One of the questions I get asked most often by coaches working with autism and neurodivergent athletes is deceptively simple: when do you add a new exercise to someone’s program, and, what exercise is best?
The answer isn’t about following a fixed weekly template. It comes down to the Autism Fitness Standard Operating System, and specifically the PAC Profile — Physical, Adaptive, and Cognitive. These are the three domains we have to assess and address every time we bring strength-focused fitness programming into the life of a neurodivergent athlete.
Start With Assessment, Not Assumptions
In the first, second, or even third session, the goal isn’t to run a perfect program. It’s to assess the foundational movements — medicine ball throws, Sandbell slams, squats, presses, pulls, and carries — because these are the exercises with the highest carryover to activities of daily living and serve as a prevention to the physical issues that come with aging.
Those early sessions can look like controlled chaos, and that’s normal. You’re not just testing physical capability; you’re reading motivation, tolerance, and how the athlete responds to a new environment and a new coach. Because the autism spectrum is so broad, some athletes walk in ready to go from minute one. Others need something very different with respect to support and program strategies.
When an Athlete Needs Structure, Not Variety
I recently worked with a newer adult athlete who came in highly anxious and quickly became dysregulated, with frequent trips to the bathroom that weren’t really about the bathroom — they were about escaping a situation that felt overwhelming. Completely understandable.
Instead of introducing exercise after exercise, we used a visual schedule with built-in breaks, and kept the session down to two movements: a band pull-down and a band row. Over time, we thinned out the breaks and gradually added more work. That was not the moment to build a robust, six-exercise program, even though that might have looked more impressive on paper. The athlete was still habituating to the environment and to me as a coach, and nothing should get in the way of that process.
This is the adaptive piece of the PAC Profile in action: motivation, regulation, and focus directly determine how much — and how fast — you add.
The Physical Template: Cover the Movement Patterns First
For athletes who are attentive and motivated to handle more variety, I’ll aim for around six or seven exercises in a session, with three to four sets each, in the 8–15 rep range. That’s enough exposure per movement to actually produce a training effect — and training effect is the whole point of strength training. It’s the outcome we’re chasing.
Before adding anything new, I ask: are all the foundational patterns already covered?
- Squats
- Pulls (band row, band pull-down, cable row/pull-down)
- Pushes (push-ups, overhead press)
- Carries (farmers walks and sandbag carries)
If an athlete is already hitting three to four solid sets across each of those patterns, it may be time to introduce something new. If not, the priority is building competency in what’s already there.
Case Study: The Box Push
With one athlete, I introduced the box push in the very first session. He was somewhat dysregulated early on, and while band pull-downs were going well, the push-throw wasn’t landing. I wanted to see whether more pressure-based, force-driven work would resonate with him instead.
It did. He took to the box push immediately, and by the second session we were able to add weight and have him pushing it largely independently across the turf. It became a genuine full-body strength and endurance exercise — legs, shoulder stability, the works — and it held his attention.
This wasn’t some special “autism exercise.” There’s no such thing, and if anyone tells you otherwise, that’s a red flag. The box push simply served as a stand-in for a sled push, for an athlete who wasn’t yet ready for an 75–80lb sled. It filled a real gap in his pushing pattern and gave him a strength-endurance stimulus he responded to.
The Rules for Adding a New Exercise
Before introducing anything new, run it through all three parts of the PAC Profile:
Physical
- Does it cover a movement pattern the athlete isn’t already doing?
- Is it redundant? (A push-up and an overhead press overlap somewhat, but one is horizontal and one is vertical — enough differentiation to justify both.)
- Is the athlete performing their current exercises at or near standard — independently, full range of motion, sufficient tempo and motor control?
Adaptive
- Is the athlete ready for something new, or would it be overwhelming right now?
- Is this the right moment for a fourth or fifth exercise, especially in those early sessions?
Cognitive
- Are you following Label, Demo, Do, and Cue when you introduce it — giving the athlete an accurate demonstration so they can motor-imitate — rather than assuming they’ll just pick it up? Skipping this step is one of the most common mistakes in coaching this population.
Scaling for Group Programs
If you’re programming for a group, ask one more question: will this exercise work for everyone in the room? The key is scalability. The athlete who needs the most support has to be able to perform a modified version, and the athlete who needs the least support has to still be challenged by it. Too much modification shortchanges your more advanced athletes; too much difficulty shuts out the athletes who need more support. Finding that Goldilocks zone, exercise by exercise and athlete by athlete, is what actually produces a training effect for the whole group.
The Bottom Line
Adding a new exercise isn’t about keeping a program fresh or exciting — it’s a deliberate decision grounded in physical readiness, adaptive capacity, and cognitive understanding. Cover the fundamentals. Get them close to standard. Then, and only then, ask what purpose a new exercise would actually serve.
If you’re ready to bring strength training to your autism and neurodivergent community at the level it deserves, learn more through the Autism Fitness Certification at autismfitness.com.