About the Training

Perhaps you are like we were.

Do you have clients who come for treatment of the same complaint week after week without improving? Clients who feel better when they get off your table, but the next day their nagging, annoying pain is back?

Do you have clients who injure themselves by over-doing sports, gardening, travel, or work—and you just don’t have the precise skills and knowledge to help them?

As massage therapists, we have all had cases where our best efforts to help clients in pain seem to fall short.

Ben Benjamin’s system of orthopedic massage changed our way of working with injuries and chronic pain.

With Ben’s system, we learned how to locate injuries precisely—usually in ligaments or tendons—and to treat them effectively. Using Ben’s system, we learned how to treat injuries to the rotator cuff, ankle and knee, and conditions such as tennis and golfer’s elbow. We learned to treat clients with chronic neck and low back pain so that their nagging pain disappeared or was vastly improved.

Ben’s system helped us take the guesswork out of treating people in pain! We were so empowered by our success with our own clients that we trained with Ben to become teachers so that we could share this remarkable system with other massage therapists. We now offer the full series of seven workshops called the Ben Benjamin Advanced Training Midwest. Since September 2004, these workshops are sponsored by the National University of Health Sciences. National University’s comfortable, professional training facilities are conveniently located in Lombard, IL, a Chicago suburb.

Students in our courses really love the way lecture and demonstration is balanced with hands-on learning. The workshop begins with a thorough review of the relevant anatomy, including drawing and palpation practice. This is followed by the assessement testing—learning how to test every aspect of the body part you are studying, including muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints and bursas. Next comes the theory, where you learn to interpret the history and results of the assessment testing. After that you begin learning treatment techniques and spend ample time in guided practice.

The training culminates in the clinic—one of the most effective learning methods we’ve experienced. Working in teams, you evaluate actual clients with real and perplexing injuries and apply what you have been learning. Here is what workshop participants say about these trainings:

—I found this workshop a perfect combination of theory, hands-on technique training, and client evaluation.

—It was a revelation to learn the role of ligaments and tendons in relation to pain. All my training had focused on muscles. Now I know I need to address both.

—Clear, concise, definitive, and easy. It took the mystery out of injury and pain. It will improve my confidence with clients as well as my communication with other health professionals and doctors.

Because of the unique way these workshops integrate knowledge and practice, participants leave in command of powerful new skills and enhanced confidence for treating injuries. It's a great feeling to walk out of the workshops ready to use your new knowledge on your very first Monday morning clients.

After just one workshop you will have tools to work more effectively with your injured clients. You will be able to accurately assess their conditions and deliver the appropriate treatment protocol. And these successes will bring more clients. Our students repeatedly tell us so:

—After the Shoulder Workshops in Chicago, my practice began to grow so much just from my success with shoulder injuries, that I started seeing a lot of clients with injuries in other parts of the body. Finally I took the whole Advanced Training in self defense, to be able to take care of the injured clients I was getting.

—Mary Beth, Lois, and Gretchen have helped move my career to a heightened level of professionalism. My heart’s desire has always been to minimize my clients’ pain. Ben Benjamin’s Orthopedic Massage Training has given me the technical skills to make that desire a reality. My confidence, client base, and income have increased tremendously. I highly recommend this training.

—I got an unexpected invitation from an orthopedic surgeon in my area, who took me to a nice restaurant just to ask, “What are you doing to my patients?” He wanted to know how I was curing so many injuries that he couldn’t even diagnose. Over the next few months referrals from that one doctor made me so busy that, when another Benjamin Advanced Training graduate moved to the area, I sent him my overflow, and his practice filled up immediately.

We invite you to join us in this valuable career-changing work!

Lois Orth-Zitoli

Marybeth Hughes-Lacy

Gretchen Klein