is an unusual. Experience within our field. But if it became a grander experience, a more common experience. All of a sudden our systems would begin to shift. Because once you teach somebody something they can't unlearn. You taught them. Technically, they can with Alzheimer's dementia. But you get the point right. They can't unlearn what they just learned. So it's not that they are the ones who will be doing or delivering that service, but they know what they need to know in order to know who to send somebody else. And maybe even within the autism scale, like you might have one set of of clients then or patients that are really your bread and butter that you're perfect at. And one of your students may have decided to specialize in a different form of autism that then they could send that person to to get the better results with. Right. So just definitely in the system itself to integrate. You know, I was taught. I'm learning marketing as I have hired so many marketers that have not panned out. *Eric* [00:23:24] And, yeah, that that's that's pretty much a constant. In the world of marketing, as you'll go through a lot. We've had the same experiences. *Ari* [00:23:34] So I'm learning marketing in order to learn what I need to know so that when I hire somebody the next time. Yeah, gonna be able to work out for me. That doesn't mean I'm one wanting to do the marketing. Just like for you, you don't want to be the medical doctor doing surgery. Right? *Eric* [00:23:51] I think a great question to ask any any professional that I may have any discipline. I don't. I don't care if it's surgery or or tree cutting or an ice cream man or what. *Eric* [00:24:06] What do you know that you. What do you know of your profession that you wish everybody else knew? You know, both of the misconception. But like what? Two or three things. *Eric* [00:24:17] Would you want everybody else coming and it's almost like the educated consumer. Hey, if someone has if a reputable car dealer has someone coming in who already knows all about that car, part of their job. Again, if they're reputable, maybe it's not the best example is done for them already because you have someone who knows exactly what they want as opposed to someone walking in saying, I want know a car that goes. All right. Well, we're going to spend the next. But they say, OK, I want this I want this model car. And then a lot of that a lot of that job is already done. And if you think about that from the perspective of a lot of different a lot of different professional situations, also, it doesn't mean being an expert. It it means knowing a couple of the questions to ask and some of the some of the. Again, developing a filter, being able to know. OK. This sounds this sounds logit versus I don't know about this so much. *Ari* [00:25:18] I get that. So let me ask you this, because, as you know, I'm I'm a person who loves to to create conflicts and then solve the conflict. So I like to create it. Pick a fight and then figure out the solution and solve it so that that doesn't become a conflict anymore. So what do you think needs to happen in our industry in order to get people to have better results? Because if you look actually right now at the entire situation that we've been going through with with this lockdown and all that medical intervention has gone down and so has death by medicine. So they have stated and, you know, we'll have the numbers probably in a year or two. Much better. Diya dialed in. But they've said that the amount of intervention that we were doing was so great and somehow so unnecessary that it was causing more issues than it was. Solving death by medicine, I think is the number three cause of death. *Ari* [00:26:32] And so what do you think needs to happen in our industry in order to shift to that system so that we are results oriented? We are collaborative in nature. What's the psychology, your behavior analysis? Right, analysts. So what's the psychology behind it that we need to really create this shift? *Eric* [00:26:54] Well, first, I have the background in it, but I don't have the degree. So I don't want to. I don't want to purport to be of a profession that I am not. However, I would say I dont know if it's the fitness. I don't know if it's the fitness industry itself. And I'm sure the argument could be made of that. I think a lot of it is cultural, too. And it's this it's this reactive model. And I've seen this argument made numerous times about how, oh, the fitness industry has to shift more towards the general population or more towards the sedentary and obese population. But I don't know. You can't force someone to be your client. You can't force someone to buy something that they don't want to buy. So I don't know that it's an industry shift. So I think the industry as a whole, I don't think licensing at this point is a bad idea. I think that creating a standard of practice that is very high and based in safe, effective practices is a it's a good idea. *Eric* [00:28:05] But I don't know. The short answer is I don't know. *Eric* [00:28:10] The longer answer is I don't know, because I don't know if that is an an inherent issue just for the fitness industry as a whole, or it's the fitness industry in the United States dealing with the culture of the United States that tends to have tends to have some extremes. You have someone who is either a fitness enthusiast and they are motivated to participate or they're they're not at all, which seems to make up the majority of the country. I think maybe it starts in in the public sector, in schools also, and not looking at physical education or health education as a secondary class and really making it a really making it something that we're, again, speaking to along the same lines of any other educational curriculum. So so that it takes on more, more importance and a higher place in the hierarchy of of what do we really appreciate in the culture. So I think that I think it's a multi-system approach. *Ari* [00:29:17] I, I completely agree. You know, one of the things I have kids and step kids then have been in schools and they have played sports. And I've gone into there into talk with their coaches about injuries and how to prevent injuries. *Ari* [00:29:37] And most of them are really still doing the same thing that we did 40 years ago in P.E. class jumping jacks and stuff to warm up, but not really training a body for the sport that they're playing in, for the life they want to lead, etc.. And so it definitely needs to be more of a planned out kind of a program within schools going from very young, because nowadays kids are getting, you know, tossed into the world of agents and outs and so on at such young ages. And they don't have the entourage of therapists and trainers and people that will help them mentally and physically prepare for that sport. And so you get all kinds of injured athletes that that now can't play, have no hope. Don't think that anything's possible. And they don't have that backup like rational athlete would have. So I agree I agree completely with that. *Ari* [00:30:44] I do think that the industry as it in itself has some Splaining to do as as Ricky Ricardo would say, you've got some splaining to do, you know, because if we allow somebody to become a certified personal trainer and yet they have only two days of online courses, have never anybody and really have just memorized the answers to a few questions, sir. Then we're doing them a disservice. We're doing both the consumer disservice as well as the profession at large, which is service. But that goes beyond that. It goes to the nutrition, it goes to the the medical community. They're trained in very specifically and taking care of chronic disease and emergency medicine. Right. So chronic disease, they treat. They don't want cure. They only can treat. And they, you know, work with. Emergency medicine, which they're fantastic at, right? But I had. I'll give you an example. I had a nutritionist, a dietitian who was drinking a Diet Coke in front of me. *Ari* [00:32:05] And I asked her about the Diet Coke. And her response was, I like to eat my calories, not drink them. Now, she's a dietitian. She was about 50, 60 pounds overweight. And she's the person who's guiding. *Ari* [00:32:25] At the time, my my wife, who was pregnant and nutrition and completely not up to date with her continuing education, or she wouldn't have been saying and doing the things she was doing and saying. But also these are the people that we're going to for our care. And so it leaves the system kind of at issue and the system of how we train consumers and how we train the people who are going to be patience in finding out who who they need to go to. *Ari* [00:33:07] And this kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier, interviewing your practitioner, interviewing your trainer, interviewing the person. That is going to be working with you to find out if they're if they're qualified because you know the old joke. What do you call the person who finished last in medical school? *Ari* [00:33:26] Doctor. Hmm. Right. And everybody. *Ari* [00:33:31] Oh, my doctors. The best. Nobody says my doctor sucks, you should go to him, right? They say my doctor is the best. You need to go to. Well, how many doctors have you been to? How do you know if that person is the best? The best for that person? *Ari* [00:33:47] How do you know what the fitness trainer is the best for somebody with autism. So how do we fix that? Is really the question that I would pose to you based on the fact that you have such specialized knowledge and you've experienced integration of multiple modalities. *Eric* [00:34:06] I think demonstration is key now for the medical community and it's still will be dealt with for a physician, a way other than, you know, awards and certificates and, you know, whatever other pedigree or accomplishments they have for us. And I can only talk about, you know, with with reference to the autism population, what we're doing, because there's not really anything out there in terms of an educational system and there's nothing else out there like the PAP profile. It a systemized way to go about working with this population in a fitness capacity. Excuse me. We're working on making this the standard curriculum and that really the gold standard curriculum where this is looked at as you must proceed this this way, because there's again, it has that it has that validity. There is that proof component. There is that outcome measures and people can actually see it. You know, when we put up one of our certified pros, puts up a video of their athlete on social media and someone can actually see them, oh, they're progressing or oh, they're able to do this. That is that's a piece of proof that that we can offer. So our goal is to have the standardized system looked at as the you know, you do not pass go until this is in the conversation because we know what we're doing. Our certified pros are continuing with the education, know what they're doing and and the curriculum, the curriculum itself works. So when you're talking about a, you know, a niche population, the questions to ask are really, you know, how do you account for that? So how do you account for, you know, behavior and what's the overall goal of the program? And I think when people start listing 12 or 14 or 20 different benefits of the program, you're you're getting away from the the intention of what it's supposed to do. And it comes back to what you and I were talking about also with in terms of cognitive capacity. It also will fitness, it will functionally sound fitness programing, having have a beneficial impact on cognitive functioning for our athletes with autism. Probably. But I can't make that claim because I don't know what that's going to look like or sound like or what they observe. The observable truth outcome is going to be for any one of our athletes. I don't I don't know. So I can't speak to it until there's something that we can actually validate. *Ari* [00:36:48] Right. So that's where to me the integration comes in. Because the fact of the matter is, is that we can test we ask somebody, we can put things on their brain, do MRI's we can test for these things. And so, you know, the question is, one, how do we how do we educate the public that your program is creating a standard of practice? And to the doctors, the scientists, the lab geeks who of to test things and put something to practice so that, you know, you take a client and put them through the system and then testing them the entire time before and afters because it is possible to do so. *Ari* [00:37:40] How do you get them on board with, say, saying, OK, let's let's really test this out. Let's find out if this works or doesn't work and how it works or why it works or, you know, because we do have the technological ability now to do that. It's something that I've said to doctors about herbs and things, because most of them aren't tested in their whole form. *Ari* [00:38:07] They're only tested by the time they become pharmaceutical. Right. Which are made mostly out of herbs. Right. And so. Well, OK. So the the excuse that I hear for not doing them, not doing supplements, not taking them from doctors from that the Western medical perspective. There's no science behind it. It's all anecdotal evidence, not scienctific. Evidence. Well, we have the ability to test this stuff. So why don't we do it? *Ari* [00:38:39] Why aren't we taking. Why aren't you. I'll challenge you. Why are you not taking this to a set of geeks in a lab in white coats who only do you only do testing and love it. And yet what you're doing to have provable scientifically, not just clinical or anecdotal, but scientifically provable results? *Eric* [00:39:10] Well, we are we are doing that as well. We have won one of our loved one graduates who wrote a thesis paper on implementing the pack profile. We have some more interesting research that's going to be conducted in the next in the next year at Yale. So there will inevitably be cited scientific data or rigorous scientific study using a methodology, using a methodology that coincides with a paper that will wind up in a journal. I think the the other part of that is there are so many variables in in fitness and in in movement also. So when you're talking about implementing a program. Compared to what? And this is a conversation this may be slightly away from from from the primary topic here. But I think that it it enters into the conversation. I was having a talk with one of our certified pros who has a son on the autism spectrum, who is also starting up a facility for this population. And their families fit fitness and other activity of daily living training as well. And we were talking about the scientific data or the validation or the provability of fitness being a good thing for this population. And I said, well, if you want the opposite of that, if you want to do the control the control group. We've been doing it forever because fitness has not been a part of the lives of the majority of people who are on the autism spectrum. The null hypothesis is already in because we're not comparing different fitness programs. We're comparing the fitness program to not doing anything which we know does not have the best outcomes. So then if we want to start talking about comparing our, you know, our system versus other existing systems, I'd have to see some other existing systems, not just a bunch of exercises strung together, but an actual an actual system. And then you'd also need the background information on why that set of exercises, functions, functions as a as a system. And that's why research is always going to be in the fitness world anyway. Not necessarily from the pharmaceutical world, but in the fitness world. Fitness is always going to be behind practice because practice you can innovate all day long. And in order to have there's so many, so many flawed fitness studies, because when it's happening in a lab and it's not happening in the real world, you know, when you're doing hypertrophy analysis on a single exercise instead of that exercise in conjunction with a whole program, you have an inherently flawed study because you're not actually measured. You're measuring the thing in a lab. You're not measuring it in the real world. *Ari* [00:42:14] Right. Isolation. That's that's the key to why pharmaceuticals cause so many side effects, whereas the herbal component may not cause that many side effects is because they're isolating out components versus taking into consideration a whole. *Ari* [00:42:33] And that's the same thing that you just the three gardell. *Eric* [00:42:35] And as you mentioned earlier, also, even then, I am not an herbaligists or anywhere near it, but from my understanding, there is a huge spectrum. You know, when you're getting it at Origin and you're even getting it from a certain region versus getting it from CBS, you know, when you're getting CBD oil from a drug store on sale because it's 30 percent off versus getting it from a reputable supplier who is adamant that their supply chain checks off, you know, 10 boxes. That's a different product. Though those are different things that I'm sure it's true of Erb's as well. You know, by the time it gets to the discount table at a drug store, you're not dealing with the same substance at all. *Ari* [00:43:27] Absolutely going to go off off this particular site and you presented a Ted X in Hawaii. What was your mentation about? *Eric* [00:43:36] My presentation was about fitness for the autism population and why. Number one, it's critical that we integrate fitness programs for this population. And number two, about having having expectations without having expectations. And what I mean by that is our initial inclination might be to to discount or perceive that someone is not capable of doing something and regardless of what where they where they are or where they aren't. Right now, our our mantra in autism fitness is we're always meeting our athlete where they are right now with respect to their physical, adaptive and cognitive skills. And you always need a plan. So if they can't physiologically press 10 pounds overhead right now, it doesn't absolve them of pressing. We say, all right, well, can they press two? Can they press for. How much support do they need? So the theme of the talk was why fitness is important for this population, but also what we can achieve through that as well and what our athletes can achieve, given the right environmental considerations, meaning how do we set up for success for that individual? *Ari* [00:44:55] That's awesome. Last question I'm going to talk about is the movement. So your goal is 750 certified pros the next 12 months? Yeah. I mean, you're twenty four to twelve because I think you could do it. Let's just say you put in in the next 12 to 24 months, I think you could do it in 12. So let's say you reach that goal of 750 pros in your system. Beyond the feeling of satisfaction that you reached a goal. *Ari* [00:45:32] What is it that you are hoping for from that movement of practitioners? *Eric* [00:45:40] For fitness to be spoken in the same sentence as anything else that is permanent or is an immediate? We must have this for the autism BI. So when we're talking about speech and occupational therapy, when we're talking about behavior therapy, we're also talking about, well, what will we find? Where's our local certified pro? Or it just the school that this individual is going to be attending, regardless of whether we're talking about a private program or a public school. Do they have an autism fitness certified pro on staff to deliver, deliver the the program the way it was meant to be? Delivered. *Ari* [00:46:21] Thank you. Thank you for that. Just a quick follow up to that is if you had that. Everywhere. Right. If you had that. What would you want to do next? *Eric* [00:46:37] Train people to take my place, which is what we're doing now with that level to program the author has been a certification is going to have three levels to it. Our level three is going to be our master level where I have people who can teach, teach the level one course also. So we're working towards that. It's it's replication. It's systematizing and then dissemination. And then replication. *Ari* [00:47:03] Do you want this to be covered by insurance? *Eric* [00:47:06] Yes. *Eric* [00:47:08] Absolutely. Because we're looking at and it's an interesting conversation if we're looking at preventative care and this is I started this conversation with a few people and internally people who are involved with autism fitness, if we look at what insurance companies are doing now. Many of them are at least reimbursing or partially reimbursing for gym memberships. Unfortunately, with our population young thinking of any of the athletes I've worked with over the past 20 years, they could have a gym membership, they could find gym memberships, but they walk into a gym. And if they don't have the appropriate support, then they're just walking into a gym. And the analogy that I use is you can walk into a bag, but it doesn't mean any money is being deposited in your account. You are just in a bank. You can be in just a gym. And particularly for our population, we have to ask, is it safe? Is the environment appropriate? Do they have access to what they they need in order to have their fitness program? If the answer is no, which right now the answer is resoundingly no. Then how do we change that? So it's not just a gym membership in name so that you can get a discount on it through insurance, but something that actually does what it is supposed to be doing, which I think is an unfortunate rarity in many cases now. But that, you know, that's that's the you know, the scientific test, if anything, doesn't do what it's supposed to do. *Ari* [00:48:38] You know, this is this is one of the areas that I like to fight is because the insurance companies only care about procedures vs. caring about results and results. Typically, not only I would say typically. And and if you got a gym membership. But you're getting no results. What good is the insurance companies? *Eric* [00:49:02] Right. Yeah, I think that measurability and I think it what needs to change is just the outcome measures. I think it's new for the insurance companies now. By no means am I. Standing here and defending the insurance companies. I think it just needs to be looked at in terms of it's it's new for them to start discounting or reimbursing because the idea for them is as good as any other business. They want to they want to reduce their cost and increase their bottom line because the surgical a surgical procedure, you know, on average is likely going to cost more than a couple sessions in the gym. I think it makes sense. I think it's in the best interest of any insurance company to cover that. The question is, how do you actually measure it? You know, how do you how do you measure that? What standards are you using as well? For example, if they're using a BMI standard, it's ridiculous because me at, you know, five, six and right now close to one hundred and eighty pounds clinically obese. Right. Right now. Right. So that's certainly not the case. Just the fact that I'm on hypertrophy program right now. So I think and I think it comes back to the beginning of the conversation, too, in having an interdisciplinary model, because a an underwriter for that insurance company may not appreciate the difference between having the gym membership and actually going to the gym and having a sustainable, appropriate program for everybody. But it's another conversation to be had, and it may not be the most immediate conversation that's going to occur. But at some point, if they want a return on investment for for reimbursing gym memberships, we have to ask, well, what is the gym membership actually doing? What is participating in this actually doing? *Ari* [00:50:58] Excellent. Thank you so much. So last but not least, I ask this of all of my guests is what three actionable steps can you give our listeners or my listeners? *Ari* [00:51:12] So that they can go off tomorrow and do something to change their life. To change their life. Yes. Are there people around that actionable steps that they can do to help create a better world? *Eric* [00:51:31] Number one is. Take two to three seconds. To answer somebody after they have said something that you either disagree with or is something that is new to you. Thing number two is that your perspective in life is not the truth. It's just a lens that you were born with and that that has been with you the entire time. *Eric* [00:51:58] Three is and I like the campfire rule man is always try to leave things better than than you found them. *Ari* [00:52:09] That is awesome. Thank you so much, Eric. I really appreciate having you on and thank you, everybody, for listening. This is Ari Gronich with Create a New Tomorrow. And we will see you next time. Thank you so much. *Ari* [00:52:23] Thank you for listening to this podcast. I appreciate all you do to create a new tomorrow for yourself and those around you. If you'd like to take this information further and are interested in joining a community of like minded people who are all passionate about activating their vision for a better world, go to the Web site, create a new tomorrow dot com and find out how you can be part of making a bigger difference. I have a gift for you. Just for checking it out. *Ari* [00:52:48] And I look forward to seeing you take the leap. And joining our private paid mastermind community. Until then, see you on the next episode.

In this episode, I got a chance to talk with Eric Chessen, Founder of Autism Fitness about how he has made it to bring effective, fun, and meaningful fitness and Adaptive Physical Education programs to as many on the autism spectrum as possible. When just beginning his career as a fitness trainer over fifteen years ago, Eric had the opportunity to develop fitness programs for teens on the autism spectrum and undergo high level ABA training both clinically and academically. As he became increasingly dedicated to working with this unique population, Eric found a near-total lack of information concerning best practices and approaches when creating fitness programs for those with autism.Steadily, and over the course of a decade working with hundreds of athletes who had significant variance in their ability levels, he began to create the outline for Autism Fitness as a business and mission; providing not just fitness programs, but effective and reliable fitness programs for every individual with autism and related disabilities. Autism Fitness was to serve as a bridge between the professional fitness and autism communities (families, educators, and therapists).Today, with his athletes in the greater New York Area, the Autism Fitness Toolbox, and the Autism Fitness Certified Practitioner program, Eric continues to build a gateway towards a more optimal, independent future for the ASD community and future generations. When not working with his athletes he is either in the gym, playing outside with friends, or reading.

Today we have in the house the one, the only Mr. Eric Chessen. Eric is on a mission helping kids with Autism he has extensive work with individuals with developmental disabilities with specific focus on young individuals (4-21) with autism spectrum disorder. Particular emphasis on program and curriculum instruction and implementation of adaptive fitness programs as well as staff training. Innovative problem-solving techniques. Strong abilities in group settings. *Episode Highlights* *Ari* [00:07:10] Well, very, very cool. I mean, you know, it's it's an unusual thing to choose to work with a population that a lot of people are kind of scared of. They think you are. Oh, yeah. The autism population is too delicate, maybe or fragile to work with. So I want to just for for everybody, like give me a story of an experience that you've been able to produce in one of your clients and just kind of like the love that they've been able to give back. Based on what you've been able to do for them. So any kind of kind of story about an experience, you know, that you've had. *Eric* [00:10:17] And it didn't mean he was performing the exercises perfectly and that and that everything was great. It just meant, you know, he was on task enough that he could learn and that he could he could progress so that for for myself and me as a coach and a practitioner, that that was a major victory. And, you know, for his family as well to to earn that trust and to understand that this is something really important in his life, to have me work with him for four, 12 years as well until I relocated and then to, you know, to have him work with another coach after that, who I trained. But on on a larger scale and looking from the perspective of what we're doing with autism, fitness, what I wasn't doing, I wasn't going in there and waving my magic wand and saying, well, now you're having fun and now you like exercise. What I was doing was taking that the concepts and principles and strategies that at the time I was I was learning and just starting to develop into a system and be able to integrate that and have a successful outcome, which is the same thing now in teaching the certification course and in educating other people and consulting. Having other people have those results is the real merit test for for validating that the curriculum itself. Because if it's just me doing it and it's just the Eric Chessen super autism fitness magic show, that's fine for the athletes that I work with. But what do we do on a larger scale? But if it's if we can replicate it and there are other coaches and practitioners who can use the work for their athletes, then then we are doing something that that really is world changing. *Eric* [00:14:38] What I mean by that is I think it's shifted and shifted for the better in terms of a lot more programming's being a lot more programing, being focused on quality of life now, which is good, especially for a program like mine, because we're dealing with quality of life in terms of physical health as well. So the conversation has shifted and I think the focus now is is a little better. What I think that one of the biggest issues is the difference between knowing something and doing something about it. You know, if if we asked a room of 200 people, how many of you think is physical activity is important for the best quality of life. Now, one hundred and ninety nine hands go up and no one not because they just want to argue. Right. Which is fine. But it's actually enacting those processes and those strategies, and that's the thing about what we do with autism fitness also is that I didn't have to invent anything in terms of the exercises. You know, we're using presses and squats and crawling patterns and hurdle steps and medicine ball throws. I don't have to invent anything. And I don't necessary hurdle or obstacle was not. We don't know what exercises are good. It's how do you implement these for this population? *Ari* [00:16:05] You know, it sounds like like there's a lot of cognitive benefit that may be a side benefit to the physical movement, especially if you're doing things like cross crawling, activating both sides of the brain with the movement, activating balance, that there's going to be a cognitive shift as well in in those that population. It sounds to me like you're having quite an effect on cognition as well as just knowing motor response. Or can you know Kinney's. *Eric* [00:19:28] Number one is prioritize. Someone can give as much lip service as they want to fitness or anything else. But if it's not made a priority, then, you know, when is it going to happen? So, again, it's you know, I can have 100 hands raised in a room. How many people think it's important? Right. But how many people are actually doing it? And you're going to see dwindling numbers of hands there. Number two is consistency. We in our program, we win with consistency, and that's across the board with consistency with the exercises can just consistency with the teaching methodology, consistency with the coaching and cueing and the language that we use. And three is you can only work with what you're observing. So we have a saying in our program. We have many things in our optimum fitness program. It's no what you're looking at, which which means from all three areas, physical, adaptive and cognitive. So know what you're looking at with respect to the movement pattern. Know what you're looking at in terms of level of motivation and what we need to do to support behavior and know what you're looking at in terms of the individual's ability to understand and act on the directions that we're giving them. *Resources and Links* * *https://autismfitness.com/* * *https://www.facebook.com/eric.chessen* * *https://CreateANewTomorrow.com* * *https://www.facebook.com/arigronich* *Full Transcription* *Ari&EricChessen1.mp3* *Ari* [00:00:00] Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results. We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians, Paralympians, A-list actors and Fortune 1000 companies. If I did not get results, they did not get results. I realized that while powerful people who controlled the system want to keep the status quo. If I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are. Join me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as a chat with industry experts. Elite athletes thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. *Ari* [00:00:50] I'm Ari Gronich and this is. Create a new tomorrow podcast. *Ari* [00:01:01] Hey, everybody, this is Ari Gronich with the Create a New Tomorrow podcast. We're here with a good friend, Eric, who is an autism fitness expert. *Ari* [00:01:13] That is a really unusual thing for somebody to be an autism fitness expert. So I'm going to kind of give you a little bit about Eric Chessen. He is the founder of Autism Fitness. He's an exercise physiologist with an extensive background in applied behavior analysis. And Eric has been working with the ASTM population of all ages for nearly 20 years. So, Eric, what are you kind of give us a little bit of background as to who you are and why you chose this particular niche, which is your niche to choose. *Eric* [00:01:50] Thanks. All right. Sure. So I started out as many in the industry who went on to work with niche populations as a personal, young, very green personal trainer working with general population. And at the same time, I was doing graduate studies in behavior analysis. And in one of those, I believe it was a principles of human behavior class. I had a classmate who was the director of a program for teens on the autism spectrum in New York City. And she said, hey, I know your personal trainer. You're in this behavioral science class. Would you be interested in developing some fitness programs for our curriculum? We've never had a dedicated fitness program. We've tried some sports activities. It hasn't really gelled, hasn't really worked out. So over the course of our discussion, I decided to apply to become part of part of this small research program. And they liked what I had to say. I started working with the individuals in the program. And one thing that was really important about my early experience was that I was not working with individuals who would be considered high functioning or highly motivated or very on task. And it set the foundation for everything that I would develop later, which was you have to have a system that accounts for nearly any any possibility. So as I continued developing my my craft or my skill set in this program, an opportunity came along. I had a behavior analyst who contacted me. I forget how it must have been based on something that I wrote. And she said, I usually do early intervention, you know, three and four year olds. I just took on two new cases, these two twelve year old boys. I have no idea what to do with them. Do you think you could help out? So I said, yeah. I think I can. So those became my my first two athletes outside of the program that I was working at. And at the time, I found when I started performing any type of research and I put that in quotes of best practices for integrating fitness programs for the autism population. I found very little. What I found was vague and general. At best it was fitness programs are important for all populations, special needs, populations included, which not much to take action on there. So what I realized was there was this large gap in in practices or disciplines. So you have the the world of fitness and physical activity, strength and conditioning and and movement. And it's not. It's not visible to the autism world, meaning families and other practitioners, behavior therapists, speech pathologist, etc.. *Eric* [00:05:00] So I thought, well, I don't I don't I can't profess to say that I ever actually had this specific thought. But it occurred to me over time that there was something to having an interdisciplinary background where I can speak. When I talk about autism, fitness now, we can speak many different languages so we can talk about fitness with respect to how we can improve movement quality and strengthen stability. But we can also talk about behavioral challenges and how we can integrate positive behavior support, how how we can increase fluency of speech, how we can integrate speech targets. So we speak to all of these different professionals and caretakers, including parents, family members who are involved with or caring for or or serving the autism population. And we look at fitness as a gateway and a foundation for both short and long term optimal development. So from so I've been running programs for, I guess I guess around 15 years at that time. And then I met David Blumen, who is my business manager, and we launched our autism fitness certification level one in May 2017. And now worldwide, we have over how many is over 400? Thirty, I believe, autism, fitness certified pros. And we're just looking to create our mission is called the Movement for Movement. So the idea and the goal is to have fitness programs and adapted P.E. programs accessible to the whole of the autism population, regardless, again, of age or or ability level. So that's where we're at now. And then back in in early March, in fact, March 1st. My my wife and I relocated from New York, which was my home for over thirty nine years, to Charlotte, North Carolina, where I'm speaking to you from now. *Ari* [00:07:10] Well, very, very cool. I mean, you know, it's it's an unusual thing to choose to work with a population that a lot of people are kind of scared of. They think you are. Oh, yeah. The autism population is too delicate, maybe or fragile to work with. So I want to just for for everybody, like give me a story of an experience that you've been able to produce in one of your clients and just kind of like the love that they've been able to give back. Based on what you've been able to do for them. So any kind of kind of story about an experience, you know, that you've had. *Eric* [00:07:54] Sure. Well, one of my one of those two boys who I mentioned, who I was working with originally back in the first or second year that I started my business, our first few sessions wound up on the floor with me protecting him from banging his head into a hard tile kitchen floor. And so that was that was definitely the most shocking, one of the more challenging situations that you can be in, particularly with this population, because we're looking right there. We're looking at a one hundred percent. This is a safety intervention right now. And I had I had worked with him, you know, from from that point for 12 years after that also. And to have him eventually develop to the point where he began mastering some of the most challenging exercises that we have in our autism fitness curriculum is doing Schoop throws with a medicine ball. So learning hinge mechanics, his squat pattern is getting better also. And it's not just about the the exercises or the physical benefit or the development of the physical skills. It's definitely about that, because that's what we're that's where it worked to achieve. But going from a place where were we have to be very considerate of severe self injurious behavior to a point where an athlete is largely motivated to participate. Definitely shows that something good is happening and that something has changed. And the biggest success for me now out of that, the biggest success was the fact that Fidelity, after several sessions and some and a few interventions, and it's not to say that it was always 100 percent unicorns and rainbows in our session. But to go to that point, which was a real concern to a point where I would go over and you would understand the expectation and we would go through all the exercises that we needed to go through and everything was cool. *Eric* [00:10:17] And it didn't mean he was performing the exercises perfectly and that and that everything was great. It just meant, you know, he was on task enough that he could learn and that he could he could progress so that for for myself and me as a coach and a practitioner, that that was a major victory. And, you know, for his family as well to to earn that trust and to understand that this is something really important in his life, to have me work with him for four, 12 years as well until I relocated and then to, you know, to have him work with another coach after that, who I trained. But on on a larger scale and looking from the perspective of what we're doing with autism, fitness, what I wasn't doing, I wasn't going in there and waving my magic wand and saying, well, now you're having fun and now you like exercise. What I was doing was taking that the concepts and principles and strategies that at the time I was I was learning and just starting to develop into a system and be able to integrate that and have a successful outcome, which is the same thing now in teaching the certification course and in educating other people and consulting. Having other people have those results is the real merit test for for validating that the curriculum itself. Because if it's just me doing it and it's just the Eric Chessen super autism fitness magic show, that's fine for the athletes that I work with. But what do we do on a larger scale? But if it's if we can replicate it and there are other coaches and practitioners who can use the work for their athletes, then then we are doing something that that really is world changing. *Ari* [00:12:04] Absolutely. So it sounds like you're creating a movement which is part of. What create a new tomorrow is about, meets with people and their passions. You have over 400 people that you've trained in this system who are now getting the opportunity to have an effect on thousands and thousands and thousands of a population that were previously unserved, as you know. I'd like to pick fights, so I'm going to pick a fight with the system itself. What have you seen as one of the largest obstacles inside of the system as it is and the training of the system, both in fitness and in all the other forms of medical care that you're you're looking for other practitioners? Like if you had a behavior in a speech therapist and, you could refer to regular basis that are as qualified as you are in what you do for that population. What would what would you consider to be the biggest obstacle in that system? *Eric* [00:13:14] I think having a largely reactive model and we can talk about this in terms of certainly the Western medical system, and I think it's gotten it's gotten a lot better with preventative care. In my experience and of course, this is only my experience when I first started out the buy in for or the interest in fitness for this population. Was not there. Not very high. I don't think people had an understanding of what fitness really is and what physical act, the benefit, the benefits of physical activity. And there's is a conversation I've had numerous times with colleagues, the fact that programing for the autism population at two decades ago, definitely even even a decade ago, was largely focused in the the academic and also in the very. I suppose we could say almost vocational. So it was all you know, it was all skill development. It was all this kind of rote, if not rote, rote memory, but just read a lot of repetition with no real, I think, overarching goal as far as a fully developed human being. *Eric* [00:14:38] What I mean by that is I think it's shifted and shifted for the better in terms of a lot more programming's being a lot more programing, being focused on quality of life now, which is good, especially for a program like mine, because we're dealing with quality of life in terms of physical health as well. So the conversation has shifted and I think the focus now is is a little better. What I think that one of the biggest issues is the difference between knowing something and doing something about it. You know, if if we asked a room of 200 people, how many of you think is physical activity is important for the best quality of life. Now, one hundred and ninety nine hands go up and no one not because they just want to argue. Right. Which is fine. But it's actually enacting those processes and those strategies, and that's the thing about what we do with autism fitness also is that I didn't have to invent anything in terms of the exercises. You know, we're using presses and squats and crawling patterns and hurdle steps and medicine ball throws. I don't have to invent anything. And I don't necessary hurdle or obstacle was not. We don't know what exercises are good. It's how do you implement these for this population? *Ari* [00:16:05] You know, it sounds like like there's a lot of cognitive benefit that may be a side benefit to the physical movement, especially if you're doing things like cross crawling, activating both sides of the brain with the movement, activating balance, that there's going to be a cognitive shift as well in in those that population. It sounds to me like you're having quite an effect on cognition as well as just knowing motor response. Or can you know Kinney's. *Eric* [00:16:40] I'm I'm certain that we do in some respects. The tricky part is not overestimating or over qualifying something that that's happening. So I only speak to what the observable universe that we have in front of us because I don't know what that's going to look like for each athlete. And I talk about this in our Level one certification with respect to when we break everything down. The system that I created is called the PAC profile. So it's physical, adaptive and cognitive. And from a cognitive perspective, we can see an increase in cognitive functioning during the fitness session. We have to be really careful in discussing what we're talking about because it's not as though we're saying, OK, well, we're doing 10 medicine ball throws and then three cone touches and then they're going to raise their IQ, you know, four points. But what we're looking at is the individual's ability to start making some some associations and contingencies between a direction. So I say, OK, go do a 20 rope swings and they go over and they pick up the ropes because they know they they are able to match my language, in the words unamusing with the recall of what they're supposed to be doing. So the cognitive effect, though, I'm sure it there's some there's a beneficial outcome there. What I can't start going into is whether it's specific or whether it's general. Because, again, when you're dealing with individual, I don't know what that's gonna look like for every individual, especially when we're talking about our our non-verbal population. But there is there's I think there's enough good research in the neurotypical population demonstrating that exercise does have a positive effect on certain areas of neurological functioning, that we could take that information and say, you know what? It's probably true for the autism and other developmental disabilities as well. *Ari* [00:18:47] Absolutely. So we're we're going to wrap this up a little bit. I ask everybody on the show to give some actionable steps that people can take today. And, you know, in this case, we'll talk to the parents, the trainers, the therapists, the people who deal specifically in this population or to what is what are three actionable steps that they can do if they're passionate about working with or supporting this population. What can they do to be of of more support workers? *Eric* [00:19:28] Number one is prioritize. Someone can give as much lip service as they want to fitness or anything else. But if it's not made a priority, then, you know, when is it going to happen? So, again, it's you know, I can have 100 hands raised in a room. How many people think it's important? Right. But how many people are actually doing it? And you're going to see dwindling numbers of hands there. Number two is consistency. We in our program, we win with consistency, and that's across the board with consistency with the exercises can just consistency with the teaching methodology, consistency with the coaching and cueing and the language that we use. And three is you can only work with what you're observing. So we have a saying in our program. We have many things in our optimum fitness program. It's no what you're looking at, which which means from all three areas, physical, adaptive and cognitive. So know what you're looking at with respect to the movement pattern. Know what you're looking at in terms of level of motivation and what we need to do to support behavior and know what you're looking at in terms of the individual's ability to understand and act on the directions that we're giving them. *Ari* [00:20:37] Awesome. Thank you so much. What? Where can people get a hold of you? What are some of the ways that somebody who's listening to this can connect with you? *Eric* [00:20:46] Our main Web site is autismfitness.com. And across the board, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. It's the autism fitness. And I do a lot of I have started on them again. I do a lot of live chats where I answer people's questions. We put a lot I have we have a lot of videos on our YouTube channel that not only demonstrate the exercises, but some of the insight as to why we're doing something or what we're looking for. And for those who want to dove in and become autism fitness certified level one, pros on autism, fitness dot com. You can look at the certification page. You can download our course syllabus. Our next course begins. I believe so. Timber 20th. *Ari* [00:21:38] Cool. Sounds good. *Ari* [00:21:41] I really hope that people will come and check you out just as an added benefit to those that if you specialize in any fitness or medical training. Your average income goes up by approximately 60 percent. So for anybody who's on the fence, who's thinking, I'd like to do a general fit as I like to just do the general work. You can actually earn approximately 60 percent more for doing the same work and you'll have the reward of working with a population of people that you can really, truly have a massive effect on. And so that to me is a great benefit. Thank you so much, Eric, for coming on the show. Thank you. I am going to sign off now. This is Ari Gronich. And this was another episode of Create a New Tomorrow. I look forward to hearing from you and seeing you next time. Thank you. *Ari* [00:22:46] Thank you for listening to this podcast. I appreciate all you do to create a new tomorrow for yourself and those around you. *Ari* [00:22:53] If you'd like to take this information further and are interested in joining a community of like minded people who are all passionate about activating their vision for a better world, go to the Web site, createanewtomorrow.com and find out how you can be part of making a bigger difference. I have a gift for you. Just for checking it out. *Ari* [00:23:11] And look forward to seeing you take the leap. And joining our private paid mastermind community. Until then, see you on the next episode.

Eric Chessen, M.S. is the Founder of Autism Fitness and creator of the PAC Profile Method. Eric has spent nearly 20 years developing successful fitness and adapted PE programs for the ASD population of all ages and abilities levels. His work has been featured on VICE Media, Yahoo News, and Eric has presented for TEDx. He lives in Charlotte, NC. In this episode, we discuss how Autism Fitness got started: Eric saw a need to create fitness programming that is actionable and combines his background in fitness and autism; how fitness is best when individualized and applied to one’s daily living and their own version of a better quality of life; we break down the PAC Profile Method - what does PAC stand for (Physical, Adaptive, and Cognitive); and Eric provides 3 actionable steps for families and individuals to start working on long-term physical skills. AUTISM GROWN UP SHOWNOTES: https://www.autismgrownup.com/agupodcast/ SUPPORT AUTISM GROWN UP: www.autismgrownup.com/support-agu --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/autism-grown-up-podcast/support

Eric Chessen, M.S. is the Founder of Autism Fitness and creator of the PAC Profile Method. Eric has spent nearly 20 years developing successful fitness and adapted PE programs for the ASD population of all ages and abilities levels. His work has been featured on VICE Media, Yahoo News, and Eric has presented for TEDx. He lives in Charlotte, NC. In this episode, we discuss how Autism Fitness got started: Eric saw a need to create fitness programming that is actionable and combines his background in fitness and autism; how fitness is best when individualized and applied to one’s daily living and their own version of a better quality of life; we break down the PAC Profile Method - what does PAC stand for (Physical, Adaptive, and Cognitive); and Eric provides 3 actionable steps for families and individuals to start working on long-term physical skills. AUTISM GROWN UP SHOWNOTES: https://www.autismgrownup.com/agupodcast/ SUPPORT AUTISM GROWN UP: www.autismgrownup.com/support-agu

It's a topic that is very close to my heart, having a son with autism. This week, I welcome Eric Chessen of Autism Fitness to the show. We talk about how he got started focusing on this incredible niche demographic and what eventually led to him creating two certifications to help trainers learn how to effectively coach individuals on all degrees of the autism spectrum. Download, subscribe, share with your friends and please take a moment to leave us an iTunes review.  To learn more about Eric's work and to get more information on getting certified:  www.autismfitness.com www.facebook.com/theautismfitness www.instagram.com/theautismfitness www.facebook.com/eric.chessen To learn more about your host:  www.jasonleenaarts.com www.revfittherapy.com www.facebook.com/jason.leenaarts www.instagram.com/jasonleenaarts You can also like our Facebook page at:  www.facebook.com/revolutionaryou To purchase my new book, "A Revolution A Day":  www.amzn.to/2R9Larx  

In this episode, I am interviewing Eric Chessen about fitness in the autism population.  Eric is the founder of Autism Fitness, which is a fitness framework dedicated to providing fun and meaningful fitness outcomes to individuals across the spectrum.  How has your life, and business changed over the last three months? (01:14) Eric says he has lived in New York his whole life. He and his wife decided that it was time for a big change, so they relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina. They relocated on the first of March, and three weeks later everything changed. They had three autism fitness certification level one courses coming up, which were two-day events. While hoping for the best, they soon realized that they weren’t going to be able to do the seminars.  Eric and his business manager put their heads together and agreed on two main concerns; one was purely from a business perspective, they knew that they had to keep their revenue stream going. Their second concern is that the valuable information they provide can’t be found anywhere else.  His goal is to provide the best possible fitness programming principles, concepts, and strategies to the autism community. They realized how important their information is to people and the community, so they completely restructure their level one certification.  They now offer a four-week online course on Zoom. They have certified professionals attending the Zoom calls. Doing the course online has been proven to be more advantageous because they have more time to spend on concepts and asking questions. They were forced into this situation, but it resulted in the production of something that is even better than the original version.  Do you agree that people will make the best out of our current situation and that it may even become a more permanent arrangement? (05:50) Eric agrees that someone who has been successful in a space away from home, also knows what it takes to be successful, even without that space.  He looks at the psychology of choice; it has been proven that people are not only fatigued when having too many choices, but they are also never satisfied.  People get confused when they have too many choices. Ultimately they end up being unhappy with their choice because there were too many options.  When you start putting in constraints, it improves focus and eliminates “noise”. When there isn’t a lot of choices, you pick one and go with it.  For the entrepreneurial-minded, it means making things happen even when you don’t have a lot of options. You don’t have a perfect course of action, but it eliminates a lot of variables.  Describe the type of people that enroll in your program, what is the ideal? (08:34) He says the high caliber of people that enroll in the program continues to astound him.  Autism fitness certification is not something you get into by accident. There’s almost a barrier to entry, and they see a cross-section of the fitness and the wellness community. The people that enroll consist of fitness trainers, PE coaches, physical and occupational therapists, speech pathologists, and parents.  Eric says the parents in the program are some of the most remarkable people because they do this to empower themselves, as well as to make it possible for other parents and families.  The trainers consist of those who are really interested in working with this niche population, but they need more guidance. There are also trainers who have been approached by parents or schools to develop fitness programs.  What will I gain by doing your certification? (15:51) The fitness professionals that take the course are already familiar with the principles of movement, biomechanics, and exercise selection.  The difference between general programming, and programming with the autism population, is that there are adaptive and cognitive variables with the autism population. There are also physical challenges involved because most of the autistic individuals that they work with tend to have gross motor deficits.   He says the adaptive and cognitive areas are where they really make a difference for fitness coaches because they’re looking at adaptive functioning as motivation. In other words, they assess the athlete’s level of motivation to participate, and what steps to take if the athlete isn’t motivated.  The entire course is set up on a contingency basis, meaning that they observe, and then react based on what they see. They provide positive behavior support to a population that generally doesn’t want to engage in vigorous physical activity.  What they are trying to deliver through the course, is having methods that work, and can be implemented immediately. What personal challenges have you encountered on your journey? (24:18) Eric says his biggest challenge is listening to people’s advice.  Another challenge was transitioning into the online world. He never wanted to do anything online but believes that a lot of fitness professionals feel the same way.  It comes back to the psychology of choice; if he wanted a viable and continuous business he had to do it online.  He started embracing it when the certified professionals, whose opinions he values very much, came back after the first few sessions and said that it was even better than the first course.  He just had to listen to what people had to say, and believe them when they said that the product he is producing now is better than the previous one.  Resources Connect with Jen on LinkedIn Visit the AutismFitness Website

In this episode, hear from Ariel Garten, founder of Muse - a ground-breaking meditation technology in a brain sensing headband that is helping people relieve stress and anxiety during the COVID19 pandemic and in everyday life. Ariel Garten is a neuroscientist, innovator, and entrepreneur whose driving purpose is to empower and help others overcome mental obstacles in order to live healthy, happy lives and reach their maximum potential. Garten is one of the Founders of InteraXon, the makers of Muse: the brain sensing headband. Muse is the award-winning wearable technology that assists and trains meditation and mindfulness. You can read more at: https://choosemuse.com/ Featured Presenters: Antonia Tamao with Antonia's Promise, a spiritual line, her own rendition of the holy cross, to be a reminder for prayer. Her crosses debuted at the AOWIE conference on April 19th, 2020. Visit her at: https://www.facebook.com/antonia.tomao.9 Eric Chessen with Autism Fitness, brings effective, fun, and meaningful fitness events, tools and Adaptive PE programs to as many on the autism spectrum as possible, at https://autismfitness.com/. Mark Lassoff with Framework TV, a streaming video network for people who want to learn coding, development and digital design, at https://www.frameworktv.com/. Visit https://passagetoprofitshow.com/ for the latest updates and episodes.

Eric Chessen, M.S. is the Founder of Autism Fitness. An exercise physiologist with an extensive Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) background, Eric has spent nearly two decades developing and implementing successful fitness programs for individuals of all ages and ability levels. … Continue reading →

Eric Chessen (Autism Fitness, Stronger Than U) joins me for ep79! I love episodes like this where I find myself out of my element. Eric does important work training people with autism. We had an awesome discussion diving into his process and philosophy when training individuals that aren’t neurotypical, creating his Autism Fitness certification, the products he designs as co-founder of Stronger Than U and more! You can find out more about Eric, his Autism program and certification at: Website: https://autismfitness.com/ You can buy the Gut Wrench and Walking Sleds at: https://strongerthanu.com/ Want to train or course with Fury? Head over to www.coachfury.com to get the heads up on all things Die Mighty! Interested in exclusive show content? Follow the podcast at www.instagram.com/coachfurypodcast and www.facebook.com/coachfurypodcast Want to see this show grow and get better? You can make a small financial donation by becoming a Patron at www.patreon.com/coachfurypodcast. I am grateful for your support! Please subscribe, rate and review. Live long. Be strong. Die mighty! -Fury

Eric Chessen, M.S. is the Founder of Autism Fitness. An exercise physiologist with an extensive Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) background, Eric has spent nearly two decades developing and implementing successful fitness programs for individuals of all ages and ability levels. … Continue reading →

On this Friday Happy Hour episode of the Four Pillar Fitness podcast, I'm joined by my good friend and co-conspirator in seeing the weirdness in the world, Eric Chessen. Eric is the founder and Kommisar of Autism Fitness. He's passionate about bringing sound fitness principles and frequent fitness opportunity to the Autism Spectrum community. He's also the CEO of StrongerThanU.com, makers of cool fitness tools that you need. Unless, of course, you like being weak. He also has strong feelings for red meat and pre-workout. Eric shares his thoughts with us about: > Why sports-based PE has failed those on the Autism Spectrum. > Why an assessment built with intention tells him more about his clients than a movement screen. > Why passion, experience and confidence are more important - and impactful - then ego. > His approach is not about ASD-specific exercise, but human-specific movement. He's one of my favorite fun-loving bipeds on this planet! Find out why! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/four-pillar-fitness/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/four-pillar-fitness/support

When just beginning his career as a fitness trainer over fifteen years ago, Eric had the opportunity to develop fitness programs for teens on the autism spectrum and undergo high-level ABA training both clinically and academically. As he became increasingly dedicated to working with this unique population, Eric found a near-total lack of information concerning best practices and approaches when creating fitness programs for those with autism. Steadily, and over the course of a decade working with hundreds of athletes who had significant variance in their ability levels, he began to create the outline for Autism Fitness as a business and mission; providing not just fitness programs, but effective and reliable fitness programs for every individual with autism and related disabilities. Autism Fitness was to serve as a bridge between the professional fitness and autism communities (families, educators, and therapists). Today, with his athletes in the greater New York Area, the Autism Fitness Toolbox, and the Autism Fitness Certified Practitioner program, Eric continues to build a gateway towards a more optimal, independent future for the ASD community and future generations. When not working with his athletes he is either in the gym, playing outside with friends, or reading.

In this episode of the Autism Quality of Life podcast, host, Teri Krakovich, interviews Eric Chessen, of Autism Fitness!  Eric uses Applied Behavior Analysis and Positive Behavior Supports in his work to promote exercise and healthy lifestyles for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder!  Eric is also the Co-Founder of Stronger than U, a unique fitness equipment company.  Eric is an author, consultant, and all around great guy, who is promoting quality of life for teens and adults with Autism! 
 To learn more about Eric and to view his show notes, go to: www.autismqualityoflife.com/podcast-eric-chessen

  Christina Danos created Kettlebells 4 Autism with the goal of raising awareness about autism through kettlebell training and sport. KB4A supports not-for-profit organizations devoted to autism research, treatment, and/or the delivery of evidenced based practices, to those affected by Autism Spectrum Disorders.   By way of an annual Kettlebells 4 Autism Fundraising Event, and merchandise sales, KB4A riases funds for a minimum of 4 not-for-profit organizations per year. The tiny in stature, yet strong on the kettlebell platform with a heart, autism advocate joins the LLA podcast to discuss the following :   What drew Christina into the area of autism awareness & autism services How Christina connect autism awareness with kettlebell sport Christina shares what autism is and what it isn't and why autism goes beyond the movie "Rain Man" Why it is essential to provide support for not only those on the autism spectrum, but their caregivers as well Are there viable health care resource options for those on the spectrum with lower income Christina discusses the importance of physical activity for individuals on the autism spectrum  What are the needs not normally discussed regarding autism in adults and autism from a global standpoint  Christina discusses the importance of Autism Awareness Month How did Kettlebells 4 Autism connect with Jason Dolby's "One Hour Long Cycle" charity event in 2015, what's next for both organizations, & how can you get involved today   All this and much more:   Links & Resources mentioned in the show: Keep the LLA Podcast free by becoming a monthly supporter via $5 or more on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/llapodcast Kettlebells 4 Autism website:  kettlebells4autism.com The Association for Science in Autism Treatment: http://www.asatonline.org/ The Global Autism Project: http://globalautismproject.org Eric Chessen's Autism Fitness: http://autismfitness.com One Hour Long Cycle Event: http://onehourlongcycle.com Purchase Aggressive Strength procucts: http://strengthbymahler Purchase New Warrior Training products: http://newwarriortraining.com     Listen and download at http://strengthbymahler.com or http://newwarriortraining.com. also subscribe, download, rate & review us at:iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/live-life-aggressively-podcast/id646524617 Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=34706&refid=stpr Also, be sure to "like" and connect with us on our Facebook fan page at http://facebook.com/llapodcast. 

Like Autism Live on Facebook at http://facebook.com/autismlive    Autism Fitness Expert David Geslak from the Exercise Connection shares how to help individuals with Autism get fit, stay fit and enjoy it.  For more info visit ecautism.com or myvisualexercise.com.     Autism Live is a production of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD), headquartered in Tarzana, California, and with offices throughout, the United States and around the globe. For more information on therapy for autism and other related disorders, visit the CARD website at http://centerforautism.com

April is Autism Awareness Month! Join us for a special hour show with Areva Martin and Eric Chessen. Known to audiences across the country from her regular appearances on THE DR. PHIL SHOW and THE BALANCING ACT, as well as stops at the THE CBS EARLY SHOW, FOX NEWS and other national shows, Areva is one of television's most in-demand legal experts/analysts. A quotable authority on workplace, disability rights, education, custody and women's issues, this accomplished and multi-award winning attorney, syndicated columnist, author and public speaker is also quoted and or featured on the pages of publications ranging from the LOS ANGELES DAILY JOURNAL to REDBOOK and the LA TIMES. Areva is also a nationally recognized autism expert. President and co-founder of Special Needs Network, Inc. (SNN), a non-profit launched specifically to support families with special needs children. She has raised millions of dollars for families of children with autism and under her leadership, SNN has provided services to more than 15,000 families in low income communities across California. The go-to autism agency in Los Angeles, Areva has received high praise for developing innovative and parent-centered programs from federal and state elected officials, community leaders and faith-based organizations. In addition to being a sought after legal expert, Areva is the best-selling author of THE EVERYDAY ADVOCATE: Standing Up For Your Child with Autism (Penguin, April, 2010). Eric Chessen, M.S., is the Founder of Autism Fitness. An Exercise Physiologist and behavior specialist, Eric has spent nearly a decade developing and implementing successful fitness and PE programs for the young autism and special needs population. In addition to working directly with his athletes, Eric consults with schools, parents, and organizations worldwide. He is the creator of the PAC Profile Assessment Toolbox, and provides workshops around the U.S. More info is available at www.Autismfitness.com