Book Private Strength-and-speed Lessons with Coach Benjamin

I started training with weights after I finished swimming my senior year of high school. The weight room became an immediate obsession that has not stopped. I've competed in 5 powerlifting meets, and 1 strongman tournament. Training and competing with some of the strongest people on earth forced lots of personal growth both as a coach and as an athlete.

As a junior in college I was President of the LSU club powerlifting team. Helping organize practice and mentoring new teammates through the process of competing lead me to realize the gap between lifting for the sake of lifting, and lifting for athletic/health benefits. Every training decision I make now as a coach is through this lens.

On the work side, I interned under Olympic Weightlifting and CrossFit Coach Matt Bruce my sophomore and junior year of college. He helped me take a strength athletes tool kit and apply it to sport athletes.

Bigger, stronger muscles are more resilient to injury. Stronger athletes absorb, redirect, and produce force better than a weaker athlete with better technique. I know how to make training productive and time efficient. A lot of the benefit from my coaching stems from avoiding wasted time and plateaus. Most of the driven young athletes I work with are capable of handling much more work than they need to actually do to improve. I can help reign them in and assist them in broadening their perspective.

As a part of my masters degree I studied how to effectively learn motor skills under Professor Edward Hebert. He taught us what the past 50 years of scientific literature has said about how to best demonstrate movements, give verbal instructions, use feedback, and time training sessions. I've helped many athletes select the best skill coaching based upon these principles, and use them in teaching movements in the weight room. I'm big on having athletes use mental imagery, watch film, and record their own training.

Every training decision I make depends on what the individual in front of me says and does. The only constant is that I attack the weakest points of an athletes physicality every session. I don't see much benefit in only doing things someone excels at. Big athletes who can move a lot of weight with a barbell usually see the most benefit from getting better at moving their own bodyweight better. Small athletes with great bodily control usually see the best improvement from their barbell lifts.

Ideally session are 60-90 minutes. Great things can happen with 30-45 minutes, but two or three 60-90 minute sessions a week is the gold standard for maximizing outcomes. I tend to be very basic in my approach to exercise selection. I always use between 3 and 6 exercises a session, usually around 5 sets of each. I only remove an exercise from an athletes program when I have very good reason too, and I only introduce new exercises when its absolutely necessary. If the methods used are working, I do not change them until they stop working.

I am currently coached remotely by Tom Sheppard of Elite FTS for my Strength and Conditioning. His level of organization and efficient style of communication is the best model I've ever seen for remote coaching. He is also a master level educator with thousands of hours of quality, informative content on the internet.

There is no one I will not work with. My favorite thing about my job is the opportunity to expose a diverse array of people to my favorite activity. I love tailoring the specifics of training to fit different individuals needs.