Wimpy muscles? Forever?

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My mom and I recently discovered while researching Autism and Aspie's that we don't build muscle tone. It makes perfect sense to me, because I've never been able to get any stronger. I'm a girl, so I don't mind as much, but how would a guy feel about this?

When I was living on a hill about a year ago, I had to take the garbage cans down it. This was a steep windy hill, and I went up and down it for the nine months I was living there. And EVERY time, my calf muscles burned. I felt like I had short leg muscles or something. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't getting any easier. Also, when I was in High School, I never got any better in P.E. I couldn't lift anything heavier than the bar in bench pressing, and it never got easier.

It has to do with the acid that muscles need to build up. I think we have a lack of it.

Anyway, I am used to being a wimp, but it's kind of depressing to think that I can't even work at it and get stronger.

lol wut.

I question where you read this from.

This is not a characteristic of AS.

People often confuse the concept of "neurological muscle tone" with "bodybuilding muscle tone." Maybe that's what's happened. They aren't the same thing.

There is an association with ASC's and hypotonia (the neurological type of "low muscle tone"). It basically means the muscles are more "relaxed." That is, we have muscles to act in opposite directions from each other (one to move a limb one way, and another to move it the opposite direction), and a certain amount of tension (both muscles activated at the same time, pulling against each other) is needed to keep from being too "floppy."

And that isn't related to muscle strength or the ability to increase muscle mass and looked "toned."

The opposite of hypotonia would be like how people with Parkinson's tend to be very stiff and rigid; their muscles are working against each other too much.

I've heard that people with ASC's can actually have hypotonia in some places and hypertonia in others, now that I recall. (i.e. A physical therapist once told me my lower back is tight, but my upper back is too loose.)

I've got huge muscles, and I've never done any bodybuilding. I also have a lot of fat, as well. That doesn't bother me, as long a I make an effort to eat healthy, 90% of the time and get plenty of exercise, which I do racing around hose parking lots.

I'm a big person.

strangely, it seems I am overweight/overmuscle in my legs, but underweight/undermuscle in my upper body. I've always wondered whether this has something to do with some pyschiatric condition.

Thinking about this, and myself, and thinking, nope, not true for me, nor have I ever in all my reading on autism and Asperger's read such a thinking, I couldn't help being amused by the observation that, for me, becoming more socially fit (ie, I have friends now; I've a social life that I like) and more muscular did happen about the same time. But just a happenstance of timing, caused by different things. I have bigger, stronger muscles now because I work out on weight machines.

This would scientifically explain how my soggy legs, feel sore and tired after prolong walking, yet seem to be getting stronger firmer and more harder with wider range of motion. This would explain how intially I sweat puddles but eventualy built up to "didn't break a sweat", or how my arms and shoulders got bigger when I worked as a laborer. Or how physical work seemed to get easier, the more I do it.

Non mean serious answer (sorry couldn't help myself. Nothing personal really), just work out some more. There's nothing special about me. I'm just a blah person, who does meh..... Very Kim Pine (Scott Pilgrim)- like. You are younger, so you have more chances to really work out and develop some impressive flesh. It's harder for me. Ironically it is later in life that I am able to effecticely push for growth. Strange most strange, that I have the energy and drive in my later years. Oh well I've seen stranger things.

Last edited by sillycat on 10 Jan 2011, 10:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well, I'm male, in my early grade years, people THOUGHT I was weak, but I was actually pretty strong. Eventually, I just laid back too much, etc... and wasn't exactly the strongest. I never even TRIED in PE. I HATE sports. I never saw any reason. I am bad with ball sports, and my interests weren't that physical. I never even RAN! In my late 20s, I tried to gain muscle, and soon all of the machines in the gym were too light. On some exercises, I was lifting another 10 pounds EVERY WEEK! I had to go to the weight room, with barbells, and machines you could stack lots of weight on, NOT to look big, but because it was the only challenging way.

I got a bad back, and just let myself go. 8-(

Males are supposed to find it easier to gain muscle, but Girls certainly have the ability to be strong. You have to get enough protein AND, if you are skinny, enough carbs and fat. You have to put in the effort on a regular basis. Frankly, MY best frequency, and the best for most, is twice a week, Some find 3 times to be ok. Doing it every day generally really doesn't work that great. Doing it once a week is usually not often enough. And you mentioned acids. There are really only 2 that apply here:

1. Lactic acid. There is STILL a debate if it helps or hurts. MOST think you should have only a LITTLE. You obviously have plenty. THAT is probably what is giving you that burning sensation.

2. Amino Acids. OK, there are MANY aminos, but they are all called aminos. Since you can't generally really get them in nature, they are processed from protein you get from food. You can make SOME of them to some degree, but 8 or so are ESSENTIAL amino acids, and you must get them from food or supplements.

You also need to get sleep and rest.

OH, and muscle is best gained gradually. You can't expect to be able to lift 25 pounds more every week, etc... Even one on STEROIDS probably can't do that.

AND, many say that cardio is BAD for building muscle.

BTW you ARE 25! You DID manage to get that stuff down the hill, etc... So you HAVE gotten stronger. The human body just tries to conserve energy, and it needs specific fuel to do various things. FAT can be used as CARBS, or FAT. CARBS can be used as carbs, or can stored as fat, PROTEIN is best used as PROTEIN, but CAN be used as CARBS, or stored as FAT! SO, if you don't have carbs or enough fat, and need energy, your body will use PROTEIN. Your liver stores a bit, but the rest is in your muscles. If you get a bad cut, and don't have enough protein, it will get the protein from your muscles. .

Last edited by 2ukenkerl on 11 Jan 2011, 2:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

tag

A more thought out and serious answer is that it's impossible to not build any muscle tone at all.

A couple of studies that really aren't that great and need to be repeated and show such nonspecific things we can't know for sure what they mean seem to indicate that we have less energy. But that doesn't mean you can't build muscles.

I'm quite weak, I've always been weak, but guess what? When I work my body, it gets less weak. Not strong relative to most people, but I see an increase in strength relative to my baseline when I exercise more. It's hard to maintain it. It hangs by a thread so that a few days of chillaxing (my friend uses that word; it means "chilling out and relaxing") will put me right back to square one. Also, I don't gain strength fast. But I do gain it. Like, I can go from something being really, really hard and almost beyond me to being trivially easy if I work at it.

My legs are pretty decent. I walk all the time, though. They don't get much rest, and so they're pretty strong. I mean, again, nothing impressive, but I can go for a walk down to this cafe, about fifteen minutes to get there, and then walk back, and I'll still have a little energy left over. (Not enough to do something like bake brownies, but enough to do something like take out the trash. Enough to not melt down from tiredness even then, but afterward any demands placed on me had better not be physical.)

Dunno, perhaps aspies tend to be a bit less naturally muscular, but you can build them if you try.

When I got out of army basic training I could not believe how ripped my abs and pecks were. I stayed fit looking until I was 25 I use to run it made my legs look too muscle bound in my opinion. I hurt my ankle on some black ice and did not have medical insurance to get it fixed so that put a damper on my running. My six pack turned into a keg in no time at all. At that time I worked a resteraunt that served chicken wings so about four times a day people would change their orders from hot to mild before the wings went out. We were not allowed to throw the wings out so someone would get to eat them and it usually was me I would eat 30-40 wings in an eight hour period along with a finger bowl (a little bigger than a coffee mug) or two of blue cheese. Its one of the few things I hate about Buffalo there are so many great places to get wings. 95 was the same year I got into the internet so it was a deadly combination of lack of exercise, over eating of the wrong types of food, and sitting on my butt infront of a computer screen for long periods of time that has made me go from a healthy 200 lbs (my fit looking weight) to a looks like I am pregnate at 295 lbs that is now Todesking.

When I started eating right in 2005 I dropped 40lbs in 2 months just walking 5 miles a day and not drinking soda pop. I did it for a year I got down to 240lbs but I went back to drinking diet caffine free pepsi, eating pizza, burritos, and chicken wings again so I put the weight back on. I walk everywhere so my legs and butt are still firm though.

I've been weight lifting for a little more than two years now...

Here are the before/after results after 1-1/2 year of training (December 2009) :



Here's a picture of last summer, taken after a cut that made me lose nearly 10 lbs of fat (in this picture I'm glycogen depleted, which means my muscles looked smaller than they really were) :



I might look skinnier on the last one, but I was actually stronger and had at least as much muscle. From then, I gained around 4-5 lbs, mostly muscle, but also some little fat which made me lose some definition.

So I don't think Aspergers can't build muscle tone... it's just a matter of dedication.

I have never heard that AS or autism has any effect on the ability to build muscle mass. I'm a bodybuilder, and I'm HFA.

Charles