What works. And what are we really capable of. Those two questions are at the heart of this conversation with Kinesiologist Dr. Joel Seedman. In an in-depth interview, we talk training and nutrition secrets, optimizing your performance and the latest research on the human body. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Things Kids These Days Wouldn't Understand. And remember, leave a review for a chance to win a free t-shirt.
Interview with Kinesiologist Dr. Joel Seedman
Topics addressed in this episode
How many sets, reps and exercises should I be doing. What is the ideal number of sets and reps
How low should you squat. Is ATG (ass-to-grass) squatting overrated
How fast should I lift
Do I need to do cardio
What is the best overall exercise
What is the best exercise people aren’t doing
What is the most overrated exercise
Can I wear jean shorts to the gym
Can you make someone into an athlete
The benefits of eccentric exercise
Nick VinZant 0:14 Hey, everybody, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode, we're getting in shape. And going back in the day.
Dr. Joel Seedman 0:23 most people never even come close to optimizing their human potential, because their training is not ideal. Our body really doesn't know if we did three sets of 12. Or if we did 20 reps, or if we did 10 reps, all it knows is quality tension. And so instead of rushing through the exercises, rushing through the repetitions, one of the best things individuals can do is just slow things down. You know, I think that that's the key is the basics are still the basics, because fundamental principles, the foundational elements that have produced success for decades, are still kind of the go to methods. And if we deviate too far from that, I think that's where we start running into issues.
Nick VinZant 1:02 I want to thank you guys so much for joining us, if you get a chance, like, download, subscribe, share, we really appreciate it, it really helps us out. So recently, I have realized that I am a shell of what I once was, physically speaking, I can barely bend over without my knees hurting. I can't catch up to my four year old. And I'm a shell in the sense that I'm a much bigger shell, like 40 pounds bigger shell. So trying to get back into some decent kind of shape. And looking at different websites and watching things. It seems like all the advice is contradictory. You're supposed to do this, no, you should never do that. You're supposed to really be doing this. And it seems like this endless back and forth about what really works. So we wanted to take this episode and find out all right, what really works. Our first guest is an expert, in terms of what really works for exercise and nutrition. He has a PhD in Kinesiology and is the founder of advanced human performance, or he trains everybody from regular people to professional athletes. This is Dr. Joel Seedman. When you look at exercise, basically what are people doing wrong?
Dr. Joel Seedman 2:20 Oh, that's a good question right there. So I think one of the main things that people, I wouldn't say do wrong, but maybe they just don't have the education and the knowledge from you know, mainstream fitness, because they tend to rush through their workouts, they tend to think that, you know, if they get the quantity and if they get the you know, number of steps in, if they get the particular amount of volume and say, you know, four sets of 10, or three sets of 12 on an exercise, that they're they're completing the necessary workout, and they're creating the proper stimulus, and they're going to get the results they want. And unfortunately, you know, the muscles in the in the body and our physiology. It's not that simple when it comes to you know, how our muscles and how our body responds. And the stimulus that we create, our body really doesn't know if we did three sets of 12. Or if we did 20 reps, or if we did 10 reps, all it knows is quality tension. And so instead of rushing through the exercises, rushing through the repetitions, one of the best things individuals can do is to just slow things down, really focus on creating a smooth control, lifting tempo, taking out the momentum and feeling those muscles really do their job and trying to target the muscles that they're they're intending to hit instead of just kind of mindlessly going through the exercises. So, you know, I just what we've kind of heard for years now from from bodybuilders really, even back in the day is you know, squeeze the muscle feel those muscles work, don't just mindlessly go to the exercises
Nick VinZant 3:45 is it as simple as if, if I feel like I did something I did something,
Dr. Joel Seedman 3:51 you know, it is to an extent when it comes to caloric expenditure, and just trying to, you know, kind of burn calories so to speak. It is however, when we're trying to change your body composition substantially, that does require additional muscle growth, whether you're a female or a male or you know, General populations, increasing our lean body tissue or lean body mass is one of the best things that we can do for health, for injury prevention, for increasing our metabolic rate at resting and during working conditions. So when it comes to actually stimulating that, that hypertrophy or that muscle growth mechanism, it does require higher quality of work for the most part, unless you're kind of a genetic freak, muscles can respond to a lot of different stimuli.
Nick VinZant 4:39 I mean, when somebody kind of approaches it is it is case where I do three sets of 10. But if I did four sets of 10, I would be completely different. Like do you have to just take it that extra little bit? Or like can you screw it up basically?
Dr. Joel Seedman 4:57 The answer to that is no. You really can't. There's a lot of research on different training protocols, what the ideal rep ranges with ideal number of steps is, and there's really no conclusive empirical evidence suggesting that one particular rep range or set range is optimal over another. In fact, they've done some research showing that if the intensity is high enough, if the quality is high enough, that one set of a really effective movement can actually produce very similar usually not quite as effective. But it can produce similar results to two or three sets, or even four sets of an exercise. So it's not like oh, you know, if I do one set, I'm only going to get 30%. If I do two sets, I'm going to get 53 sets 75%. And then to get 100% of the benefits, I have to hit force that actually it's about 80 to 90% of the benefits can be reached with one really hard set. And then you know, you do a second or third high quality set, you get the rest out of it. If you've done high quality, and you're taking everything control, you're not using a lot of momentum, if you're really focusing on that muscle mind connection and your technique is proper force that usually for an exercise is too much two or three really good stuff is going to be more beneficial for most individuals, provided their quality is higher.
Nick VinZant 6:13 From a kinesiology kind of perspective, do we pretty much have the body figured out? Like, do we know how it works?
Dr. Joel Seedman 6:20 Wow, that is such a, a deep question right there, it would seem simple. And I would say, on one hand, we learn a lot the last 10 years in kinesiology, Exercise Science is kind of a new field, relatively speaking to a lot of other fields, you know, medicine, and, you know, biology and biochemistry and all that. So it's really, really the last, you know, few decades, Exercise Science has kind of emerged, and we've continued to learn a lot. But at the same time, because it's kind of new, and it's still in its relative infancy stages, I would argue, there's still so much that we don't know and, and even the research that comes out, there's so much mixed research, there's there's a lot of conflicting data. And it kind of creates this confusion in the industry where, you know, some people say, Oh, well, there's, you know, all this research showing that, for example, I was like used to squat analogy, because that's a big one. That's one that I'm known for creating a little bit of controversy over. You know, there's some research out there that shows that astagraf squatting or squatting as deep as you can with maximal range of motion is suggested or beneficial. And then there's another group of research that shows that that's not the case that actually squatting to 90 degrees or parallel is, in fact, the best way to do it. So you kind of have these mixed sides of things. And you really have to look deeply at the research to kind of see, hey, why didn't Why do we have these conflicting views? And this is this is for many different topics. And then you have to say, Okay, why is it that and then you have to examine the research. And you can usually kind of figure out which side is ideal, but you have to examine it pretty intently. So I think we have so much learning and field of Kinesiology is exciting, because, you know, we still have a lot of potential growth.
Nick VinZant 8:09 Like when you look at how much we know about the body, one is absolutely nothing. 10 is we've got this thing locked down, figured out, like, Where do you think we are right now?
Dr. Joel Seedman 8:20 Oh, I would say a four, or a five. And I think we have just enough knowledge that if we don't use it just right, it can actually put us in a little bit of jeopardy. And we can we can abuse it because it's you back even the SWAT analogy, you have a lot of people taking some of this information, and they use it. And they they destroy their joints, and they have to get surgery and it's you know, people will say, Oh, well I heard this from you know, mainstream fitness or from fitness experts or fitness gurus and the research substantiated, but now my my knees are shot, my neck, my hips were low back is fried, what's going on here. So we do have to be very careful. And taking the research and saying, well, based on some of these studies, it was suggest that this might be a potential potential way to do something. But yeah, I would say four or five. And I would say even the same thing for nutrition because it's funny. Every few years, there's these nutrition recommendations in the industry. And then several years later, we see different recommendations that not only disagree but actually recommend the exact opposite. It's kind of a funny parody in the field, but it's actually similar in the field of Kinesiology too. So I think we have to be careful of, you know, realizing that we still have a lot of work to do and a lot of research to be done.
Nick VinZant 9:41 Even though that you know, that kind of high end necessarily seems to be changing all the time. Or the basic still the basics, like the basic stuff works, right like you want to lose weight, eat less calories, you want to get stronger lift weights, like are the basic still the basics or does even that change
Dr. Joel Seedman 9:59 you know That's that's the key is the basics are still the basics, because fundamental principles, the foundational elements that have produced success for decades are still kind of the go to methods. And if we deviate too far from that, I think that's where we start running into issues. In, you know, some of these kind of extreme diets that we see are these extreme training protocols are these really exaggerated? Kind of methods that we've seen in really unique programs, it's like, Okay, this is deviating so far now, and maybe, you know, it doesn't have to necessarily be purely old school and looks simple, it just has to rely on kind of foundational elements of the practical sciences, you know, you have to look at basic elements of, you know, muscle physiology, for example, and human physiology things that we've known now for for decades, even possibly, you know, close to a century now, things in the field of biomechanics that relate to physics, which we've known for decades, if not centuries now. I think dealing with neuro muscular physiology, and then neurology, and then we have to say, Okay, now let's take some of the current research and compare and contrast it to what we know to be true about some of those foundational elements. And if they match up, I think we're good to go. If they they really contradict each other, then I think we run into issues. So I think, you know, on the head, I think, you know, we do have to stick to the basics, we can't deviate too far. But that doesn't mean we can't gradually improve, improve on the basics, as long as we don't go too far away from them.
Nick VinZant 11:29 Are people's bodies really that different? Like, do they really respond that differently to certain things? Or is it more of a mindset kind of thing?
Dr. Joel Seedman 11:40 This is this is a topic of much debate in the industry, among strength coaches, and practical of kinesiologist. And I would argue that the human body from person to person is very, very similar. And you'll have different fitness experts and different researchers, they will everybody's different. There's individual differences, individual differences with anthropometrics, and joints, and, you know, our anatomy or structural anatomy and, you know, the way we function, you know, I mean, some people are more fast, which some people more slow twitch, some people more carbs messages from people or, you know, have great insulin sensitivity where they handle carbs really well, from what I've seen, in my condition going on 17 years now in this industry, is that generally speaking, the human body is the human body in, you know, you kind of maintain 90%, of what you do with clients and with individuals and athletes is actually going to be very similar. And if you start to have to, you know, adapted so much, where it's like, oh, my gosh, this is totally different for this person compared to, you know, this other client of mine is like, Whoa, why is that much different? The human body is still the human body. Functional anatomy is still functional anatomy, physiology is still physiology, yes, there are some subtle, individual differences, but they're much, much more subtle, as I said, and much smaller than what a lot of people in the field suggest, you know, some people will say, Oh, well, this person should only squat, you know, 90 degrees, but this person, because they can, they should squat, you know, astagraf. And I think that's one of the things that we have to watch out for. Just because we can do something doesn't mean it's optimal. And just because it's possible, doesn't mean it's ideal, we have to kind of find and hone in on what are more for the human body. When we do that. We see that is very, very similar across individuals, particularly when it comes to strength training, and even even nutrition to a certain degree.
Nick VinZant 13:39 What is you basical philosophy when you look at exercise in nutrition?
Dr. Joel Seedman 13:45 Well, I guess I can touch on the more simple one first, which would be nutrition. I like to recommend foods to clients that pretty much have not been processed or have been very minimally processed. I usually like to recommend a slightly higher protein diet, but not too high. You see some pretty extreme recommendations out there. So typically, one gram per lean pound of body weight or per pound dependent, halleen, individualized, and then moderate carbs, you see also a lot of suggestions, you know, taking the carbs down to a very bare minimum, and then some people not even touching carbs, I like to go moderate on the carbs, and then even on the fat kind of moderate, so I like to play things a little bit more conservative, because as we've seen with these huge fad diets, and even some of the research is so mixed and conflicting. And as soon as we start eliminating the food or really going overboard and a certain food and in hardly touching another food or you know, just barely even eating it. I think that those extremes are where we start running into issues. Strength training, on the other hand, my approaches is probably a little bit different than than most I really like to focus on biomechanics and muscle functioning and quality of movement. And when we lock that in, we teach a person how to move correctly how to fire their muscles properly. and activate them in their proper way, that's when we start opening up all these doors, that's when we start, you know, we can get a lot more advanced, we can get a lot more creative with them, we can push them, we can really progress them quickly because their muscles are performing their job well, when it comes to anything from, you know, increasing muscle mass, if the muscles not activating properly, it's very, you know, you really can't grow muscle if it first hasn't been activated. And then even from a health longevity standpoint, and joint health, if the muscles are not doing their job properly, which a lot of people you know, they run into these issues where they've been training six months, a year, two years, their their bodies are banged up, their shoulders hurt, their knees hurt their hips are and a lot of that comes down to technique, and biomechanics. So if we can, if we can fix biomechanics, and really correct them and perfect them as close as we can, in a realistic fashion, enables us to train long term without running into these, you know, plateaus or run into these obstacles of, you know, having our joints hurt having to take multiple steps back because it's getting injured. So for me, the biomechanics and the movement patterns and learning how to move correctly is a key foundational aspect of things.
Nick VinZant 16:11 How do you kind of create that, that mobility and, and being able to move correctly? Because it sounds like a lot of, you know, exercises in themselves seem to like, lock into the machine so to speak?
Dr. Joel Seedman 16:25 Exactly. No, it does. I think, you know, machines are great. And a lot of people do use machines, I have nothing against machines provided that they're biomechanically sound, which a lot of them are not, it does lock you into a specific path, which is why I prefer using freeways for the most part because it forces the individual to have to basically create a strong mode reprogramming their central nervous system. For example, kind of go back to squat here, if someone does not know how to squat properly, chances are, those issues can be seen and observed in their basic walking gait and their basic movement in their in their posture, the way they pick things up off the ground, if they're playing sport, we can probably see how it transfers into the running form into their jumping. So if we can correct their movement, with strength training with basic, foundational, you know, movement patterns, such as the squat, and unless they have a neat collapse to the ankles, class, they don't know how to load their hips, well, if we could correct it on the squat, we see start to trickle into everyday life. And as well as competition, playing on the field for sports, you know, if we can teach them how to fire their hips, during a squat, it transfers and translates into other things in the other movement patterns, because it's foundational, almost, that's why it's so important that we take foundational movements such as squats, hinges, lunges, presses, rows, overhead presses, pull downs, and basically perfect the movement on that. And I'm a big believer in not using excessive range of motion, but using optimal range of motion. A lot of people think that, you know, maximal range of motion and maximal mobility is the goal. It's really not just like everything in physiology, there's a balance, we never want too much or too little of anything, we always want the optimal amount.
Nick VinZant 18:10 Can you create an athlete? I mean, can you can you like take somebody and really create them into an athlete? Or are you just basically improving somebody?
Dr. Joel Seedman 18:22 That's a good question. I think there is that there's a range here, I think, when it comes to high level performance, I think there is an element of genetics that have to be in place, because we know now that yes, we can cause muscle fibers to adapt, they can become more fast twitch and slow twitch, you know, we can improve, you know, motor unit recruitment, we can we can improve, you know, intramuscular coordination, we can improve all these different elements of performance, but there has to be certain genetic elements in place not With that said, most people never even come close to optimize their human potential, because their training is not ideal. And so if you take an athlete who let's say they have decent genetics, but not great genetics decent and you give them incredible train, and they do everything to the tee, and they follow, you know exactly what you lay off for them, chances are, they may actually be able to play at a pretty high level, provided they continue to stay consistent with their training. Now, you could also have an individual who has incredible genes, and just everything kind of fell into place with their genetic pool and their DNA. But if they don't have the right training, you know, things oftentimes don't work out for them. We see this with, with athletes in every sport, you know, you have these people who should have been superstars and they never pan out because they didn't put the correct work in then you have other athletes who, genetically were not as gifted, were not as blessed. And they actually have great success because their training was so much better. I think that the flip side of that, too, is if you take someone who just has really poor genetics, and you know, I know it's probably not the most politically correct thing to say But they just didn't get blessed with the optimal gene pool. They're not, you know, you can you can train them to the hilt, and they still aren't gonna be able to maybe be that high level athlete, will they be athletic enough to be able to have fun with their sport and do it recreationally without injury? Yes. 100%? So that's a good question.
Nick VinZant 20:18 How do you kind of evaluate both you and both researchers in the field? Like, how do you evaluate what works necessarily? Are you like measuring the size of the muscle the weight that's lifted? Like how do you tell what is working?
Dr. Joel Seedman 20:35 There is such a complex answer to that seemingly simple question. But there's so many assessment methods out there, there. You guys trained coaches that will spend hours assessing folks, I used to actually be one of those, I used to do a lot of assessment, say, we're going to go through all these different muscle screening processes and, and really look at your movement and analyze and go over deeply before we start training. And what I realized is that the need to assess, and to only assess, I should say, because basic assessment is good, the need to really assess is oftentimes a little bit unnecessary. If we teach the person how to move properly, let's say they let's say they come in, they have, you know, really bad hip pain and knee pain, you know, we could spend hours and hours if not days, analyzing them and assessing the daylights out of them and sending them to 20 different, you know, experts and getting 20 different results, you know, the recommendations would be, and you could just drive yourself nuts with that. And they could still walk away having no solutions, still having the same amount of pain, still not having the ability to have high level of function and do their athletic events that they want. But in contrast, we can say, hey, let's just take a real quick look at your movement here and kind of see some underlying things. And then once we just kind of take a blank slate, teach them how to fire their muscles properly, teach them how to, to set their their biomechanics, set their hips to work on their alignment, to get their feet locked into to create those neutral positions, then we have them start moving and firing their muscles. And literally within a, sometimes a session, we can start to see some improvements where the client is saying, Wow, my hips feel better, my knees don't hurt as much, I'm starting to see improvements, like it feels so much better, I can squat out without having pain, you know, I've never been able to squat, or at least the last five years have been able to squat without pain. And now they can do that. And they start buying into it and they start to see those immediate improvements. I think for me, that's one of the biggest kind of measures and indicators that I look at is the level of function, the level of pain and how you know, it feels for the for the client, because of our sense of feel is so important. So underrated in the feedback that clients give you from that sense of fuel, that progress or feedback is so important.
Nick VinZant 22:48 I was looking at your Instagram, which is fantastic. And some of the exercises like I've never even seen that before. Do I? Do I need to be doing that kind of stuff? Or can I just like, I just get by on the elliptical machine
Dr. Joel Seedman 23:05 I do put up a lot of unique exercises. And I always say that, and I get a lot of haters out there who was like, Oh, this is ridiculous. Why don't you do the basics, like, Hey, I often state and I often put in my post that 80% of about 80% of what I do with my athletes or my clients, even myself are the basic foundational movements and nothing too crazy. And then the other 20% we do get a little bit crazy, we can get a little bit unique depending on their their levels and their their capabilities and where they've progressed to. And oftentimes, those really advanced variations, are they absolutely necessary? No, they're not absolutely necessary. If people just focus on the basic math in them, that would that would do the job generally speaking, but sometimes, those really advanced unique movements, they do a few things. First off, it can oftentimes expose issues that we may have not seen with something else. Like if we do a really difficult single exercise and maybe is offset in a certain way where we have load on more of more on one side of the body and the other it makes those a weakness in that particular side of the body or that region of the hip or the ankle that we may have not seen with other things. But the other thing that I The reason I like to post some of these advanced exercises is it shows what's possible when you have mastered the foundations when you have mastered the basics. It opens up all these doors and like I tell people, the reason my clients and my athletes and any myself can do these kind of crazy and wild and advanced stabilization drills that require a ton of coordination and a ton of precision is because we have spent so much time mastering the basics even just a basic bodyweight squat, a basic goblet squat, a basic launch. If you get those down, you become so common and with those you open up the doors and then any other movement that even closely resembles that your body is capable of doing that kind of movement in a nutshell is like hey, if we mastered the basics We can go play any sport we want, we can go run, we can kick, we can throw, we can we can jump, and our bodies will be capable of it as long as we've mastered the basics. So that's one of the key things that I like to focus on.
Nick VinZant 25:11 Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions?
Dr. Joel Seedman 25:15 Oh, okay!
Nick VinZant 25:18 Let's start with the easier ones, I guess. Um, best exercise, people aren't doing.
Dr. Joel Seedman 25:24 Ooh, best exercise people are doing, I would say, well, I've just been recently using these a lot myself, just an overhead power holder are really good at basically taking a heavy weight and holding it overhead for you know, 15 to 30 seconds period, really simple. Everyone can do it. It really strengthens just about every muscle in the body, especially the core and the upper body, and it produced a lot of good strength and muscle hypertrophy.
Nick VinZant 25:46 most overrated exercise.
Dr. Joel Seedman 25:50 Ooh, most overrated exercise. Ooh, I would say the front squat. I would say the front squat. The front squat is a lot of people advocate that saying that, you know, easier to do for me. And for a lot of folks, that can be awkward if they've mastered the other squat variations. The front squat is not as necessary.
Nick VinZant 26:08 Do I need to do cardio?
Dr. Joel Seedman 26:14 Ooh, interesting question. I would say it's not necessary. Although it is beneficial, do it. If someone is training very intensely with their strength and conditioning components in a lot of my clients in the law that I work with the train is pretty, it's pretty intense, we go to a pretty good pace, I don't think it's necessary to have to do a lot of additional cardio provided that they're still physically active. What I mean by that is they still have to be moving throughout the day. And I always like to tell people to try to accumulate 30 minutes of walking every day. Everyone's trained, trained intensely several days a week, and they also walked 30 minutes every day, the need to do cardio probably wouldn't be quite as great. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, because it is very beneficial, but absolutely necessary. Probably not.
Nick VinZant 26:58 Can I wear jean shorts to the gym.
Dr. Joel Seedman 27:04 you can I wouldn't recommend it on upper body days. Probably not a bad probably wouldn't be a big deal. But you might get some unusual looks that could throw off your confidence. You know you that confidence is a big thing. You don't want people looking at you like you're a freak though.
Nick VinZant 27:19 This is I like this one. You trained a lot of athletes, most athletic person you've ever trained just somebody that you looked at and like wow, that they are different.
Dr. Joel Seedman 27:30 Amir of doula. He's a player of the Vikings. He's a genetic freak. He's, I mean, he just watched him do any exercises like wow, this guy is 3% body fat. He's got incredible muscle control even before we started training. Yeah, I think he can have a genetic freak. Nick VinZant 27:50 You can just tell right when they walk into the gym.
Dr. Joel Seedman 27:53 Yeah, totally. Totally. There's certain indicators certain certain telling signs for sure.
Nick VinZant 27:58 How do you feel about bro scientists on social media?
Dr. Joel Seedman 28:05 Well, I mean the bro scientists we have a love hate relationship that I think on there and what they feel is probably more of a hate than a love I'm pretty I'm a pretty loving caring guy, you know, at least I like to think so. But I you don't hold a hard feelings or I don't like to disrespect people, but they tend to be a little bit overly zealous in their training methodologies and they like to rip other people's methods who are different than theirs and I think they tend to maybe get a little bit insecure as well. If they feel I don't know maybe threatened or, you know, like your your what, what you're saying is, you know, kind of telling them that their methods aren't quite right and that my methods are better but you know, they tend to get a little bit of a chip on their shoulder so I don't mind them I think a lot of the the methods and protocols they put out maybe aren't the best or beneficial for a lot of people but at the same time a lot of what we know in the field of Kinesiology actually can stem back to bro science like you know Arnold's things that which a lot of what he did was still pretty solid so I can't rip on the bro guys too much.
Nick VinZant 29:13 This this is assuming pre COVID do i do i need to wipe down a machine if I don't sweat?
Dr. Joel Seedman 29:22 Oh man. I am kind of guilty this but I would say yes. I think out of courtesy and just general gym etiquette. I think it is important especially now as I said before, probably guilty a few times not doing it myself. But I'm a pretty big sweater. So once I start sweating, I definitely wipe down but nowadays got to
Nick VinZant 29:42 what do you think of the kind of thing that I see the lifting every day fad? Is that is that a real thing? Because I remember growing up is like you work out once and then you wait a day.
Dr. Joel Seedman 29:54 Yeah, it's, you know, I A lot of folks can't do that. It's just not practical. For schedule. So I don't always like to recommend that I think it is, can be beneficial. I personally do it because I, you know, I pretty much live in the gym so to speak. So I have the luxury of being able to train every day, it's not necessary, I think, you know, three times a week of work working out and training hard will do the job, if you have the luxury of training 567 days a week and you programmed correctly, and you're providing enough rest, you know, for certain movement patterns. So basically, you wouldn't want to crush the same muscle, the same movement patterns every single time with maximal weight. But if you if you ever want to be able to train everyday you can do and it can actually be very beneficial, but it has to be done right. And technique and form have to be locked in. Because if it's not, you're setting yourself up for disaster with a lot of injuries.
Nick VinZant 30:46 strangest exercise you've ever seen someone do in a gym.
Dr. Joel Seedman 30:51 Oh, man. Shoot. Oh, there was one on posted on Instagram. Somebody brought in like a sword like a real sword. And they were on the elliptical machine. And they were like, flinging it around and doing like, I mean, it was like hardcore combat Lee and they were either training to be an extra in like Game of Thrones, or they had some serious anger issues. They wanted to take advantage. I don't know, man. It was a little freaky. I remember seeing on Instagram, probably about three or four months ago. So that was that was that was pretty crazy right Nick VinZant 31:25 there. Is there like an age where you can see like, oh people this is when somebody's gonna physically declined. Like, is there an age where you can almost pinpoint like, 31? Man, you're done?
Dr. Joel Seedman 31:37 Yeah, it's I would say there is definitely ranges because you will see some some pretty unique. You know, some people can go into their 50s and 60s with bad form and get away with it. You got some kids now you're seeing even high schoolers or even middle schoolers actually start to get injuries. It's really weird that we're seeing so many injuries in young population. So you know, I think people would have said, you know, a decade or two ago, as soon as you hit, you know, your 30s or 40s, you know, things really start to break down. I mean, that's still true. But it's it can start to varying degrees as young as 10 1112 years old now, it's insane. But I would say generally speaking, what I've seen with my athletes and populations, and even in my own body, mid 20s, once those kind of mid 20s hit, if you've been been training hard and you haven't been doing it right, if things start to break down, it's exactly what happened with me it's actually kind of was a blessing in disguise. That was what kind of prompted me to, to go further in this field. Do my own research.
Nick VinZant 32:33 That's really all the questions I've got what's coming up next for you. I know you got a lot of things happening.
Dr. Joel Seedman 32:40 Yeah, no, it's it's an exciting time right now. I've got some good good products on my website I've worked over a long time on I have my book that came out not too long ago, a little over a year ago, movement redefined. I literally spent eight years on that it kind of represents my life's work when it comes to the strength conditioning because it kind of documented everything that I've done over the last 17 years and all the research I did the last eight or nine years and it includes all my training methods and really everything that I do with my athletes and clients including the practical side of it, as well as the the science with hundreds and hundreds of studies to kind of support and explain why I do things the way I do them. So that's that's a big one. It's really been a big seller for me. You know, I got a lot of different athletes I work with baseball season, there's one up here so get someone baseball guys back. And then you know, there's a lot of, I think right now the thing that I'm kind of interested with is we have a lot of injuries going on in the NFL. Fortunately, none of the guys that I've worked with, but I was saying this when COVID hit several, you know, well, I guess months ago now I was thinking this to to all my athletes and to really everyone I would have this discussion with is Watch out when the NFL season and all these sports come back there's going to be a lot a lot of big injuries because guys were not prepared, right, they took a lot of time off and then combined with a lot of the training methods that we see in these professional sports which are subpar. In my opinion, it was just a recipe for disaster. So I think we're gonna have a lot of guys that we got that we got to work on. Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on some of these guys that got injuries and help them kind of rehab and get back to where they were in beyond with proper training methods. So I think a lot of IT professionals in this field and kinesiologist are going to have to work it off in this next year with all these injuries that we're seeing.
Nick VinZant 34:32 All right, last most important question. How much you bench? Oh,
Dr. Joel Seedman 34:39 man, I mean I haven't maxed out for so long. It would be over 200 pounds let's put it that way. I rarely max out, if I can't do something with a good ecentric isometric hold and and really be able to lock it in for good quality. I rarely touch any more just because the consequences are They outweigh the benefits. So I just don't even I don't even do it.
Nick VinZant 35:05 I want to thank Dr. Seedman, so much for joining us if you want to connect with him, we have linked to him on our social media accounts, or Profoundly Pointless on Twitter and Instagram. And we have also included his information on the RSS feed that's on this podcast. He has a lot of really cool information. I mean, even if you're just checking out his Instagram, some of the exercises there, they just, they give you different ideas, besides just hopping on an elliptical machine walking endlessly, basically, it's cool to kind of check out.