About the speaker:

James Steele (or James Steele II as he is known online and through his blog) is a 24 year old Lecturer and PhD Research Student at Southampton Solent University in the UK. James is an exercise scientist by profession having gained a first class honours degree in Applied Sport Science and during his time of study working with a wide range of elite athletic populations including; international Ironman triathlete’s, Paralympic wheelchair basketball and rugby, semi professional muay thai fighters and professional football (soccer). In addition he has worked with non-athletic populations including the elderly, diseased and a population that he is currently conducting research with; sufferers of chronic low back pain.

James is active as an academic pursuing his PhD research into chronic low back pain, its multifactorial symptoms and the effects of isolated resistance exercise for the lumbar extensors in treating it. He has also recently had a paper published with his colleagues, on which he was second author, presenting the scientific literature of resistance training and suggesting recommendations for its optimal implementation based upon the current evidence.

Despite his clear academic focus in the area of exercise science, James also has many other areas of interest on which he occasionally writes when the time permits at jamessteelii.blogspot.com, one of these topics being philosophy. James has always taken an interest in the nature of the universe and man’s relationship to it yet never had a conceptual framework for which to understand it.

A few years ago whilst reading Mike Mentzers books on High Intensity Training James was introduced to a philosophical perspective on exercise based around reason and logic. It was from here that he was introduced to philosophy as a subject to study and more specifically Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. Since then James has dedicated time in his personal life to further his knowledge on all areas of philosophy, and specifically Objectivism, providing himself with an armchair philosopher’s perspective on the universe, man and life.