Welcome to BenDearman.com. You may not agree with everything posted on this site, and you might not like it, but my ideas will make you think. Take some time and look around the site, pay close attention to the media section. Check back often for updates and if you have any questions or comments please fill out a comment form in the contact section.If you would like to be notified when articles or blogs are updated, please fill out a contact form with “Please Add” in the message box.
“I personally admire Ben three dimensionally . . . he physically practices what he preaches and enjoys functional movements to enhance his life. His inquisitive mind is always engaged, as he constantly seeks more truth and develops additional strategies to help us understand and implement various techniques and exercises. However, it is his spirit that makes him even more special, always seeking to encourage and enlighten.”Gary Gray, Physical Therapist (Father of Function)
December 13th, 2007
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bendearman |
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Matador and Mystery…
My girlfriend and I were watching a show on VH1 last night; The pick up artist. For those of you not familiar with the show they take 12 mansers (man + loser) and pair them with two “studs” Matador (who looks like Antonio Banderas crossed with a Lion) and Mystery (looks like a cross between Criss Angel from mind freak and a white Dennis Rodman with his outfits…and curiously like one of my old BJJ instructors Gene Simco).
My question is: why Matador and Mystery? What does that mean? Did he pick Matador because of the obvious bull reference? Did Mystery pick his name because he’s a mystery? One will never know.
But I will say one thing, call me Enigma from now on.
UPDATE:
Apparently Enigma is already taken by some crazy tattoo dude who is married to a woman who looks like a cat…literally. So, I have come up with 4 choices:
Eureka
Vanguard
Dominator
Enigma (I’m still keeping that one in).
It’s up for grabs!
October 16th, 2008
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bendearman |
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I squatted 485 yesterday.
Yes I only went down to about 3 inches above parallel, however, it was a close stance and with a manta ray (which sucks if you have never used one before). Basically the manta ray puts the weight high on your back (more quad emphasis and long lever at your torso) and slightly back and up so that its off your shoulders (really hard on the back and core).
I bottomed out at 450, I got flattened to the bench. I just couldn’t slow the weight down and conequently hit the bench pretty hard, however, (thankfully) I recovered and was able to get it back up with relative ease. So I figured, screw it, and went up to 485. I nailed it! It actually wasn’t that bad, although, I was slightly scared for my life when I unracked it.
Morale to the story, have faith in your self. Always believe you can do more then what your currently doing.
October 14th, 2008
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bendearman |
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My wife is insisting on trying that Alli weight loss supplement because it’s “FDA approved.” Looks like crap to me. What’s the real deal with Alli?
Well, no one ever accused me of being a marriage counselor, and certainly no one ever accused me of being politically correct, so let me not mince words: You’re right and your wife is wrong. Alli is total crap. (Sorry, wife.)
But it does present a “teaching moment” for us. Sales people, including drug manufacturers, love to use percentages because you can be accurate but dishonest at the same time.
Suppose, for example, you have a one in 10 million chance of winning the lottery, and I have a system to sell you that I can guarantee will increase your odds of winning the lottery by 100 percent. What I’ve just done is up your odds from one in 10 million to two in 10 million!
Think of that the next time you read that people taking a weight loss drug lost “43 percent more weight.” Or someone taking a bodybuilding supplement gained 37 percent more muscle. Accurate, but bullshit. Often it means that the control group lost one pound a month and the people taking the drug lost 1.43 pounds.
Alli is actually the non-prescription, lesser-strength version of a drug that’s been around for a while called Xenical. (The generic name is orlistat.) It didn’t work all that well when it was Xenical and full-strength. I’m not sure why changing the name and making the dosage smaller would fix the problem, but hey, what do I know?
Alli is a member of a category of weight loss drugs that might be called “digestive inhibitors.” It blocks some of the fat that you eat from being digested and assimilated. It does this by blocking the digestive enzyme lipase, which breaks down fat.
The result? As much as 30 percent of the fat you eat doesn’t go to your hips. A side effect of the drug is euphemistically called “anal leakage,” which describes what happens to the fat you didn’t digest. Questions, anyone?
How ’bout this one: “What does it do to the fat that’s already on your hips?”
Answer: zip-a-dee-doo-dah.
The first big study to put Xenical on the map was a two-year European study, which showed that patients on Xenical lost between two and three percent more weight than those on a placebo. A second two-year European trial put obese patients on a reduced-calorie diet and gave them 120 mg of Xenical three times a day. At the end of the year they’d lost about nine pounds more than the placebo group.
Read that carefully. Nine pounds a year — which translates to three-quarters of a pound a month. A similar study in the US produced one-half pound per month for Xenical users.
People lose weight on Xenical — ’scuse me, Alli — because it essentially lowers caloric intake automatically. If you, for example, were eating a nice, hefty 2,500 calories a day and 30 percent of them happened to come from fat, you’d normally be taking in 750 fat calories. By taking Xenical with a fatty meal, about one-third of those fat calories aren’t absorbed, so the 750 calories becomes, theoretically, 500 calories.
You’ve “saved” 250 calories while eating the same meal. (Note the operative word: theoretically.) Stick to that plan for a week and you’ve “saved” 250 times seven calories, or a grand total of 1,750 calories, or … let’s see … one-half pound?
Of course you could just cut calories and crappy carbs and skip the Alli, but there isn’t a $150 million marketing budget for that idea.
So is Alli the answer? Hardly. Unless maybe you’re a stockholder in Glaxo.
October 1st, 2008
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bendearman |
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Me and my girl friend were sitting at the dinner table eating dinner and her 4 year old son Logan was opening and closing our squeaky kitchen cupboard door. She asked him to stop and told him she didn’t want to hear the squeaks, I said let him hes learning something.
She replied, “what is he learning?”
So I saw this as a time to teach him about rust, wear and tear on metal hinges, how rust happens, etc. etc. So I asked him,”Loge, why does the door squeak when you open it?” As I am sitting there rehearsing how I am going to explain why the door squeaks he answers me, “because I open it”.
Who taught who?
September 23rd, 2008
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bendearman |
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Put your boxers on backwards and not noticed it for a few hours?
Me neither.
But, let’s say you did and you didn’t notice for a few hours. Does that mean your kibbles and bits are just as big as your ass or your ass is just as small as your kibbles and bits?
These are the questions I ponder.
September 18th, 2008
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bendearman |
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Gut busting! Ab Shredding! Back Exploding!
How can you not want to buy something with words like that? I was just watching TV trying to get some inspiration for this blog post. I haven’t posted in awhile, so I wanted it to be a good one. Lo and behold, pay dirt. Iron Gym is a pull up system that fits in your door frame. The commercial starts with talking about the three different types of pull ups you can do: narrow, wide and neutral (there are actually five because the narrow and wide can be done with both grips - supinated and pronated), but then it goes on to say that you can use the IG for push ups (just do a push up, why the hell do you need something to do them on?), sit ups (yeah let’s have people tighten their hip flexors, quads and abdominals, as if they already aren’t tight enough from sitting all day long) and finally dips (that you can go through about six inches of ROM).
all for the low price of 29.95!
This is actually, all things considered, a great little piece of equipment. It’s a shame they couldn’t't have marketed it better. It’s really just a glorified pull up bar for your door. You can buy a cheaper one at wal-mart. Or just go to the gym.
Although, probably the people most likely to buy this contraption are the people who can’t actually do a push up or pull up.
September 18th, 2008
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bendearman |
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Observations over the past month:
1.) I had two people compete in this past weekend’s powerlifting meet in Burlington, VT in the 100% RAW Federation. Elaine Neal and Kim Furlong both did phenomenally! Both women set world records in the deadlift, with Elaine “The Tank” Neal just missing 318 and Kim pulling an easy 285. There were three other women competing in this competition and the weird thing was that even though Kim and Elaine BURIED everyone else in the DL, they themselves got owned in the Bench Press.
It led me to two conclusions:
1. The reason why our pulls are so much better than everyone else’s is due to the back work we do.
2. Doing a cycle of just upper body push work can’t be as bad for you as I once thought. If doing all pushing work were as bad as I thought, then everyone there would have had serious shoulder impingements.
2.) If your military press goes up, your raw bench press will go up.
3.) I need to work in more hoizontal pulling exercises.
4.) I recently just bought a house and I realized that I have a lot of shit. I mean A LOT. Too much shit in fact. I think everyone should move every year so that they have to get rid of their stuff and buy new stuff. This will stimulate the economy and help people get rid of their crap, thus in turn pushing out old crap by way of yard sales.
That is all.
August 21st, 2008
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bendearman |
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I was watching TV and saw an ad come up for Nutrisystem. There were 3 women; one lost 83 lbs, another 3 dress sizes and I really don’t remember what the third one said because I was too stunned. Underneath each results listing there was the line “Results Not Typical”.
Um…why would you buy something that basically says, “We get great results, but most of those results are flukes so don’t expect much”? What results are typical? Yet, this company is doing great! Hundreds of people sign up every month because they want to lose the weight without having too work hard. If weight loss were easy, we would all be thin.
From now on, every time I meet with a potential client and they ask me about my success stories, I am going to start the conversation with “Well listen, these results aren’t typical”. I wonder how many new clients I will get!
August 12th, 2008
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