Hello.
FIFTH episode of Snake Super Health the POD, a health discussion for people interested in severe alleyways of health—nutrition, red light, lifting, musculature, face yoga, foot yoga, no other types of yoga—who are otherwise NORMAL. Subscribe on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts.
On this episode…
The Mike Israetel drama
On today’s episode, I chat with my friend and COHOST Josh Feola and my friend, Miguel Rivera, PhD, about the Mike Israetel “drama” and ramifications. Who’s Mike Israetel? What happened? Why does it matter? Well, he’s a lifter. It’s dramatic but an important example of how strength and health gets discussed in professional circles. Here’s a short synopsis from an earlier Open Secrets post:
In October, Solomon Nelson, an Australian law student and lifting content creator, reviewed a doctoral thesis by Mike Israetel, a massively popular science-based lifting content creator and talking head (he was on Citarella’s show recently). After a close-reading of Mike’s thesis on the E. Tenn State archive, Israetel’s degree-granting institution, Nelson published a YouTube video detailing the impossible statistics, wrong data figures, numerous errors/copy-pastes, bad citations, 200 typos… etc., in the document, and also claimed the work had an unoriginal contribution to Israetel’s academic field, and that he should not be considered an academic anymore. (The thesis, published in 2013, was titled “The Interrelationships of Fitness Characteristics in Division 1 Athletes.”) Israetel immediately said Nelson reviewed a mistakenly uploaded rough draft, and offered a different one, but walked that defense back after the new upload was found to have current metadata. Other events occurred in the lifting world, but they’re less important for this discussion than this initial exchange. Israetel is best known as the “exercise scientist critiques actor/celebrity’s workout” guy; he also founded Renaissance Periodization in 2013, which is a science-based lifting template/business, whose calorie tracking app I reviewed here. (I also wrote more in-depth updates on the drama in October.)
I chat with Miguel, of Paradox Newsletter to get a better look at the nuts and bolts of doctoral theses in general—how the research works, how to define “new knowledge” in a field, and whether Israetel’s thesis in question is novel or not— and Josh and I bookend this discussion with a look at Israetel’s work, study design in lifting “sciences”, and the extent to which strength training be studied scientifically. And whether YouTubers can be scientists. More about the PhD, less about the nuts and bolts of lifting.
Show Notes:
1:00: Intro, catch-up on Israetel and Nelson
3:30: Credentialism in health: What does an advanced degree mean?
4:30: The PhD to influencer pipeline: Peterson… Israetel?
5:00: Is the appeal to authority to sell something to health consumers… new? (Dr. Oz)
6:30: Is science based lifting’s obsession with efficiency lazy, or helpful for working people?
7:30: Can specific lifting advice be advanced through short-term studies? How much does exercise variance matter?
9:10: Are there fundamental process issues with exercise science? (Double-blind; lack thereof; no placebos…)
10:00: Academia’s focus on running vs. lifting: One is natural, one is a skill
12:00: The journalistic and influencer oversimplification of progressive overload.
13:30: Interview with Miguel Rivera, PhD begins; Miguel’s history, and work
16:30: Are shoddy drafts common for PhD theses?
17:00: What does a PhD thesis demonstrate? (Adding a tiny point outside the circle of the field of knowledge)
19:00: Polish in drafts (PhD theses are not shoddy like this)
20:30: The ad-hoc nature, and variable writing quality, of PhD thesis work
24:40: Choosing a thesis subject: How it relates to a book
26:30: The roughness and growing pains of newer fields of study, like exercise science
29:00: “This isn’t a Mike Israetel problem, this is an exercise science problem”—Prof. Anthony Campitelli
30:00: Why is academic writing like that? Buttoned up…
33:00: Praise for the adversarial nature of peer review
34:00: PhD as a union card: A degree is never enough to confer authority. The work must be authoritative.
35:30: Can vernacular work be recognized academically? end Miguel interview
37:00: Josh’s take: Is exercise science just a young field?
39:00: Dings against Mike
40:00: Exercise Scientist Critiques Workout Plan = devil s**t
41:00: “Post Physique” as lifting world peer review…
42:00: How much do results matter for people prescribing work? (Taking bodybuilding advice from a failed bodybuilder)
43:00: The long tradition of grifting and health: Are better doctors the answer?
45:00: One for the road (Josh): Crispr fungus protein: Gene edits… high protein edible fungus in China.
47:00: China’s war on the obesity crisis—and the EU’s
51:00: One for the road (Snake): Physiological hygiene: working out every day instead of 3x a week
52:00: Why is lifting so obsessed with limiting volume and movement? Shouldn’t untrained people move in some way every day?
Selected reading/viewing:
* Mike Israetel’s PhD thesis
* Solomon Nelson’s critique of Mike’s thesis (original video; worth watching, and response)
* Mike’s response (since redacted) and his apology
* Internet Anarchist’s critique of Mike’s thesis; Reddit PhD discussion; Coach Greg’s videos on Mike (1, 2…. there are hundreds. I love this guy)
* Miguel’s Substack
* CRISPR Fungus: Protein-Packed, Sustainable, and Tastes Like Meat- Crop Biotech Update
* Physiological hygiene: a minimalistic, normal way to train (& how to select for volume), further discussion in this post:
Thanks for listening.
SAMI REISS
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