Ben Abruzzo- My BIG Why

When asked to provide My Why…why I coach and why OFM, I had to sit and think for a bit.  As I sat and thought, I realized it wasn’t one answer but a collection of many. 

It was the summation of many experiences over my lifetime that led me to coaching and kept me in it, and in the end it was a simple cliché of a statement that keeps me going day in and day out: Strong People Are Harder to Kill.

Now you might be saying, “Wow Ben, that’s a pretty aggressive statement and frankly I don’t care about being strong.”

And I'll say, that’s fair, but really we all want to be “strong” we just define it differently.  In this context I define strong as someone who can meet the task that is chosen or the task that is given to them by life with grace, athleticism, and durability.  The task might be to run 100 miles.  Or to win the CrossFit Games.  Or to cross a remote mountain range unsupported.  Or to deal with sickness, disease or the simple stresses of life.  Exercise, training, and quality nutrition are what make these tasks doable.  I want to help people develop life long practices that will allow them to excel at any and all of the tasks that we might face.

This desire to help others achieve their goals came from a collection of life experiences.  Patrolling the streets of Baghdad, conducting arrest warrants in Los Angeles, skiing and climbing in the mountains, training elite athletes and normal people alike has all shown me that a training practice and commitment to self-improvement makes for not only better athletes but better people. 

When we train to make our bodies “strong” our minds follow suit and often we become better people because of it.  When we feel good we tend to pass that goodness on to others.

At the start my focus was just on the miles, the vertical, the sets and reps.  Then over time, recovery, sleep and nutrition became as important as the training.  I’ve spent years tinkering with different diet ideas, some fads, some real and some plain foolish. 

Between personal experience, success and failure with clients, and keeping an eye on the developing science, I keep being drawn to OFM and the benefits that a thoughtful low carbohydrate approach can have for athletes of all types.  Every single time one of my athletes or one of my friends commits to OFM they have had great success.  From a top 3 finish in their first mountain 50k to being the first American to finish the RedBull X Alps, to my own recovery after a major accident, OFM has been a key ingredient to success. 

I love what I do and am thankful everyday for the opportunity to work with amazing people from all over the world.  I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!