Eric Chessen 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. Eric is on a mission to help kids with Autism he has extensive work with individuals with developmental disabilities with a specific focus on young individuals (4-21) with an 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.

Listen, create awareness, and be motivated with Eric Chessen. 

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.