anyone else here with aspergers dislike/hate gym?

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I hated Phys. Ed. all through to Grade 11 (when I no longer had to take that @#$%^! course.)

Primary School - I was the kid who was always picked last, the slow runner, and the one who couldn't catch anything. In games that required "fielding" (e.g. T-ball), I just stood there in the sun doing very little. Physical fitness I hated (especially all the running, which I thought was for the sole purpose of torturing people, as I didn't know about health, being in shape, etc.) and ball games were just boring
Home schooling - Before transitioning to the US school system, my brothers and I were home-schooled. "Gym" consisted of playing in the pool.
Middle school - More torture. Loud whistles in the locker room, being graded on how fast I could run, more ball games. As before, during ball games I just stood around and did very little. I was probably injured (being hit by balls, etc) more often than I scored for the team, and then there was more running.
High school - This was better, as it was a class based on personal fitness rather than games. There was just as much classroom activity as there was physical. In addition, I only had to take the class for one semester and I was done with the requirement.

Since coming to college, I've definitely gotten into better shape by biking everywhere and working out in my own time at my pace

In primary school I would go out on the field (when playing baseball) and stand at a base for a few minutes and then either wander off away from the game or become absorbed in the water lines in a puddle on the field or the gravel. I have co morbid ADHD(PI).

In high school I hated gym because of the noise , the crowds , the team sports for which I never had the slightest motivation to learn the rules, and my legendary lack of co-ordination. I was actually told by one high school gym teacher: " you are the most uncoordinated person I have ever seen in my entire life" and "I know you're trying ......but sometimes it's hard to believe"!

I liked gym class just fine after I no longer went to it. It's one of those things, like chick flicks and Celine Dion's singing - absolutely in theory I agree with their right to exist, I agree that people may in fact enjoy them and should have the right to enjoy them. However, I do not agree with being subjected to the reality of them in person.

It was hell, then I got a doctor's note, the teachers were still total little b***hes about it but at least they couldn't force me to suffer. The great thing is, thanks to them I find it really hard to enter any sports or gym related area or do such activity since I start, well lets just skip the trauma and say at those times I can kind of see the point of view of the homicidal serial killer in the horror movies and think he may have the right idea.

I never liked it EITHER!

I hated dodge ball because I hated getting hit by balls. I have a memory of being the last kid left on my team. All the balls were on my side, and everyone, including the teacher, was yelling at me to through the balls. I didn't want to through the balls because someone was just going to try to hit me with them.

It HURT.
I had that issue with other sports as well. Volleyball was really bad. I was afraid of the ball because it HURT really badly when I hit it. So much that I'd be spending most of the class trying desperately not to cry, because crying just made everyone treat me worse. At least they didn't make us play tackle football.

Phy ed was tough for me on so many levels. I had difficulty understanding the rules for many team sports (especially football), so I would usually just follow my team mates around hoping no one would through/kick the ball at me. I had dyspraxia, which made it difficult for me to catch balls. Often times I would miss and the ball would hit me, so usually if a ball was coming at me, I wouldn't even try to catch it, I would run away from it to avoid getting hit. If I did manage to catch it, I could never remember which direction I was supposed to run with it so sometimes I would kick/run the ball toward the opposing teams goal. None of this went over well with my classmates.

Fortunately I would get pulled out of class once or twice a week to work with an adaptive phy ed teacher, which was a huge relief.

The worst thing was the middle school locker room. I was so self-concious back then, that it was difficult for me to change clothes in front of others. I guess the bullies picked up on that, because they would bully me while changing. Once when changing into my swim suit, they stole my underwear and started tossing it to each other around the locker room. I was running around trying to catch it, holding my t-shirt down keep covered, until a nice kid caught them and give them back to me. I ended up having to get special permission to come to gym late/leave early so I could change in private until the bullying stopped.

My one really enjoyable phy ed experience was in high school when I got to take weight training. Everyone got to work on their own toward their own goal, with the teacher mostly just helping out. I worked best at my own pace, so this was a great environment for me. It was a little awkward being a super skinny guy in there with mostly football/wrestling players, but they were real supportive of me.

Last edited by Scarecrow on 26 Mar 2011, 8:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I hated gym with a passion and also have a long standing dislike for jocks in general although in high school it was usually the jocks who were nicest to me and made an effort to involve me socially.

In the 7th grade I got the only D that I ever got in school in PE class. We had a football teacher named Coach Worthington who was your typical football jock with no neck. He took things way too seriously and never did crack a smile. One fat kid in my class also had no use for his class so the two of us would always arrange to be opposite each other on the scrimmage line. We would gently pretend to block each other almost like a gentle game of patt-a-cake while smiling and laughing over it all. One day I came up with an appropriate nickname for this teacher and began calling him Coach Unworthington (not to his face of course) because what he stood for was unworthy of anything in my mind. Another kid told him about it and that clown gave me the only D that I ever got in school for it.

In college I used to go to softball class stoned... not out of choice but because my roommate often managed to catch me between classes when he was ready to party. One day I was out in right field and could not catch a ball coming towards me (I never could regardless of my state of sobriety). That teacher got irritated and shouted out for the whole class to hear, "standing out there OUT OF THIS WORLD, and he can't even play softball". I told all my friends about that resulting in all kinds of laughs and wore that one like a badge of honor.

Yeah. I totally understand. I thought soccer balls and basket balls were the worst. I took a few too many of those on the head I think. And people wonder why I hate sports...

I very rarely liked gym.

The worst part for me was having to change clothes. I wasn't modest (and that got me in trouble, come to think of it), but the trouble was that changing clothes was very difficult for me and took me longer than anyone else. The gym teachers generally hated me for it. There were only one or two gym teachers over the years who were okay with me. The rest took a really weird dislike to me.

I did the exact same thing when it came to dodgeball. Otherwise, I swear that it felt as if I were the target for the ENTIRE class - not just those on the opposing team!

I never ran fast
I could not throw any ball farther than 5 meters
If a ball was coming towards me, I ran away from it
All the coaches were fat and drove around in golf carts
I was always hot and thirsty and bored the entire time

...And yet that was my favorite class. That's how bad school was for me.

I like going jogging or walking for miles so long as there's new and exciting things to see along the way.

Yep.
Ohh..but someday youll see the benifit of it!
Thats what they tell you.

Im more than twice your age and Im still waiting to see the benifit of being publicly humiliated everyday back in school.

Gah, it was a nightmare. I was not physically able to do many of the exercises we were expected to do, and it was humilating. My motor skills have always been extremely awful. I've encountered people who claim to be really uncoordinated, and they're pretty much always far better coordinated than I am. To this day, I am not able to throw or catch a ball. I work in a preschool where half of the children are on IEPs, and there are seriously preschoolers receiving PT who do better than me with throwing and catching. Additionally, there are doors there that are created to be heavy and difficult to open so the children won't open them and go wandering. It's a good safety measure. Trouble is, I'm often unable to open those "childproof" doors.
With my horrible motor skills, I seriously think I should have been excused from mainstream gym, and offered some alternative for physical education. This did not happen, and I spent team sports standing off to the side, praying no one threw the ball my way. Gym only became tolerable in my senior year of high school when they offered us different options, one of them being what they called "weight training." This provided me the opportunity to explore exercise equipment independently, and on my own terms. I'm okay with a few forms of physical activity, provided they are low impact, and solitary. Of course, gym class did not fit these specifications through most of my education. Thus, gym class was pure torture.