Fitness and Autism - Transforming Lives Through Movement with Mark Fleming

In this inspiring episode of The Autism Mums Podcast, we’re joined by Mark Fleming, an autistic fitness coach and founder of a fitness brand dedicated to supporting neurodivergent individuals. Mark shares how sport and movement helped him regulate his own system growing up and how he now empowers others through exercise.

From working with Special Olympics athletes to seeing remarkable transformations in his clients — including improved focus, reduced anxiety, and even newfound verbal skills — Mark’s work highlights the life-changing benefits of accessible, neurodiversity-informed fitness.

We explore:

• How exercise can support sensory regulation, cognitive functioning, and behaviour in autistic children and adults.
• Practical strategies to help children ease into movement, even if they are reluctant.
• Mark’s own journey to becoming a fitness entrepreneur and advocate for neurodivergent athletes.

Whether you’re wondering how to help your child build confidence through movement, or looking for hope and inspiration, this episode is full of practical wisdom and encouragement.

Biography

Dr. Mark Fleming is an autistic entrepreneur who owns and runs a fitness brand called Equally Fit where he provides exercise training and consulting to those with disabilities. He obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Exercise Science from The University of Alabama and his PhD in Kinesiology from Concordia University at St. Paul. He has spent time working in Applied Behavior Analysis and has coached Special Olympics, where his athlete's all won gold at the state competition level. He has been featured on CNN.com, Mens Health magazine, various websites and other magazines as well as on every local news channel in Tampa. He served as the first autistic chair for the constituency board for C.A.R.D-USF in 2023-24.

Key Takeaways

• How exercise helps regulate sensory systems and supports emotional balance in autistic individuals.
• How small, consistent steps can help children and adults embrace movement without overwhelm.
• How structured exercise can reduce stimming, improve focus, and open new possibilities for learning and socialising.
• How supporting children with ADHD through exercise can channel energy positively and improve self-awareness.
• How gradual progress and celebrating small wins can build lifelong confidence and resilience.
• How Mark's lived experience inspires families to reimagine what's possible for their children and themselves.

Mentioned in This Episode

Special Olympics - Dedicated to empowering individuals with intellectual disabilities through sport.

Center for Autism and Related Disabilities at the University of South Florida - Where Mark served as the first autistic chair on the constituency board.

Connect with Mark Fleming

Website - www.equallyfit.com

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/dr.markf31

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/official_drmark/

Connect with The Autism Mums

https://theautismmums.com/

Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/theautismmums

Follow us on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theautismmums

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Autism Mums podcast. I'm Victoria. And

I'm Natalie. We are two sisters raising autistic children who know the joy, the

challenges, and the everyday moments. This is a supportive space for honest

conversations, practical tips, shared strength and expert advice. Whether you

are celebrating a win, surviving a meltdown, or just trying to make it through

the day, we are right here with you.

Join us as we share the ups, the downs, and everything in

between parenting autistic children.

Victoria Bennion:

Today we're joined by an incredibly inspiring guest, Mark Fleming, an autistic

fitness coach and founder of a fitness brand dedicated to supporting

neurodivergent individuals. In this conversation, mark shares how sport helped

him regulate his own system, growing up his journey, starting his own business,

and his work with the special Olympic athletes, plus the [00:01:00] transformations he's seen in his clients.

Victoria Bennion:

Hello and welcome to the podcast, mark. It's lovely to get the chance to talk

to you again. Can I start by asking you, has exercise always been important in

your life?

Mark Fleming: Yeah, I

grew up loving sports I was a three varsity ladder athlete in high school. And

I think part of the reason why is I. That it regulated my system is that, it

was ingrained in me that if I was active, I was, able to focus on schooling a

little bit better and being able to deal with all the anxiety and stuff that

comes with being autistic.

Victoria Bennion:

That's really good. That's really interesting to know.

Natalie Tealdi: Can

you talk us through your journey to starting a fitness brand in 2017?

Mark Fleming: Shortly

after getting my master's, I didn't know the direction I was going in life.

Ended up working for a b, A company. I. As a behavior assistant. And [00:02:00] through that, and also being a coach for

Special Olympics, because I wanted to be involved in athletics, somehow I

noticed a startling trend that these kids that I was working with that had

motor deficiencies, they seemed to be popping up in the older generations that

I worked with in Special Olympics. And so I knew there was a physical activity

gap. And since I was couldn't go anywhere with a BA because I needed to go back

to school if I wanted to progress in that field, I decided it was probably

best.

Mark Fleming: With my

academic background in exercise science to try to help this population become

more physically active. And I started out at the trunk of my car, and that's

how that got started.

Victoria Bennion:

Wow. That's a great story.

Victoria Bennion: So

you started your fitness brand in 2017, so that means what was the pandemic

like for you?

Mark Fleming: Yeah.

The pathway with that is [00:03:00] that I did

in-home for two years and got a studio in 2019 which probably wasn't. A great

idea, hindsight being 2020 because the next year the pandemic happened which,

having to close down. Thankfully I lived in Florida at the time Florida was a

little more I.

Mark Fleming: Open to

businesses being opened up and everything. I was shut down for almost three

months, which was devastating. Had to, take out loans and everything to keep it

afloat. Had to move back home with my parents. Then dealing with a disabled

population, it's, it was hit or miss.

Mark Fleming: Some

people were like, yes, we're back. But a lot of the population due to having

chronic issues autoimmune disorders, stuff like that was very weary of going

back into the public. Having to. Go virtual and do things a little differently

in the studio than I did before. Just to [00:04:00]

manage all that craziness.

Victoria Bennion:

That's good that you did manage and it's now in the past.

Mark Fleming: It was

crazy for a little bit, everything happens for a reason.

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah,

absolutely. You've coached for the Special Olympics, which is for individuals

with intellectual disabilities. It's separate from Paralympics. What was that

experience like for you?

Mark Fleming: It was

interesting but rewarding. So with my background, there's not a lot of

volunteers that have my background, so I was able to expand on the area that I

was in so that the individuals had great success. I think every athlete that I

coached that went to state games, which I. You weren't guaranteed to go to

state games. It was a raffle. But every athlete I went got gold at state, so it

was very rewarding that way. And I was able to introduce some concepts and

things at the local level that they didn't think [00:05:00]

about. Because again, I. Having a sports background, I was able to understand

things a little differently than volunteers that didn't have that.

Mark Fleming: Very

rewarding that I got to help these athletes improve to a point where they were

succeeding and then rewarding that I could help the coaches as well. Being able

to understand things from a different aspect. And then the parents got to see a

autistic individual that understood these concepts and being able to kinda

motivate them and inspire them to know that their children more just didn't

have no routes in life.

Victoria Bennion:

That must have been really rewarding.

Mark Fleming: Yeah,

it was a really great two or three years.

Victoria Bennion:

You've mentioned some of the benefits to you that you've found for exercise. Is

that kind of the general benefits that you see in exercise? In autistic

children and teenagers and adults? I.

Mark Fleming: Yeah. [00:06:00] Didn't harp on these, but the main ones

are, helping with sensory regulation helping with cognitive functioning, so

being able to sit down and, being able to work in a classroom a whole lot

better. And one of the main benefits most people are concerned with is

behavior.

Mark Fleming: And it

does help with behavior. It helps improve situations and remove stress to the

point where stemming isn't 24 7 because there's some individuals that you just.

Leave them alone. They're just gonna stem 24 7. So seeing those benefits,

because obviously if you're not stemming, you're not stressed out, which means

you can do other things in life and be able to enjoy life better.

Mark Fleming: So

those are the big ones for the autistic population.

Victoria Bennion:

Just something I'm curious about. Do any of your clients come to you and they

get a lot of pain ? My son often complains of leg pain when he walks too [00:07:00] much, and sometimes I wonder if more

exercise would help. I think he's particularly sensitive to pain.

Mark Fleming:

Exercise is going to help because if you're walking your muscles are, getting

used. And then if you're not. Walking a lot normally then the brain's gonna

say, this is different. And it's gonna send these signals to tell you not to do

it because the brain, everybody's brain wants homeostasis, which is just a set

routine, set pattern so that it understands what's going on.

Mark Fleming: So when

you break that by either exercise or walking or doing anything. That the

brain's gonna go, Hey, let's stop this. So I haven't had anybody that said

that, but yet every autistic individual is different. So when it comes to that

I've had people that have been sensitive to like. Heat and stuff like that.

Mark Fleming: And [00:08:00] so we'll work outside, gradually increase

the intensity so that sensitivity goes down because you're working the nervous

system and getting it used to those areas.

Victoria Bennion: I

also wonder do any of your clients have difficulties with food?

Mark Fleming: Yeah,

there's I've had clients on both ends of the dietary spectrum, some that don't

eat, some that eat too much. And so obviously exercising your burning calories,

so the brain is going to want more naturally, right? It's going to say, Hey,

let's eat, eat more so that we can have that energy for this.

Mark Fleming: And

then working with clients that maybe eat too much and have to understand that

they're eating enough, their body, their brain's, just telling them, Hey, you

need to eat more because you're doing more than you're used to. It has,

benefits on both sides.

Victoria Bennion:

Okay. That's really interesting. Thank you.

Natalie Tealdi: [00:09:00] Can you talk us through some of the

improvements you've seen in your clients?

Mark Fleming:

Numerous. Numerous. So one of my clients, we were able to reduce not knee

symptoms. So when the client was walking, both knees were touching. He was a

preteen. The time I. Started working with him and thankfully before he got his

gross spurt, because he, had about a six seven inch gross spurt, we eliminated

that.

Mark Fleming: So he

didn't need surgery. I had a client that due to some weird. Just weird things.

Had some gastrointestinal, like he would swallow air which limited his capacity

to do a lot of things. Working with me, working on, proper breathing techniques

while we were exercising, he was able to reduce that drastically.

Mark Fleming:

Improving, heart function and all that and numerous clients. I had a client

during the pandemic lose 130 pounds, [00:10:00]

had, just all across the spectrum. I even noticed, even though I didn't I

didn't document it very well. I didn't notice some of the clients that were

nonverbal being able to verbalize a little bit more as they were exercising.

Victoria Bennion:

Wow, that's really good.

Natalie Tealdi:

Amazing. Yeah. When you're exercising, you're sending all these neurons to the

farthest parts of your body, right? So it's working extra hard to do that.

Thus, being able to verbalize a little, at least in my mind, there's no

research to back that up, but I noticed it.

Victoria Bennion:

Interesting. Is exercise helpful if you struggle with your fine motor skills as

well?

Mark Fleming: So

obviously individuals with fine motor skills go to OT to work on their fine

motor. And while you may see it as playing these silly little games and

whatnot, they're actually. Doing exercises. So from my aspect, [00:11:00] I wasn't able to, due to scope of

practice, being able to play little games and stuff like that, but I would use

different weights and stuff like that would work on that.

Mark Fleming: And

thus you would see little improvements here and there.

Natalie Tealdi: Do

you work with clients who have a DHD as well? I'm just interested from the

point of view. My son has a DHD and is autistic. And I often wonder how I can

support him. 'cause he can say he's really hyper and needs to do exercise, but

he also needs a bit of support recognizing when it's time to stop.

Natalie Tealdi: And

that can be really difficult for me as his mom to recognize when it's time to

stop before he gets overstimulated.

Mark Fleming: Yes

definitely worked with plenty of clients with A DHD. They actually did a

scientific study that, looked at ultra marathoners and found out the vast

majority of people that ran ultra marathons, 50 miles and more during a race

that they had a DHD, because it kinda soothes the mind.

Mark Fleming: So

there's a lot of research that [00:12:00] shows

that. Individuals with A DHD benefit greatly because their minds are racing.

They don't know where to focus on and exercise calms the brain down, allows it

to focus more. And there's a lot of research, also with autistic individuals

that shows that when you exercise before, say schoolwork or anything like that,

that it, it tremendously helps with focus and memory and all that stuff.

Mark Fleming: That's

one of the things I dealt with was telling a client, Hey, this is what we're

doing. This is how much we're doing, and being able to stop them and

recognizing that stuff. Low advice. Just, keep it in little short bursts, here

and there and being, Hey, okay, let's refocus.

Mark Fleming: Go to

something else because. Obviously having a DHD and being autistic, you can

almost stem on the exercise because it now, it feels good and now we're going

to [00:13:00] do too much. So being able to

say, Hey, we're gonna do this, and have that schedule there for them to

understand all that.

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah,

that's really helpful. Thank you.

Victoria Bennion: If

you've got a client or a potential client. Perhaps who is not used to

exercising. Yeah I'm thinking of my son. What's a good way to ease into it?

Mark Fleming: Just do

little bits here and there. Something that I would do with my clients is

because you have to progressively overload, which means you have to increase

the weight, you have to increase the amount of reps and all this stuff to, gain

benefits is I would do it in such small increments that they wouldn't know.

Mark Fleming: That it

was being increased because again, we're dealing with individuals that like

consistency, like things the same. And so during a span of a couple [00:14:00] weeks, I would, at the end be like, Hey,

I. You probably don't notice this, but you were doing this, six weeks ago. And

they'd be like, no way.

Mark Fleming: Yeah,

you were, because, I would move the bar so slowly that, a lot of people think

you have to, sweat, you have to be sore, you gotta do all this stuff. But when

you're dealing with someone that has a low pain tolerance or someone that

doesn't like sweating or all this stuff, like you have to work around that.

Mark Fleming: And you

gotta do, either even just. Five extra...