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Welcome to the AdaptX Podcast, where we have discussions with individuals who are building

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accessible businesses or products advocating for inclusion or excelling in adaptive sports.

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Our intention is never to speak on behalf of those with disabilities, but rather our

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goal is to amplify your ideas, voice, and learn strategies to scale our impact and help

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other businesses become more inclusive.

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On today's episode, we are joined by Austin Roth.

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Austin, thank you for joining us.

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Austin is a CrossFit athlete that competes in national competitions and the CrossFit

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Games as a whole.

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We'll let him give you some insight into how he trains for the games and what his background

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is as a competitive athlete.

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Yeah, so my background is actually in class at Country Running.

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I did that in high school.

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After college, I wanted to explore fitness a little bit more.

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I joined a bootcamp site, so I worked out and eventually found CrossFit.

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So I've been doing CrossFit for about seven years now.

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I really enjoyed it, really just learning a lot about myself through CrossFit methodologies.

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And then for the last three years, I've been competing.

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So I've done competitions like the Real World Games and Wadahalooza for the last three years.

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And I just really enjoyed it.

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Did you have any hesitancies first, walking into a CrossFit gym or what kind of gave you

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the confidence to enter an environment like that that you would have the ability to keep

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up with your peers and other athletes?

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Yeah, there was a little bit of hope with some of the bootcamp style classes.

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One of the coaches really had a background in CrossFit and did kind of both.

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So just through talking with him and him, kind of like looking at how I move and what

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I can do and what I can't do.

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And kind of he suggested that it would be possible for me to do CrossFit stuff or just

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to go in and just see what happens.

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So I really felt like it was the hardest part was just starting for me because it just

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seemed so intimidating.

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I didn't know if I could really touch a ball well or if I would get injured.

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Like I didn't know how to move.

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So at first CrossFit was just very scary and very full in.

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I think just being able to talk with him and knowing that I joined his CrossFit classes

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and knowing that he knew how he moved a little bit beforehand really was helpful for me.

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Do you know what classification of cerebral palsy you have or kind of how does it present?

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Does it affect, is it hemiplegic?

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Is it diplegic?

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It's quadriplegic.

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So it's also limbs.

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It's spastic mostly in nature.

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So I get hypotonia.

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So I have kind of more stiff muscles kind of everywhere.

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But my legs are a little bit more imposed than my upper body.

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So that's kind of how it takes me.

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Did it present any grip challenges or are you able to comfortably hold barbells or dumbbells

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or do you have to make any modifications with the equipment?

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Yeah, I don't make modifications in the equipment, but I do have kind of lower grip strength

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than an average person.

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So I do tend to modify workouts to think about that and to incorporate that into workouts.

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So I can finish a workout and grip strength wouldn't be the limiting factor.

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Do they allow you to use any gripping aids or things like that within the CrossFit competitions?

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Yeah, I think if you really need it, like if it's really like a safety concern, they'll

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let you have it.

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I feel, but for me, I guess I mostly work out without it.

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So I just haven't really used it or looked into it too much.

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So it doesn't really hinder you with like pull ups or deadlifts or anything like that?

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Not too much.

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I mean, it was super high reps and it would really be taxing, but I think it hasn't been

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too bad.

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What was it like growing up with cerebral palsy?

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How did it affect your educational experience through elementary school, middle school, high

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school?

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I think for me, looking back on it, the hard thing was especially like having more of

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a mild form of cerebral palsy, I was definitely like, I wasn't like totally like unable to

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play with kids like I was, but I was always kind of like the last few picks for sports.

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So like the one that was kind of known to be like not so good at certain things.

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And I think that for a long time just made any kind of sports or activities kind of scary

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and kind of like something I didn't want to do.

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So definitely growing up, I kind of had an aversion to fitness as sports in general.

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So I remember like seventh grade in E class having to like learn a mile and 12 minutes

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and being like worried about that.

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I mean, of course the coach would have been like lenient for me, but you know, I just

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had no desire to actually like do anything physical because I felt like there was a lot

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of like emotional kind of difficulties with kind of talking about stuff and not feeling

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included or not feeling like wanted in sports settings or just feeling like I was kind of

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like not the best player kind of thing.

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What led you to gravitate towards cross country then?

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I was actually a friend.

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He was doing it.

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He was like waking up at like 6am to cross country before school.

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And I was like just talking with him and I was like maybe I'll give out a try and it

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was just something that I wanted to do that like to hang out with him and eventually like

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I ended up really liking it.

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Finding out that I could actually like run for long distances and I just seeing myself

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like my emotions and like my mental health improved and like physical health improved

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and there's so many benefits for it and it's like it just kind of got me hooked on it.

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Yeah, we talk about how accessibility is more than just like the physical environment.

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It's also that social emotional component.

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I think that's what CrossFit does a great job of when they build the community and in

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kind of each location and they tend to be very supportive in terms of supporting all

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the athletes whether they finish first or last in the workout.

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So that's something where like all fitness centers and all businesses can kind of learn

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from is how to build that community that really supports one another and people tend to be

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pretty unwavering in their love of CrossFit or their obsession with CrossFit seems to

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be something where they kind of been able to foster that like cult mentality where people

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really are passionate about the organization.

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So that's definitely something whether whether you follow CrossFit methodology or not it's

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definitely something you can learn from as a business as a whole.

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But do you have any aspirations to continue with distance running or endurance sports

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sir?

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I'm kind of I've looked into like triathlons and thought that would be fun to kind of get

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my feet into a little bit but I haven't done anything officially yet but I mean I do do

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some like longer distance runs on my own so.

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What was your educational background?

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So I know you went to Arizona State which is a school that we've worked with through

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our AdaptX curriculum.

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They have a program called Devils Adapt where you were you a part of that or were you familiar

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with that during your time on campus?

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I was not no I didn't know you even doing that.

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Yeah so it's I think it's relatively new where they have students that become kind of student

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trainers and they support individuals in the community and students on campus that have

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disabilities and kind of work in a one-to-one setting and it's part of their recreation

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health and wellness department and it's one of the groups that we're lucky to work with.

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We've had some of their trainers go through our course to give them some more strategies

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to work with different disabilities but what did you go to Arizona State to study?

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Biomedical Engineering.

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And what kind of drew you to that or what was your goal with that degree?

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Yeah at first it was kind of a competition of like me just really accelerating math in

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high school and really enjoying that and I wanted to focus on that more and also thinking

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I wanted to go to medical school so it just kind of felt like a good fit for like people

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in this major kind of do and go both ways so just thought it would be a good fit for

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me in deciding what I wanted to do in the future kind of a path to both ways to research

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and do digital engineering, mathematical type of world or medical school whatever I decided.

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I saw a couple, were they capstone projects or thesis projects, that seemed to be pretty

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interesting.

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Were they senior year?

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Do I maybe talk a little bit about your thesis?

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Was it related to autism screening?

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Yeah so I did a capstone project on autism screening using like an iPad or an iPad and

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it was kind of a proof of concept.

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We just kind of followed eye gaze and kind of tracked that in kind of a clinical setting

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so we actually we never got to clinical settings we just kind of said like hey this act could

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be running in the background and kind of tracing the eye gaze of children and hopefully eventually

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lead to early diagnosis by seeing how they track this and be doing a tentative with kind

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of the doctor or not so it was kind of a verbal concept it really wasn't finalized or finished

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but it was kind of a senior thesis that we did.

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Yeah that tends to be the case with some capstone projects they're more like proof of concept

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or feasibility types of studies but they don't always make it to a clinical setting unless

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they're picked up by subsequent capstone students because there's only so much you can get done

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within one semester.

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Was there I thought I recalled one other project you were working on or that you had listed

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there?

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Yeah in my past it was all through four years I was involved in epilepsy research so I did

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some kind of EEG analysis of seizure activity and seizure prediction was kind of the main

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theme of it also diagnosing between epileptic and non-epiphylipic CEDAW as you think some

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of these methodologies so kind of just advanced like signal processing of EEG to kind of further

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diagnose the epilepsy.

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Is that something that you're still interested in or are those kind of topics that you still

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pursue today or have you gone in a little bit of a different direction?

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Yeah we don't really do I don't do that research anymore I find it interesting I do find I

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don't know it's kind of like we won't making as much progress as I don't know it was hard

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to see as making doing something more significant to improve that from where you were so it

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kind of felt like it wasn't making a huge leap to kind of clinical trials but it was

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interesting and it was kind of a fun to work with for the time.

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What do you do for work now or what does your career look like now?

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Yeah right now I work at UCSD University of California San Diego we study silent language

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research and and functional MOIs so we do brain imaging studies and in particular we're

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looking for deaf and duet individuals who are language deprived so they kind of grow

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up in either other countries or places where they don't really have access to sign language

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or kind of any language for like a set period of time and then later on maybe ages like

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five to thirteen they finally get the first exposure to a real language and kind of how

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that affects brain development and affects kind of different things in the brain and

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how well they can master sign language so it's kind of correlating them too.

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Are you more on the like statistician side of that or are you implementing like surveys

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and I'm definitely more on the like engineering statistician side of the functional MOI data

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analysis.

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It's awesome do you guys have a time frame for that project I would imagine it's longitudinal

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in nature? Yeah it's definitely longitudinal we don't have like a definite end date we

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have a lot we could do we could do you know kind of go on forever you know there's a

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lot to do with it so.

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Is there a specific technology within like the sign language and the communication space

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that you guys are aware of or that you're kind of focusing on I've seen some apps that

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like turn ASL into speech or vice versa turn speech into ASL same thing and like the visual

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impairment space I've met with a few different companies that have various technologies that

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are supposed to improve the accessibility for people who have visual impairments but

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there's also some mobile applications that are coming out that might do stuff similarly

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so are you guys using any like app or AI types of tools or is that something that's on your

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radar.

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Not really no we're more kind of in the like education and kind of brain development so

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we do kind of push for early access to language whether that be sign or spoken because that

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seems to have a real impact.

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There seems to be like a critical career after a certain age of like we're guessing on like

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age eight or something you can't really master your first language if you start learning

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about age so kind of just push for educational reforms and kind of dialogue between clinicians

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so.

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Absolutely is that a grant funded project.

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Yes.

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We can transition back to the sport space and the fitness competition space what's kind

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of next on the horizon for you or what's next for competitions.

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Yes so I have the real world game in December so I'm kind of getting ready for that.

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Are you friendly with Stouty the guy that runs it all.

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I am yeah.

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Yeah he's been a wonderful resource and has done a lot of good for the industry.

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Are you looking to be in the CrossFit adaptive space as well for their competitions or.

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Yeah yeah I've tried for it.

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I haven't yet to make the games but they have like kind of a different classification system

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than we'll watch and that kind of makes it a little bit more challenging.

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Except also they only take five people in the normal school division so it's a little

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bit more challenging but I've been close to getting in a couple times though.

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Yeah I was going to ask if the new I don't follow it too closely but I know there was

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a new classification system this year and I was going to ask if it affected your eligibility

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in any way or whether have you looked closely into it.

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Do you think it's kind of a net positive or are there negative aspects to it.

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Yeah I think it's definitely been difficult to kind of go from like a lenient kind of

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classification system which is like the first two years to kind of a small intense thing

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because you know people who were eligible are no longer eligible and that's been really

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hard.

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Also those seem to be a little bit of confusion of you know what the terms mean like what

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it means to have a significant impairment and you know some people didn't like that

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they were ineligible and kind of just the way that they did it it caused a lot of confusion

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for a lot of people so in some ways I think it's a net positive but I think it's I say

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that because it's an ongoing thing you know it's not like they did it perfectly the first

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time and made it great it was a step in the right direction but they also have like I

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definitely do have issues with it so.

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Yeah it's been I haven't followed it close enough to know all the nuances I think it

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is supposed to mirror maybe the Paralympic classification systems to a degree I think

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they based some of the decisions off of that but it's tough to find that balance between

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like creating equal competition but also not being exclusionary in terms of who can participate

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and who can't I wonder if more categories or kind of more tiers to the competition would

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allow more people to participate without having to like qualify through their classification

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system it's but I know we'll want some people have gravitated towards we'll want from the

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CrossFit space because they have more options and a slightly different system so.

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Yeah yeah that's one thing that I think I mean real logits has a ton of different divisions

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and is more open to having more people and I think CrossFit is really trying to make it

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like official like CrossFit games like put a lot of effort and resources and to this

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so they just don't have the resources to make it as big as it should be and I'm also on

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the divisional athlete committee for CrossFit so I do have like meetings with CrossFit at

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CoDs and a few other people involved so we do talk to some of this stuff so I do know

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that you know in one sense they are definitely committed but they're also in order to like

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make everyone happy they would have to have a lot more divisions and they just don't have

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the resources or the not putting the effort to you know do all that which I mean granted

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it is a lot and the CrossFit games is not like a cheap thing so you know I do think

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that ties with them.

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What does your role on that committee look like are you just advising them based on your

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personal experience or?

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Yeah they're basically just asking for feedback so what the community is kind of filling in

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kind of just expect that to them so.

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What do you think the fitness industry not specific to CrossFit as a whole but what do

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you think the industry has to do to be more inclusive and more accessible?

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I think it's a good question.

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I don't know it's weird for me I've been kind of thinking about how to put this in words

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but a long time it took me a while to actually own up to the fact that I had a disability

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or like needed adaptive resources and I think I was more hesitant to some of the adaptive

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spaces because of this so I think you know just knowing that they're out there is kind

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of like a little thing it kind of hard for me but I think just getting the information

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out that the law says is available and the law people who want to help out.

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It does seem like as a whole it's trending in the direction where it's become a lot more

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commonplace over the last few years than it was when I first started seven or eight years

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ago it seems like there's a lot more resources and a lot more organizations that are coming

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up to support people with disabilities.

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We would like to see that they don't have to be mutually exclusive like sometimes you'll

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see nonprofits that only cater to people with disabilities versus for-profit businesses that

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aren't inclusive whereas we'd kind of like to see like the disability and inclusion stuff

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not reserved only for the nonprofit space.

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It should be kind of a part of a business's typical day-to-day functioning so that's where

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we like we try to encourage and teach facilities why inclusion is beneficial not just from

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like a goodwill standpoint but also from a business standpoint.

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You obviously are able to cater to a much larger market and there's been unintended consequences

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we support a lot of athletes with Cerebral Palsy and Autism and Down syndrome but that

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in turn has kind of encouraged people with maybe less noticeable disabilities to

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also seek out our services because they just assume that our gyms are more welcoming and

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supportive environments so it would be good to kind of see fitness trend in that direction

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when that is kind of for every person regardless of their ability.

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Do you have any specific opinions or feelings strongly about some of the terminology that's

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used in the space like do you find the term disability or disabled or neurodivergent like

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do you have specific like labels and stuff that you prefer to use or don't prefer to

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use I know that's one of the things that sometimes people get caught up on when they're new to

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the space or when they're new to working with people with disabilities they're afraid that

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they're going to speak incorrectly.

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What advice would you give to someone who might be working with an athlete with CP for

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the first time and that athletes coming into their gym for an initial session what do you

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think would be kind of the best approach for a personal trainer to take?

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Um yeah I haven't thought too much about it but I think one of the things is like maybe

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for me especially growing up and having a more mild case like maybe case of cerebral

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palsy that I have had an issue like calling myself a disabled person but I do consider

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myself a person with a disability so kind of the disabled like being disabled um I don't

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know I tend to not feel comfortable still with that terminology but I will admit that

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I do have a disability so it's just kind of I'm not sure what extent that is the me thing

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but I think it's just kind of being mindful that like people are you know coming to terms

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with a disability in many different ways and you know it's not just like everyone in terms

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of one way it's a kind of emotional thing to kind of think about and process and I know

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for me just coming to terms with it it was you know it did take some time so I think

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just recognizing that it might be different with different people and people are processing

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it differently and growing up with it differently and they might have stuff from the past so

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just recognizing though is like a mental health and emotional component to it that makes it

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kind of difficult to say just one thing for a lot of time so.

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Yeah I mean it's that person first language I guess where we've through special education

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stuff we've kind of been taught that um you use the person first language you refer to

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someone as an individual with autism as opposed to an autistic individual but then I also

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see from like the key stakeholders themselves some people prefer to be referred to as an

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autistic individual as opposed to a person with autism and they think it's uh they kind

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of identify with their diagnosis so I think beyond understanding someone's diagnosis and

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how it might affect their functioning we tend to not refer to it too frequently like if

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you were to join my gym I would want to find out that you have CP but then beyond that

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the only thing I would care about is how that CP affects your ability to grip things your

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ability to navigate the gym safely like once that initial meeting is conducted the fact

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that you have cerebral palsy just becomes another characteristic it doesn't really define

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you as an athlete how you can perform in the gym is what defines you as an athlete so.

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So kind of going back to that question of like if you were coming into if you were going

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to someone's gym for the first time what would you what would you want from them or kind

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of how would you want that first interaction to look like?

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Yeah I think for me I'd really um like I think I would hate it if they like kind of

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like I felt like if I brought it up and they felt like scared to talk about it like I would

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I would much rather like a cultured person to be like asking questions about how that

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affects how my cerebral palsy affects me like what I can and can't do what I need to watch

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out for kind of to have more of a like dialogue I think that would really be helpful and make

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me more comfortable with them knowing that the you know not not afraid of this stuff

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or not like hasn't it decoded me or something because I think I think for me sometimes I

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can like say have cerebral palsy and then they they could just try to be two hands on

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of like what what I shouldn't shouldn't be doing um but I think it's been interesting

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as I like learn more about how my cerebral palsy affects me and what what I can do then

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um so just just having more of a like dialogue um with what I want and it would be nice so

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symptomatically what are the what are the primary ways that the cp affects your physical

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functioning yeah so a little bit of like balance and coordination issues kind of all over um

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I do get statisticity but it's mostly when I'm tired of fatigue so mostly my more in

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my legs than my arms um so I guess that would be kind of the main things that I would talk

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about to just like coordination issues or something might be hard because of that and

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then you know just being aware that like spasticity will show up as I get fatigue but that's

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just normal for me kind of thing yeah I think we we see in the research that like stretching

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doesn't necessarily seem to improve spasticity um whereas like like you said it might be

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more so a product of fatigue and if you can improve your fitness as a whole then maybe

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you prolong the amount of time until you kind of have those spastic episodes so um it seems

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to be a case by case basis but it's definitely not definitive in terms of how to treat spasticity

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outside of like Botox injections seem to be useful is that something you get every so

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often no I've never been Botox you've never been Botox that seems to be one way to uh

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reduce the tone in the spasticity that's present have you ever used any walking aids or mobility

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aids or have you always been ambulatory um I've always been ambulatory yeah um so I

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think it's uh it's been good to kind of cover like what a personal trainer um should focus

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on when they're first working with someone with a disability just kind of hammering home

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that point that it's more so the conversation that you have and understanding the individual

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on an individual basis as opposed to a diagnostic basis um is there anything specific that you

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think you would want personal trainers to know about CP or about adaptive fitness as a whole

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that we haven't already covered or do you think we touched on the basis that you think would

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uh maybe make someone more comfortable working with adaptive athletes yeah um I mean I guess

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with the individual kind of mindset just knowing that like cerebral palsy is so different from

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person to person and displays in different ways um so it does important and also I think

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understanding that people's goals might look different from person to person um I was also

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kind of thinking in my story one thing that I really enjoy about CrossFit um or just kind of the

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environment is that I've learned a lot about myself and kind of learned to take initiative of my

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fitness and you know I could go to any class and see the workout and know kind of how I want to

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adapt it and modify it and change it and um kind of feel like my input is like is important and

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like reliable and like people trust my decisions and kind of choose the right things so that's

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really cool to kind of have that in my in kind of my CrossFit environment in my in my gym um

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and I think that's something I really like hey that was important to me and that was something

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that came through kind of dialoguing with coaches and kind of working and kind of

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thinking how different workouts affected me um are those decisions that are those decisions

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that you're more so making or that the coaches are helping you make um decision more than I'm

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making so I think that's been really cool to be like hey I can learn to do this myself and make

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these decisions myself and I don't need a coach like looking over like shoulder to so um you know

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and that's maybe kind of a personal thing but I think we coaches should be mindful that um

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I don't know that individuals can be taught um can be reflective can think about how the work

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out went and think about how those people already affected them and um I think taking that approach

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of like hey you know it's not always just telling them what to do but like telling teaching them

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how to think about themselves and think about the workout and um so I guess it's kind of dependent

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on the individual what they want but um for me I really I really like that and I think that's

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something that kind of drew me to CrossFit and the competition is that I get to kind of see what I

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could do and learn about myself and learn what I can and can't do and focus on that so yeah I

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mean no one knows your ability better than you do so um to be able to get that input from the athlete

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themselves is is integral but it also might also might ease some of the concerns that coaches have

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like um maybe they're concerned that they're not always going to have the right answers or not always

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be able to support the athlete but if they understand that it can be the athlete advocating for themselves

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and kind of problem solving alongside the coach and it's not always up to the coach to have all

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the solutions but it's more collaborative effort that might be more reassuring for the coaches

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that they don't have to have a significant background working with all different disabilities

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to be able to start accommodating some people with disabilities so I think that that can be kind of a

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a good takeaway that a lot of times you're just looking for an environment where you can be supported

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and you can kind of challenge yourself but like you said not everyone has the same aspirations in

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terms of competitive fitness I think sometimes the narrative that um in CrossFit is individuals with

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disabilities that are real high performers and that's great it gives gives younger individuals

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someone to kind of look up to it gives them representation in the space but I think it's

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important that a large percentage of individuals with disabilities aren't going to be competing in

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in fitness competitions but they still deserve the right to be able to go to a gym and improve

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themselves and in kind of whatever the way they want to be and whatever way they want to focus on so

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we'll really enjoyed having you learning kind of about your experience finding ways that we can

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apply it and extrapolate it to other fitness environments appreciate the time that you took

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today to talk with us and look forward to staying in touch thank you for listening to the AdaptX

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podcast our effort to amplify the ideas of our guests and create more inclusive and accessible

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industries is futile unless these episodes reach a larger audience if you enjoyed our discussion

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today please leave us a rating or review on whichever platform you use and if you would like to

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learn more about AdaptX the course that we teach to health and fitness professionals in the projects

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that our organization is working on you can subscribe to our newsletter through our website

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www.adaptx.org until next monday