Exercise is Bullshit!

Episode 28! I'm so excited to be joined today but one of my favorite researchers currently in the field of Exercise Science. Dr. James McKendry joins me from his brand new home at the University of British Columbia in Canada. James is a former student of Dr. Stu Phillips (probably the leading protein scientist in the world), and now he's running his own lab in Canada. We talk a bit about what he has planned for his new lab, and what type of tests he's hoping to run in the future. However, the bulk of today's episode is about a paper James was a part of on Mitigating Disuse in an Aging Population. Essentially, how do we make sure we don't lose muscle as we get older. This paper and conversation were fascinating as the barrier for consequential effects that will make life changing improvements in very low. If you are not moving and strength training you should start so as soon as possible. Especially if you have some sort of life changing surgery or event in the near future. There's no time like the present to get started to preserve your health and lifespan for the long term. I think the listeners will find a ton of value in this episode and I can't wait to hear what you think. If you're interested in learning more from James or reaching out with questions, feel free to email him directly at james.mckendry@ubc.ca. If you've ever thought about adding to your own home gym, there's a brand I'm a huge fan of that I couldn't recommend more highly.⁠⁠⁠ Temple of Gainz⁠⁠⁠ is a California based company that's making waves in the home gym space with some of the best products on the market. Their thoughtful designs inspired by great machines of the past are constantly being innovated and improved. Their customer service is top notch and they have some of the most competitive prices in the space with their direct to consumer shipping (which is free if you spend more than $1500). Whether you own a small studio or want to create the ultimate home gym, you should give ⁠⁠⁠Temple of Gainz⁠⁠⁠ a try! If you haven't already please like, subscribe and share. If you're interested in working with me directly for training or health coaching, please reach out at logan@reformed-fitness.com. You can also book a free discovery call with myself or another member of my team ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Episode 27! Jack is Back!I'm joined today again by my good friend Jack Oosten of JackedN'Leen Gym in Rogers, MN. Jack and his wife have built on of the premier bodybuilding destinations in the country right in our back yard. If you're ever in the Twin Cities, make sure you take a day to stop by and check out this Utopia of Fitness equipment. J&LGym. On today's episode, Jack and I chat about something near and dear to my heart, Men's Health Optimization. The word "optimize" gets thrown around a lot in our industry, but Jack is a world class coach that knows what it means to get the absolute best out of someone and push them past their limits. A little over a year ago I came to him, rundown, tired and just not feeling like myself anymore. He helped me put together a program and introduced me to the world of TRT. Today we talk all about how to know if TRT might be right for you. What are the signs and symptoms, what are the benefits and what are the risks. Jack lives and breathes this world and there's no one better to discuss the nuance of something that most people have heard of, but don't really understand. I hope you find this information helpful, and if you want to work with Jack use his Coaching Link. There's nobody better in the game, whether your goal is just to feel better, look better, or even to compete in a full blown body building show!If you're interested in learning more about TRT or think you might be a good candidate, check out "Ryze". That's the company I use and trust with all my clients and for myself. Ryze Health Form (Use code "Reformed" for 20% off your order).If you've ever thought about adding to your own home gym, there's a brand I'm a huge fan of that I couldn't recommend more highly.⁠⁠ Temple of Gainz⁠⁠ is a California based company that's making waves in the home gym space with some of the best products on the market. Their thoughtful designs inspired by great machines of the past are constantly being innovated and improved. Their customer service is top notch and they have some of the most competitive prices in the space with their direct to consumer shipping (which is free if you spend more than $1500). Whether you own a small studio or want to create the ultimate home gym, you should give ⁠⁠Temple of Gainz⁠⁠ a try! If you haven't already please like, subscribe and share. If you're interested in working with me directly for training or health coaching, please reach out at logan@reformed-fitness.com. You can also book a free discovery call with myself or another member of my team ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Episode... 26! It's as cold... as ICE!I'm joined today by Alec Pinero, another great student out of Lehman College in the Bronx, under the tutelage of the great Dr. Brad Schoenfeld. Alec is a genius and sure to do great things in the industry. The Harvard alum is currently pursuing his PhD, but today's conversation centered around a paper he was part of for his Master's Program. Ice baths and cold plunges have become a mainstay in the biohacking and health and fitness space, but Alec and his team published one of the first large meta-analysis a couple years back to challenge this fitness trend and see if this cold water might actually be doing more harm then good.If you've been wondering whether to add a cold plunge to your routine, make sure you check out this episode first. You could be "Throwing Cold Water On Your Gains!". If you've ever thought about adding to your own home gym, there's a brand I'm a huge fan of that I couldn't recommend more highly.⁠ Temple of Gainz⁠ is a California based company that's making waves in the home gym space with some of the best products on the market. Their thoughtful designs inspired by great machines of the past are constantly being innovated and improved. Their customer service is top notch and they have some of the most competitive prices in the space with their direct to consumer shipping (which is free if you spend more than $1500). Whether you own a small studio or want to create the ultimate home gym, you should give ⁠Temple of Gainz⁠ a try! If you haven't already please like, subscribe and share. If you're interested in working with me directly for training or health coaching, please reach out at logan@reformed-fitness.com. You can also book a free discovery call with myself or another member of my team ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Episode 25! Today I'm so priviledged to be joined by one of the greats to ever do it in the strength and conditioning space. Former NFL strength and conditioning coach Mark Asanovich shares his treasure trove of wisdom. Mark was a S&C coach for multiple teams in his career spanning over 20 years in the NFL. He was also one of the last coaches to truly practice a High Intensity Training style at the highest level of football. He's been a coach on the Bucs, the Ravens, the Jaguars, and the Minnesota Vikings. He still occasionally takes clients out of his awesome garage gym at home which is filled with machines straight from his time at those programs. Currently he's working as a professor at St. Cloud State, teaching and inspiring what will surely be the next generation of coaches. Mark shares his "5 P's of Strength Training". Whether you're familiar with strength and conditioning or have no idea, this is an episode you don't want to miss. It's filled with tons of useful information you can surely apply to your own training. Give it a listen and be sure to share!If you've ever thought about adding to your own home gym, there's a brand I'm a huge fan of that I couldn't recommend more highly. Temple of Gainz is a California based company that's making waves in the home gym space with some of the best products on the market. Their thoughtful designs inspired by great machines of the past are constantly being innovated and improved. Their customer service is top notch and they have some of the most competitive prices in the space with their direct to consumer shipping (which is free if you spend more than $1500). Whether you own a small studio or want to create the ultimate home gym, you should give Temple of Gainz a try! If you haven't already please like, subscribe and share. If you're interested in working with me directly for training or health coaching, please reach out at logan@reformed-fitness.com. You can also book a free discovery call with myself or another member of my team ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Episode 24!This episode is a little bit different than previous on this show. I'm thrilled today to be joined by two clients of my company Reformed Fitness (HERE), Rebecca & James Lockwood. I've know Rebecca for almost 4 years when she started working with me remotely. She moved on to Reformed Fitness where we reconnected when I started working completely remote in 2024. Rebecca is an amazing business women, mother, writer and entrepreneur and her husband James is her steadfast companion, stay at home dad (an often under appreciated role in MHO) and collaborator in all of her business adventures.We love Rebecca at Reformed Fitness. So much that we've built our entire marketing strategy around finding more amazing clients just like her and her husband. So when she told me about her new book "The Cohesive Couple" (HERE) which is inspired by her work using EOS as an implementer, I wanted to learn more. EOS is a business operating system for entrepreneurs. It helps to streamline the process of meeting, team building and brand building. After over a decade in that field helping businesses grow, she and James decided they wanted to see how applying a similar idea to relationships might work. Like many couples, she and James had struggled over the course of their long relationship to continue to have valuable and constructive conversation. This was the impetus of "The Cohesive Couple". Creating systems, and processes that allow your relationship to grow and flourish. Treating your love life like a business, might not sound very appealing at first. But just like with a business, relationships get in ruts, and many times if people don't have the right systems in place, they're destined to go bankrupt or in relationships, split and fail. "The Cohesive Couple" is a game-changer for relationships. We talk all about how the system works, and why it works. We also discuss how much of a role exercise has played in their relationship. How having a healthy partner, someone that you can grow and evolve with is so important to longevity. While this isn't our normal science filled adventure. I think it's extremely interesting and applicable to how to make your life, your fitness and your relationship work in the real world. Not just in theory, or in a lab. So enjoy and if you're interested in learning more, but the book, and reach out to the team to find out how "The Cohesive Couple" can help!If you haven't already please like, subscribe and share. If you're interested in working with me directly for training or health coaching, please reach out at logan@reformed-fitness.com. You can also book a free discovery call with myself or another member of my team ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Episode 23! The Jordan Podcast! And that's appropriate because today I have one of the GOATS in the field of Exercise Science Research!In this episode I'm joined by PhD student Alysha D'Souza (IG HERE) from McMaster University in Canada. Alysha is a student in Dr. Stu Phillips lab and is leading the way in a new generation of female focused exercise science research (an area that's currently severely lacking in the field). In this episode we discuss a new and exciting muscle composition modality the "COSIAM" method. A combination of multiple isotopes to test the actual amount of skeletal muscle you currently have. This is exciting because most body composition tools use algorithms and proxy measures to estimate muscle mass. Till now, besides performing an autopsy (which means no more gains anyways), there hasn't been a tool to allow researchers to not just distinguish between lean tissue and fat, but actual "skeletal muscle". Which is really what we want to measure in strength research.The value of muscle mass and the link to resistance training is now widely known and propagated, but we've always relied on tools that have a significant margin of error to make our best educated guess at what is happening internally. Though this method will probably never be widely available, it sheds valuable insight on the variability in these tools (i.e. you're probably not as jacked as you think). This episode is research dense and I do my best to bring everything down to a level that's easy to understand. But if you're interested in how to actually measure muscle, you don't want to miss this!If you haven't already please like, subscribe and share. If you're interested in working with me directly for training or health coaching, please reach out at logan@reformed-fitness.com. You can also book a free discovery call with myself or another member of my team ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Episode 22! The Emmett Smith of Podcast Episodes! And just like the all-time leading rusher, this one is all about speed... or time... or the time you'll save being speedy. I'm joined today by Ryan Burke (IG HERE). Ryan is a tremendous young researcher currently pursuing his PhD at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Ryan is a former Master's Graduate from the Applied Muscle Development lab at Lehman University under the guidance of the great Dr. Brad Schoenfeld. Today Ryan and are are discussing a paper he was part of as part of his Master's Program looking at the efficacy of Supersets compared to traditional set training as a way to make workouts more efficient. Supersets in layman's terms are paired sets of exercise with minimal to no rest in between. They can be complimentary (think pec fly into a chest press), antagonist (think chest press into seated row), or not related at all (biceps and squats). For this study the exercises were mostly antagonistic. Both groups performed a full body resistance training program, but the supersets group saved close to 30% in time compared to the Traditional training group. The outcomes were almost identical. This makes supersets a great tool in your tool belt for time efficient training. That doesn't mean it's better than a traditional training approach, but another way to make training more convenient and time efficient during potentially busier periods in life. This is a great episode and Ryan is a brilliant young researcher. Check it out and keep your eye out for more great episodes in the future!If you haven't already please like, subscribe and share. If you're interested in working with me directly for training or health coaching, please reach out at logan@reformed-fitness.com. You can also book a free discovery call with myself or another member of my team ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Episode 21... BlackJack! He's back! The Jack Attack!In this week's episode I'm joined by Jack O0sten. Jack is the founder and owner of Jacked&Leen Gym in Rogers, MN. One of the true Mecca's of Bodybuilding in the Midwest... and possibly the world. Jack has been in the bodybuilding game for over a decade and he and his wife Eileen opened their dream gym in 2024. Together they've been coaching and helping hundreds of clients for the last 5+ years. Jack is also one of the smartest folks I know in the fitness space. He has the gift, for form, technique and probably most importantly, motivation. You do a set with Jack looking over you and you'll never work harder in your life. This week Jack joins me to talk all things rep speed and cadence. How fast should you be moving in your workouts? Is there really an ideal tempo? Does anything actually get better or worse if you move faster or slower. Together we answer all of this and much more. You definitely don't want to miss this episode!If you haven't already please like, subscribe and share. If you're interested in working with me directly for training or health coaching, please reach out at logan@reformed-fitness.com. You can also book a free discovery call with myself or another member of my team ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Episode 20... ! They said we couldn't do it... but here we are ah-doing-it!Today I'm joined by my friend and college Eric Feigl. Eric has been a coach for close to 20 years and trained thousands of client sessions, in person and online. He's currently based out of Ohio at Mission 5 Fitness (HERE) where he takes clients in person, but you can also find him online if you're outside of his area and looking for coaching.Eric and I spent this episode talking about the current state of the fitness industry. Where it might be in the next 5-10 years, and how to position yourself to continue to be competitive in the fitness space. Eric is a brilliant guy with a TON of knowledge and experience. Definitely give this episode a listen if you want to know more about the future of fitness!If you haven't already please like, subscribe and share. If you're interested in working with me directly for training or health coaching, please reach out at logan@reformed-fitness.com. You can also book a free discovery call with myself or another member of my team ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Episode 19... that's almost 20! They said we couldn't do it... but here we are ah-doing-it!Today I'm joined by the king of stats, Dr. James Steele. Dr. Steele is a good friend and colleague, former associate professor at Solent University and currently the head of the research department for Keiser Australia (⁠HERE⁠). He joins me on the show today to discuss a relatively recent paper he was a major part of called "Machine-based resistance training improves functional capacity in older adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis." (⁠HERE⁠). This paper is a fantastic Meta-Analysis (combining multiple papers together on the same topic), that looked at the effects of resistance training on machines and how that affected functional capacity measures in older individuals. Often fitness folks confuse the idea that "functional training" must involve things like, balance, coordination, free weights, bands, and plyometrics. The results from this paper show that simple progressive resistance training using full body resistance machines, improves these results just as much as traditional "functional training". This is great news for older individuals (and younger ones) who want to get stronger and feel better well into their golden years. You don't have to do any fancy exercises to improve functional capacity. Simply strength train hard, brief, and infrequent. Progress the weights and reps over time, and you've got all the functional training you'll need. As with most things, this applies to older individuals and also... athletes. If you're interested in hearing more about why exercise doesn't have to be complicated, give this episode a listen!And if you haven't already please like and subscribe to the podcast. If you'd like to work with me directly or any of my colleagues feel free to schedule a Free Discovery Call ⁠HERE⁠.