In this episode of Sixty Plus Uncensored, host Seb Frey talks with Jeff Seckendorf, a San Diego-based cycling coach, keynote speaker, and author who, at 71, set four world records on the bike in a single year. Jeff’s path to this point has wound through four decades as a director of photography and director on commercials and films, two decades building and running a global scuba certification agency, and now a full-time second career centered on coaching, speaking, and writing. What ties it all together, as Jeff explains it, is a simple refusal to treat getting older as a decline. Instead, he’s built an entire philosophy, and a business, around the idea of “versioning up,” treating each year not as another number to dread but as an upgrade worth getting excited about.
From Commercials and Film Sets to Scuba Diving
Jeff spent roughly forty years working in the film industry, primarily as a director of photography on commercials, having shot something in the neighborhood of a thousand television spots across every category imaginable, from banks to toothpaste to cars. His favorite project as a cinematographer was a film called Judy Berlin. When he left the film business more than two decades ago, he didn’t simply retire; he started Unified Team Diving, a global scuba certification agency he co-founded in 2008 and later bought out entirely, running it for roughly a decade before exiting the business last year. The agency distinguished itself by bringing a technical-diving mindset, the rigor typically reserved for more advanced, equipment-heavy diving, into the broader recreational diving community.
That background also gives Jeff an unusual sideline: he works as an expert witness in scuba diving litigation, which has exposed him to the consequences of inadequate training in the sport. His blunt assessment is that scuba diving accidents almost always begin with some form of preventable carelessness and can end tragically, which is why he’s firm that anyone interested in diving should invest in a proper certification course rather than attempting an untrained “discovery” dive. It’s a position informed by genuine expertise rather than overcaution; diving can be done safely and is, in his words, tremendously fun, but it requires real training to navigate an unfamiliar environment responsibly.
Version 7.1: A New Way to Talk About Aging
The centerpiece of Jeff’s current work, and arguably the most distinctive idea in this conversation, is a reframing of age itself. He traces it back to a moment in Barcelona a few years ago when a friend asked how old he was; after answering “sixty-eight,” he recalls thinking the number itself sounded unnecessarily old, and on the spot, he began referring to himself instead as “version six point eight.” The idea stuck. Rather than marking birthdays as another year lost, Jeff treats each one as a new version release, complete with “updates and upgrades,” at the time of this conversation describing himself as version 7.1. A torn rotator cuff a few months before the interview became version 7.1.1, requiring a new training plan and physical therapy; as he began healing, he moved into what he called version 7.1.2.
Jeff is careful to frame this less as a cute rebranding exercise and more as a genuine mental shift. The real question behind each version update, he says, isn’t simply what happened in the past year, but what a person wants to upgrade going forward: new knowledge, new experience, a renewed sense of purpose, a chance to try something previously out of reach. None of that happens, in his view, if aging is treated purely as a downturn, something to be endured on the couch rather than engaged with directly. At the same time, he’s explicit that his own path, the intense cycling, the record-setting rides, isn’t a template anyone else needs to copy. The point of versioning up isn’t becoming Jeff Seckendorf; it’s finding whatever activity genuinely turns a person on and building from there, whether that’s cycling, hiking, triathlon, writing a book, or something as unglamorous and rewarding as serious gardening.
Seeing each year as an upgrade starts with how you think, and Why a Growth Mindset Matters at Any Age explores how staying curious and open to change keeps you growing well past sixty.
A Life Built Around the Bike
At 71, Jeff trains on his bike six days a week and, in the year before this conversation, set four age-group world records: for 100 kilometers, 100 miles, and 200 kilometers, along with course records at the World Six Hour Time Trial Championship. He’s candid that this level of performance hasn’t come without setbacks, including the torn rotator cuff that sidelined him from free weights and put him temporarily back on resistance machines during his recovery, a shift he otherwise tends to avoid in his own training philosophy, which favors functional, multi-muscle movement over isolated machine work.
Jeff’s own relationship to competitive endurance sport has evolved over time as well. He mentions giving up triathlon specifically because he never enjoyed swimming in cold ocean water, despite being a lifelong scuba diver, and redirected that same competitive energy fully into cycling instead, a decision he frames as a clear example of his own guiding principle: find the version of a challenging, structured pursuit that’s actually enjoyable, and let go of the parts that aren’t.
Speaking on Aging, Resilience, and Parkinson’s Disease
Beyond coaching, Jeff works as a keynote speaker, addressing groups on longevity, aging, high performance, and resilience after seventy. Much of this speaking work grew out of an unexpected connection: his wife is a nurse practitioner specializing in Parkinson’s disease and movement disorders, and through her, Jeff became deeply involved in the Parkinson’s community, eventually speaking regularly to that audience about exercise and structured training, even though he himself doesn’t have the disease. His client base for keynote speaking has since expanded to include client-appreciation events for financial services firms, giving him a broader platform for his core message about aging with intention rather than simply managing decline.
Jeff’s experience with the Parkinson’s community also shapes how he answers one of the more universal questions in the conversation: where does a person actually start if they want more energy and a fuller life. Parkinson’s, he explains, is a progressive neurological disease with no cure, but the one intervention clinically shown to slow its progression is exercise. What he’s observed firsthand, repeatedly, is that some patients who previously had poor diets and sedentary lifestyles end up, after a Parkinson’s diagnosis forces a genuine lifestyle overhaul, living in some respects more vibrantly than they did before the disease ever appeared. His broader point extends well beyond Parkinson’s: any major life disruption, retirement, caregiving for an ill spouse, a job loss, an injury, can become the forcing function for building a genuinely better daily structure, built around real nutrition, a real exercise program, and a deliberate decision to find enjoyment in the process rather than white-knuckling through it.
The Fun Factor and Why Misery Doesn’t Work
A recurring theme throughout the conversation is Jeff’s insistence that enjoyment isn’t a secondary consideration in building a healthier, more active life, but the actual foundation of it. He describes once working a job where enjoyment simply wasn’t part of the equation, and leaving it as quickly as he could, reasoning that there’s little point in being miserable regardless of the external rewards. He extends this logic to writing itself, pointing out that some writers famously love having written a book far more than they ever loved the process of writing it, and arguing that if the process itself brings no joy, the years spent producing the final result simply aren’t worth it to him personally.
This same principle underlies how Jeff approaches coaching. He’s explicit that he doesn’t pursue clients; rather, people find him because they’re looking for a way to elevate whatever they already enjoy doing, not because they want to become a version of Jeff Seckendorf himself. If a client loves cycling, hiking, triathlon, or an entirely different pursuit, his job is to help them build real skill, consistency, and eventually genuine success within that specific interest, using enjoyment itself as the engine that keeps a person coming back day after day.
Diet Without Extremism
On nutrition, Jeff’s philosophy is refreshingly unornamented: eat food that came from plants and animals, and be wary of anything packaged in a way that obscures what’s actually in it. He avoids heavily processed items, famously summarized in his own shorthand as “don’t eat anything you can’t pronounce,” and draws a sharp distinction between a food’s laboratory-measured nutrient content and what the body can actually absorb from an over-processed version of that same food. He illustrates this with his fifteen-year-old grandson’s experience losing a hundred pounds, going from 280 to 180, a transformation that began simply by eliminating processed, packaged foods in favor of whole ones.
Jeff draws a firm distinction, though, between what he calls “fuel” and “food.” Fuel refers specifically to the carbohydrates and electrolytes consumed in the window immediately before, during, and after a hard workout, intended to support performance and recovery in that specific context. Food refers to everything eaten the rest of the day, where the priority shifts to nutrient density, portion awareness, and genuine enjoyment of eating, rather than optimizing for athletic output. He’s careful to note that a reasonable amount of carbohydrate and even sugar around a hard training session serves a legitimate performance purpose and shouldn’t be confused with the sugar-laden processed food that makes up so much of the modern diet outside of that narrow window.
It’s worth noting that Jeff’s dietary framework reflects his personal coaching philosophy, built around endurance athletes and shaped by his own experience, rather than formal clinical nutrition guidance; anyone managing a specific health condition, including concerns about blood sugar, sodium, or hydration, should still consult their own physician or a registered dietitian before making significant changes.
Why Resistance Training Matters More Than People Think
When Seb describes his own routine, an hour of daily indoor cycling with no resistance training at all, Jeff is direct that cardiovascular exercise alone isn’t a complete picture, particularly as people age. He emphasizes that some amount of regular, heavier resistance work matters for bone health, muscle mass, and tendon integrity, and that this doesn’t require becoming a dedicated weightlifter; a modest program built around free weights, dumbbells, and resistance bands, covering upper body, lower body, core, and balance, delivers meaningful benefit even at a commitment of as little as twenty minutes, twice a week.
Jeff expresses a preference for functional, free-weight-based resistance training over machine-based training specifically because machines tend to isolate a single muscle group, while free weights and functional movements, like a deadlift, recruit the stabilizing muscles throughout the body simultaneously, more closely mirroring the actual physical demands of daily life. He reframes the entire goal of this kind of training around a concept he calls durability rather than raw strength: the measure of success isn’t how much weight a person can lift, but whether they can comfortably get in and out of a car, rise easily from a couch, or get down on the floor to play with a grandchild. Band-based home workouts, he notes, can deliver much of this functional benefit for a minimal investment, roughly twenty-five dollars in basic equipment, and have the added advantage of being easy to pack and use while traveling.
For a simple place to start at home, Easy Home Workouts to Improve Balance and Flexibility walks through gentle moves and a weekly routine that pairs well with any cardio habit.
Rest, Recovery, and the Case for a Coach
One of Jeff’s more pointed observations is that the body doesn’t actually get stronger during a workout itself; it gets stronger during the recovery period afterward, as muscle fibers that were subjected to tiny amounts of productive stress rebuild with more capillaries, more mitochondria, and better oxygenation. This is where he believes most do-it-yourself fitness routines, and even many app-based or AI-driven training programs, fall short: they’re generally good at prescribing workouts but far less equipped to account for a person’s actual daily state, how well they slept, whether they’re adequately hydrated, whether they’re fighting off a minor illness, and to properly periodize hard effort against necessary rest.
Jeff distinguishes this from pure structure for its own sake; the value of human coaching, in his telling, isn’t just a more sophisticated workout calendar, but genuine accountability and a trained eye that notices when something isn’t working and adjusts accordingly. That said, he’s quick to add that working with a coach doesn’t have to mean an intimidating, open-ended financial commitment. Many of his own clients work with him for a defined period, often three to six months, specifically to learn how to build and run their own program, before continuing independently, sometimes returning to coaching later simply for renewed accountability.
He’s candid, too, that not every trainer or group class delivers this kind of value. Describing some of his own past experiences with gym-provided personal trainers and generic group coaching programs, Jeff suggests that the clearest signal of a coach worth paying for is whether they begin by genuinely asking what a client’s goals actually are and what they enjoy doing, rather than handing out a one-size-fits-all program. His practical advice for finding a good coach or trainer leans heavily on word of mouth and a trial conversation, paying close attention to whether that person listens carefully before prescribing anything.
Hydration, Sodium, and a Lesson Most People Haven’t Heard
Toward the end of the conversation, Jeff raises a subject he says rarely comes up on this kind of show: the risks of overhydration. He describes the body’s reliance on a properly balanced sodium concentration in the blood, explaining that drinking large volumes of plain water without any accompanying electrolytes can dilute that sodium level, a condition known as hyponatremia, which in serious cases can become a genuine medical emergency. His own practical solution is simple: he adds a small pinch of Celtic sea salt to his water throughout the day, aiming to keep the water he drinks roughly isotonic with his blood’s natural sodium concentration, rather than relying on commercial electrolyte powders or sports drinks, many of which he considers an expensive solution to a problem that can be addressed far more cheaply.
This is a genuinely important point about exercise physiology, though readers should treat the specifics as Jeff’s own coaching approach rather than individualized medical advice; sodium needs vary meaningfully by individual, by climate, and by activity level, and anyone with kidney disease, high blood pressure, heart conditions, or other concerns about sodium intake should check with their physician before deliberately adding salt to their daily water intake.
Finding the Right Starting Point
Asked directly where someone in their sixties or seventies, feeling low on energy and overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of modern fitness advice, should actually begin, Jeff returns to the same foundational question he asks every new client: what are your goals, and what do you actually enjoy doing? For someone like Seb, whose own stated goal centers on mood, energy, and general cardiovascular health rather than competitive achievement, Jeff’s advice is refreshingly permissive: simply continuing to show up for a daily ride, even without a highly structured program layering in distinct hard and easy days, already represents the overwhelming majority of the benefit. Adding more deliberate structure, alternating harder interval sessions with genuine easy recovery days, would meaningfully improve cardiovascular fitness further, but only matters once a person actually wants that next level of performance, rather than as a prerequisite for getting real value out of consistent movement.
If you’re looking for a gentle way to get moving again, The Best Low-Impact Exercises for Adults Over 60 shares easy-on-the-joints options that build strength and stamina at your own pace.
Upgrading, Not Aging
What distinguishes Jeff Seckendorf’s view of later life, running through his own competitive cycling, his coaching practice, and his keynote speaking, is a consistent refusal to treat aging as something merely to be managed or minimized. Each year, each setback, even an injury, becomes in his framing another version update, an opportunity to decide deliberately what comes next rather than simply enduring whatever comes next. His own record-setting rides aren’t offered as a standard anyone else needs to meet; they’re simply evidence that the particular thing he chose to pursue, approached with real structure, real recovery, and real enjoyment, can carry a person further into later life than most people assume is possible. For listeners wondering whether seventy, or any age past it, has to mean slowing down, his answer is a practical one: find the version of an active life that’s genuinely fun, build the structure and support around it that actually works, and treat every year as another upgrade worth looking forward to.