Hey Everyone! I’m Ben. Also known as Doctor Ben, Not A Real Doctor!
I’m enamored with movement. I suppose I always have been, but I didn’t realize it until fairly recently. I’ve been involved in sports pretty much my whole life. Swimming, soccer, baseball, football, lacrosse, Muay Thai, horseback riding, and these days rock climbing.
I spent most of my childhood as a competitive swimmer. I was pretty good at it and really dedicated myself to the sport. I can still remember the day I was leaving practice and my coach looked at me and said, “See ya tomorrow Ben.” To which of course I replied, “Yup”. Then he paused for a second and kind of looked at me then said in a tone that said you should know better, “Ben, tomorrow’s Christmas.” What no practice coach?!?!
My dedication really wasn’t very good for me though. I ended up in physical therapy when I was 12 for overuse injuries in both shoulders, with the possibility of surgery on table. Happily that never came to pass. Swimming set the tone for my workout mentality. Finish the workout no matter the cost. A mentality that would cause me more injuries in the future.
Fast forward to a few years ago. I had taken an interest in powerlifting and spent about 8 months focusing heavily on the big three: bench press, squat, and the deadlift. And for the record, I really don’t like the bench press. Probably cause I suck at it compared to the other two. Then I noticed that I was losing some of the range of motion in a lot of my joints. I was also starting to ache in a lot of joints.
I had a good amount of experience lifting so I knew that these issues weren’t caused by improper form while doing the exercises. So I started to think about these lifts and what they didn’t cover. And then I realized that despite the fact that I was working out, there were many, many, many natural human movements that I wasn’t performing during my workout.
So lifting weights took a backseat to natural human movement for while. This is when I discovered MovNat. MovNat is a program that explores movement as a human being should be able to move. Not elite athletes, but every human. MovNat filled in the gaps I had found while lifting weights.
Now I want to help people move better in their daily lives, to live more healthy lifestyles, and eat more natural diets. You can follow me over at my blog to see more!
I am a certified personal trainer through the National Personal Training Institute (NPTI). I hold a B.S. in Health and Wellness, and I’m a Level I MovNat certified instructor. And since I comment about food production and agriculture a lot, I have a Permaculture Design Certificate from Geoff Lawton.