Ben King, Personal Fitness Trainer

Ben King

Ben King is a certified personal trainer, a military veteran (tour of duty in south Baghdad from April 2006 to Aprill 2007), and a graduate from the MA program in Public Anthropology at American University (Washington DC).

Ben's style of training is influenced by his successful weight loss of over 100 lbs. in early 2000, his encounter with "no pain, no gain" military fitness regimens prior to deployment in Iraq, and his use of Yoga, T'ai Chi, Taoist breathing techniques and meditation to ease the post-combat transition into a civilian lifestyle.

Ben says: "It took me two years to create an approach to training that could 'armor down' my mind and body from combat." The key insight in developing CSW was Ben's realization that mind and body are core resources that must be developed together throughout the life course. Ben calls this approach Core Spiral Wellness, to indicate its unified emphasis on movement and fitness. But Ben adds: "I have come to realize that I have a great deal of control over my body's health and wellness, and I enjoy learning new ways to practice that control. My goal as a fitness trainer is to move clients far beyond the familiar gym routine, so they can discover relationships between movement and wellness that help them develop their own understanding of personal empowerment and well-being".