The Okay Podcast Powered by The Strength Co. - EP 15: CrossFit, The Eclipse, McDonald’s Diet & 500lb Squats feat. Jim Denofa

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

Podcast Hosts: Grant Broggi: Marine Veteran, Owner of The Strength Co. and Starting Strength Coach. Jeff Buege: Marine Veteran, Outdoorsman, Football Fan and Lifter Tres Gottlich: Marine Veteran, Texan, Fisherman, Crazy College Football Fan and Lifter Check out BW Tax: https://www.bwtaxllc.com TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Intro 00:43 - BTC Update 01:48 - Weekly Recap 05:09 - Grant Fixed PJ’s Fiancee’s Squat Case Study 20:24 - Jeff and Tres Join 22:35 - The Eclipse 29:53 - Jim Denofa Joins 33:39 - Jim’s Gym Culture 37:46 - Issues With Crossfit Culture 43:39 - Jim’s Philosophy On Goals 46:42 - The Story Behind Jim’s 500lb Squat PR 52:42 - Jim’s Workout Classes 54:14 - How Crossfit Has Changed 56:53 - McDonald’s Diet 59:41 - Pros And Cons Of Crossfit 01:04:47 - The Problem Of Over-Optimization 01:12:00 - Hot Takes 01:23:26 - Jim’s Epic BW Tax Ad Read 01:25:55 - Closing Thoughts  01:29:59 - Women’s Basketball National Championship 01:34:14 - Fishing With Grant’s Brother 01:39:16 - Tres Signs Us Off

All right, and welcome back to episode 015 of the OK Podcast, powered by the Strength Co. I'm your host, Grant Brogy, and I'm here in the beautiful upstate of South Carolina where spring has sprung, the flowers are blooming, the pollen has died down, summer's not here, but it's just around the corner. And we are recording live, but brought to you every Friday at 0 9 a.m. Eastern time here in the studio with PJ and, you know, one five zero one five episodes in a row. We got to keep tradition because it seems to work. The current price of Bitcoin is

$71,436. How far is the block clock behind what you see online there? That's a great question. It's flashing right now. I mean, we can't not just... Bitcoin block height. I don't want to take your job away. What's the block height? Let's look it up. Let's look it up. I know that we got to 72,000, I think 400 yesterday. For Bitcoin price. For Bitcoin price. The block height on this random website that I've been using let's look it up i know that we got to 72 000 i think 400 yesterday for bitcoin price for bitcoin price the block height on this random website that i've been using is 838 377 exactly what

that block clock says so uh we're gonna keep shouting out zach copley for sending us that clock because um apparently it's down to the i mean you, you can't, Google can't even beat it. No. I mean, the blockade just is what it is. It's like time. It's like real. But I didn't know if this thing was lagging. That's a good question.

But I mean, it gave the same number you pull off some random website, as you say. I guess it's all connected to the internet and Bitcoin lives there. So the internet where you can find all the lifting information you've ever wanted. Only the truth on the internet. Only the truth on the internet where you can find all the lifting information you've ever wanted only the truth on the internet only the truth in the internet um so yeah we're here episode 015 we have a guest tonight we'll introduce him later coming out of sunny florida uh the guys will be on here shortly i'm trying to think what we've done this week that's different from last week um let me think let me think before you pull it up okay i won't tell you we did some I'm trying to think what we've done this week. That's different from last week. Let me think,

let me think before you pull it up. Okay. I won't tell you. We did some clips from the okay podcast. Okay. Okay. What, what are we releasing the strength of YouTube? We released a clip about,

Oh, not being fat. Oh yeah. Well, we did the not being fat. that was a good or does lifting make you fat so right right because everybody's like starting strength made me fat great you made me fat uh that's a good one you should check it out we we did a video on building the ultimate home gym where to splurge and where to save yeah yeah and then we released uh an infomercial about

the best power lifting meat you've never heard of. That's right. The Lift Hard, Live Easy Classic coming up in July by our friends over at Massanomics. And I will say last week, I made a comment about the underpaid and underrated podcast, sister podcast, Massanomics. And guess who's a guest coming up in August? You. First name starts with Grant. Last name sounds like Brogy. Sounds familiar. Yeah.

So that worked. So in the sense of naming out podcasts and getting called upon, Mr. Rogan. Yeah. All my friends in the South that don't listen to podcasts, when they hear I have a podcast, they always say to me, you got to get Rogan on. So I don't even want to come on your podcast. Come on mine, because that's how that works. works yeah exactly you just yeah name it and claim it you come to my podcast 475 by 5 you name it you claim it and you get it he's pretty jacked yeah he lifts yeah yeah

along with some other things but uh yeah yeah so that's what we did and the um I guess to, we did talk a little bit about it, um, with senior trace about not getting weight while lifting, but we covered it more extensively in a video because I thought it was a good topic. Excuse me. It's something I hear a lot about, but we did talk about that in terms of, and I was just talking with someone today. I had a client today called in, did a console. He's like, I love starting strength. I love your someone today. I had a client today called in, did a consult. He's like, I love starting strength. I love your YouTube channel. I followed starting strength. I got stronger, but I also gained 15 pounds. And then my family was like, you look pudgy. And he's like, how do I fight this? Yeah. I mean, clearly he's not.

What's wrong with pudgy? I mean, he's strong, I bet. So, well, so we just talked about that. and we talked about the same things we talked about in the video that if you lift heavy and you do full body exercises three times a week and you increase the load yep yes you're going to be hungrier yep what do you want to happen do you just want the load to go up on the bar eat whatever you want um do you want to stay skinny? Don't eat enough. You know, do you want to put on some muscle? Are you always going to put on a little bit of fat with a little bit of muscle? Yes. But do you have to gain 20, 30, 40 pounds to increase your muscle mass? And the answer is no. Can you, could it be a beneficial in the long run? Yes. But just because you're squatting

and deadlifting does not mean that you have to have a belly. No, no, it does affect you though. I mean, fiance lifting update, even she's, she started on the program and she told me, I think two days ago, she said, why am I ravenously hungry? Yeah. And she, cause you're lifting. And for the record, she just doesn't eat that much. She's just always had a low appetite. And so this was weird for her to say like, why am I so hungry? I'm like, cause you just squatted yesterday.

Yeah. That's it. Yeah. We tuned up her squat a little bit. Yeah. Grant was very nice. And he, we ran into Grant in the gym here in the state of South Carolina.

Shocking. Shocking. There's so many barbell gyms around here. Yeah. Within five minutes of downtown. There we are. Yeah. But he helped her with her squat form, which I was very appreciative of because I try to help out, you know, but I'm not a coach. You know, I just, I just play one on TV. You do good. I think I can get someone 80% of the way there. Yeah. Yeah. When she was,

and I think the common mistake in the squat most definitely. Well, so one is bar position. Hers was high. Hers was high. I don't know if it's always high but it was high that day but if the bar is high you can't low bar squat i mean if the bar is high you have to balance and so in her case um she was doing a weight that was pretty heavy and so if the load is heavy the bar is going to where it is in the back is going to determine back angle so one if the bar is high you, where it is in the back is going to determine back angle. So one, if the bar is high, you're going to be more vertical. If the bar is lower, you're going to be more horizontal, which is what we want because it loads more hips, more glutes, more hamstrings, more posterior chain, less pressure on the knee. So we put the bar lower on her back and she was doing just fine. But then the number one mistake that I see with people squatting, or I would say

probably the most important after bar placement, because bar placement is going to dictate the whole thing, but it's the ability to actually think about using your hips versus lifting your back. And if the load is heavy, people want it, they want to be back standing up. And so the brain says, just lift my chest up and get upright. I don't care what it looks like. I just want to be upright and I want it to be over where the real answer is, is the further you sit back and the more you lean over, the more you've loaded the hips and then you can push your feet through the ground and drive your hips up. And so, um, she wasn't far off, but she was missing out on a

lot of hip drive and we fixed that pretty quick. And you know, if, if. And if you've been lifting on your own and someone corrects you, someone intelligent, not just someone at Crunch Fitness telling you to look up. Look out to go up. Yeah, if someone intelligently corrects you, there's a place to take some weight off the bar. It's more important to learn on the front end how to do things correctly, because this is not rocket science. This is not that hard. I don't think you need a coach for your entire life. You may like the programming. You may like to log in and know exactly what you're supposed to do. If you're getting training in person, you may like the fact that someone can yell at you or tell you what to do in real time. But the truth of the matter is, and this is coming from a guy that sells a coaching

service, is if I'm any good at what I do, I should give you the tools to be able to help yourself over the long term. Do I think that having someone with more experience and more time under the bar and has seen a bunch of reps can get you somewhere faster over time? Yes, I do. But what I would say is spend the money up front when you hire a coach, learn how to do the movements, work hard. And if you do that, after three or four months, you should be able to go on your own and execute. And I really believe that. And there's probably some coaches that would disagree with me on that because they just want to sell coaching services. But I'm telling you, there's three things you have to do in life in order for survival. You have to eat food, you have to sleep, and you have to lift weights. And just as I don't want to

take a spoon and dip it into a carnivore salad and feed it to you, and just as when you're 85, I don't want to have to carry you into bed and lay you down to sleep at night, I want you to be able to walk to your squat rack yourself, unrack it, know how to hit depth and know how to drive your hips out of the bottom. So spend the money, spend the time upfront learning how to do this because otherwise it can be frustrating because you will make progress. You will read a book like starting strength or maybe strong lifts or Jim Windler's five, three, one, or whatever it is. And you'll start doing these lifts and you'll start adding weight and you're adding weight and you're adding weight and you're training yourself, which is great. You're still better off than doing nothing. And then you go, man,

something hurts. Something's off. I'm watching the video. I'm not squinting depth. I better get a coach. You come and get the coach. And I start coaching you correctly. Nine times out of 10, I'm going to say take weight off. And it's usually something like, you know, you're not hitting depth in the squat or you don't know how to drive your hips. And PGA's fiance situation, she was doing fine. She was working very hard, like limit sets of five. But I said, hey, we're not trying to set a powerlifting competition here. We're trying to get stronger for general health. Take 15 pounds off your squat, implement these new things, and then make small jumps and go forward. But, um, get coaching on the front end. Um, I thought about it and we'll probably talk a little bit about fishing later, but I thought

about it this week, my brother and I went fishing. Uh, and the first day we went with a guide, we caught all kinds of fish. The second day we went on our own and we caught some fish. And, but I just thought about when I called my brother, who's still a client of mine after three years. So he's a guy that's like, I don't want to think about it. I want to log in. I want to see my workout. I just want to do it. But, um, when I told him, you know, he's been fly fishing for over a decade and I said, Hey, I want to fish. He said, don't worry about equipment. Don't go on your own, hire a guide. And that made a lot of sense to me because it's the same thing that I tell people. And so that's what I did. And you know, am I an expert fisherman? No, I'm terrible, but I can go out and catch a fish or two

all be at this big when Connor likes to make fun of me that I take photos of small fish, but Connor's from the strength co-owner of our coaches. But my point is it's like a little PR, like, you know how to do it. Now, you know how to squat to depth. It doesn't matter if it's, you know, not the heaviest or the biggest fish in the pond or the river, you don't, you're able to do it on your own. So yeah. Anyway, but I think you did a pretty good job on getting her. I mean, you definitely taught her how to work hard. Like that was a pretty tough set. That was, I don't know if that might just be kind of built in, but, uh, she, she did, I did yell at her a little bit and go to be like, you got to push it. And I remember first after a few workouts, it started to get a little heavy and she goes on her deadlift. I remember

she lifted one rep and it was really fast. Like you just watch it. And she was like, I don't know if I got five. That was hard. I was like, no, you got it. I would have, I would have told her if she didn't, but like she totally got it. And we've had a couple experiences where she was like, there's no way. And then she does five perfectly and they're flying up. She's like, Oh, you mean how I feel in the set? Isn't, isn't indicative of how my set will go. And I'm like, yeah, it's crazy. You also gave her, you gave her two pieces of advice that I didn't expect you to give, which I'm sure are right. It was, uh, one dropped the weight back down and learn correctly, which is not something

I feel like I hear a lot of starting strength coaches say. And then the other thing is you said, take smaller jumps going forward. Yeah. I mean, I think in her, in her particular circumstance, like, so she was a little bit above parallel, but she was all chest out of the bottom, even though she was working hard. And so if you are at maximal loads, trying to learn a new thing, it's very difficult. Like you, like you can't think you can't process. And so, and for, for the listeners, you know, we you can't think you can't process. And so,

and for, for the listeners, you know, we're talking, she was squatting 115. I told her to go back down to a hundred, um, just so she could process that. And if you think about it, that may not sound like, Oh, 15 pounds. That's not much relatively though. I mean, what's that percentage math in public? 15%. Yeah. A little less than 15 and she's the the context here i think she weighs 105 or yeah there you go she's very thin so and that's exactly what my point was was like hey take the weight off you're still squatting relatively body weight and then make small jumps and you know people often scoff at the small plates that we sell or they think it's silly, but a one and a quarter pound plate on each side is two and a half pound jump.

And if you are consistent in squatting, that's seven and a half pounds a week, 52 weeks in a year, you're basically at the block height by your 30th birthday. Yeah. Those little 1.25s add up. They add up. You're doing your press and you're trying to hit a PR by two and a half pounds. It. Yeah. It's a lot. It's serious. Yeah. So smaller jumps, I think are really important, especially for everyone in the press and the bench press. I mean, 90% of the people I coach, I'm stalling my press. I'm stalling my bench press. And I mean, like new clients, like they've been trying to do this on their own and they're frustrated by the press and the bench press.

Yeah. How big a jump are you taking? Five pounds. It's too big of a jump. That can't be all it is. Yes, it's exactly what it is. You're making too big of a jump. And that initial linear progression is so important to do that right. But if you weigh 100 pounds, 120 pounds,

or you're really light, you got to think about that jump, that small jump matters even more. I mean, to be honest, she needs 0.5 pound plates for her press. Yeah, she does actually. Or 0.75 pound plates because those are the ones we'll probably make

because if you go any smaller than 0.75 pounds, it's hard to make with gray iron. But anyway, yeah, she's going to need something like even lighter for pressing her bench press for a dude that, you know, weighs 180 pounds. I don't think you need a two and a half pound jump on the deadlift. I think it's, you know, if you weigh that much and you're deadlifting 340, if you, you know, do the percentages doesn't make a lot of sense. But if you're a female, especially if you're on the lighter it doesn't make a lot of sense. But if you're a female, especially if you're on the lighter side, there's a big difference between a two and a half pound jump and a five pound jump. There's a big difference between a two and a half pound

jump and a one pound jump on your pressing and your upper body exercises. So you have to pay attention to that and make sure you're not making too big of a jump. And if you're just getting started, you know, you got to get the basics down. You got to make sure it's going in depth. Of course, there's, if you've been dead lifting a long time, you're lifting really heavy, there's going to be some flexion in the back, but you have to know how to put your back in extension because if you don't know how to put your back in extension, then you can't fight it when it wants to round. And while we say a little bit of flexion is okay, it's okay, okay, as long as you are fighting,

actively fighting it from leaving. Because if you don't know how to fight that by bracing the abs and doing the Valsalva maneuver, then you just look like Calhoun taking a dump. And that's not the position we want you in. And we don't want a ton of movement throughout the rep. So you have to know a little bit how to maintain that. My background's a little, when I'm dead, everyone says, yeah, I mean you deadlift four 55 and you weigh not 200, not 200. No. Yeah. One 82. Yeah. It's more than 2X.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's like 2.35. There's homeschool math. 455 divided by 182, 2.5. 2.5, two and a half. I was off. Yeah, so two and a half times the body weight.

That's going to happen. That's going to happen. Now, you're not like this either, though. No, no, no. You just have a little bit as you break the ground, and that's okay. Like the upper back as you break the ground. A little upper back, a little lower back. And what I would say to people, if you've been training,

and you've paid attention, and you've learned how to set your back, and you're getting stronger, the problem I see with people that's actually gotten strong is they worry way too much about the most minute form details did my knee slide at the bottom yeah you were squatting 480 for a triple they they they slid a little bit yeah oh is that bad no you've gotten to the point where you can squat 40 i mean is it ideal no but don't don't overthink these small form things that in the grand scheme of things don't really matter. That's like, I was talking to somebody about this today.

You've seen the iconic video of Ronnie Coleman squatting 800, I think for two or three reps. It was like two weeks before his bodybuilding show, like something nuts. And to be fair, everyone in the comments, they were technically right. They all roast Ronnie Coleman, the goat the comments, they were technically right. They, they all roast Ronnie Coleman, the goat for not squatting to death. He was a little high on his, on his squats. He's doing high bar, just ripping out 800 for three. And I, my only thought when I saw that was like, dude, it's 800 pounds. Well, that's a whole nother thing, right? It's like when people want to rip on someone for deadlifting, sumo deadlifting, 800 or high bar squatting, something like, Hey, the day I was moving 800, I can't move 800 pounds anywhere. No. Right. But I'm even talking before that. I'm talking about like these people that their deadlifts at three 35 and they're watching these videos and they're like, Oh, I see some roundation to my back. Yeah, dude pounds like nothing hurts you're feeling fine don't overthink the form but yeah both both cases

are true yeah but and i'm talking just that i'm the people's lifter i'm here for you like listen learn how to do the lifts but then don't overthink the lifts now that's a little different i think that maybe the caveat is that i mean you were just saying that okay for example my fiance should probably back down a little bit to learn the form correctly. I think maybe it's, maybe what you're saying is you have to take the time to learn it right. But once you've learned it correctly and your execution ends up being a little off down the road, down the road. Yeah. I mean, what I would, what I would say in the light of your fiance is there was no hip drive and that's like a basic tenet if you're going to low bar squat you have

to learn how to hip drive like that's a must and so if a guy knows hip drive and he's getting his hips involved in the lift but in the bottom his knees are a little squirmy i don't care yeah now if he's missing squats because he's going down and trying to lift his chest out of the bottom yeah take some weight off and learn how to do this correctly oh yeah and the answer is not always take weight off and this the answer is if you're doing a lift and you're getting coached to improve your mechanics and the thing holding you back from improving your mechanics is you're scared of dying, then you have to lower the weight a little bit so that you can no longer be scared of dying and improve your mechanics. And then once you get that movement pattern down,

load the bargain. There you go. There it is. All right. Should we let these guys in? Let's do it all right episode 015 of the okay okay okay okay podcast powered by the shranko nailed it i'm kind of a host kind of not really there's kind of a bunch of hosts here. But PJ is PJ, which stands for Producer Jordy. He is here with me in Greenville, as we said in the preamble. Trey Gottlich, A&M grad. We can't say that enough. God bless the Aggies. Gamecocks and Aggies just split a series in baseball. But yeah, Trey Gottlich coming from us out of Texas today.

So we want to hear all about that eclipse. And Mr. Jeff Biggie. college are coming from us out of Texas today so we want to hear all about that Eclipse and Mr Jeff Biggie Buege B-U-E-G-E somehow yeah Bougie but Biggie like Smalls uh coming in from can we call it the greater Salt Lake City area the saltiness of wakes yeah I agree it's all like it's not like it's not like City yeah okay i mean are is your address salt lake city and the horses oh yeah wow the great salt lake huh i thought i was like sandy or something oh no no i am oh i'm in there like swimwear in there like swimwear oh look at that hat yeah oh yeah so that thing oh that hat that thing saved my life oh i think he meant your head sorry no i think you meant that hat i think i meant that hat. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So that thing. Oh, that hat. That thing saved my life.

Oh, I think he meant your hat. Sorry. No, I think he meant that hat. I think I meant that hat. Great. He's a true Texan. No, in South Carolina, we just call that a hat. Oh, excuse me. Excuse you.

Raised in South Carolina. But yeah, so episode 015, we got a guest coming on. Great. Jeff, we all know who it is. Jeff and I will give him a good introduction. Jeff knows who he is. It's his idea. He should be on about 10 minutes or so, although Zoom does seem to be a state-of-the-art technology for him. So we'll see if he's able to get on. I like those people though. Yeah. Those people are the best. Yeah. Like what is this

yeah video but we should save that for when he got on here so in in short we got about 10 minutes jeff what do we want to cover before he comes on i really want to just dive into the eclipse okay totally clips dude like reference number one for grant yeah oh wait wait wait i was in the gym today bench pressing laying down as you're interested as one does yeah i'm racked up i unracked the bench and i heard black morning sun won't you come who sings that black morning sun won't you come? Who sings that? Black morning sun, won't you come? Wash away the pain. I was like, oh, the eclipse. The black morning sun's the moon.

It's going to pass the sun. Homeschool. It was on guitar here. Soundgarden? Soundgarden, yeah. Is it Soundgarden? Black hole sun. Black hole sun. Black hole sun Is it Soundgarden? Black Hole Sun. Black Hole Sun.

Black Hole Sun. What was that called? Black Morning Sun? Yeah, anyway. They're close enough. I knew what you meant. We knew what you meant. Yeah, I was like, this is an eclipse song.

Yeah. Kind of, yeah. Yeah. I mean, the sun went black today. Am I wrong? Yeah. Yeah, it is Soundgarden. Okay.

Trey, I feel like you have the best eclipse. Yeah. Did I wrong? Yeah. I feel like you had the best eclipse. Did I have the best seat in the house? Were you in the total exclusion zone? Total eclipse. Were you technically? Oh, 100%. Yeah. It was right over my house.

Wait, not 100%. I'm right. Literally 100% eclipse. Both. 100% and 100%. Black hole sun. Won't you come? So I thought it was going to be... I don't know. I was like... Why is everybody getting all hyped for this? People were so hyped.

Dude, they were going nuts. The city of Dallas tripled in size. Wow. People flying in from out of the country to see it. I'm like, what's the big deal? And then it happened and i was like oh that's pretty cool oh really yeah i was like that's really cool i thought the rapture was gonna happen like as the you know as it crossed over like god saints were gonna go into heaven but it didn't no it didn't yeah they did i'd be very disappointed if it did

yeah i feel like i saw a couple of those videos okay but no like it started like at like it you slowly started like creeping in like at 12 30 12 20 12 30 so wait america time where 70 of the population yeah i'm sorry one 120 year time yeah okay interesting so for me it started at at 3 p.m which i think is the difference between we were experiencing an 80 and your experience is an 80 100 we'll talk about yeah but around one o'clock my time you started seeing the effects correct yeah okay and then it was going and then i think i want to say it was like at two maybe like 230 or 240 it was like 100 340 my time that makes sense that checks out and then and then like it 100% at like 240

something and it lasted for like 3 minutes and 42 seconds from like that. And it was just like I get slowly started. It's like someone was like dimming down the lights and then out of nowhere it was just like it looked like it does right now. So did you like put the timer on your watch

and then like use the eclipse to time your sets between squats? No. That's not breast. You're supposed to have some sort of special glasses. And I was just like... Hey, Trey, how many fingers am I holding up, Trey?

Who's that? Hey, Trey. Oh, no. Burned my Britain is out I thought the little time lapse that you showed yeah we had some friends down the street that we go to church with and she sent that

over to the group and I'm like man do you need a church yeah she Chelsea did a good job so all right shout out Chelsea potential sponsor Chelsea make sure you make sure you send her this uh okay um so my experience was kind of equally not as cool um

i i actually went for a yog marine corps number five trying to get my three mile time down and i stopped at three's back i stopped at an area where they have like a coffee shop a couple restaurants like off a trail and everyone was outside and it was like 2 40 and 3 0 6 p.m was like when we were supposed to have like peak in Greenville yeah and so I went and got my laptop up was doing some work And then people started getting really excited and it definitely got a little darker, but nothing like, like you could have told me it was just black clouds.

It looked like a cast. Yeah. It wasn't really a black hole sun. And then they, they're like, everyone has the glass on. I'm like, Hey,

can I see those? So some guy hands me his glasses. I put them on, I look up and now all of a sudden it's completely black. And it's like this little sliver of moon. But then I took the glasses off and I was like, like well that's like when you look up at the stars and everyone's like there's orion's belt and you're like i don't see it and they hand you an iphone on the space app and then you look and you're like oh there's orion's belt and i was like this is not that cool

uh but we had a little discussion on our slack group on the strength co slack you can join for 29 bucks a month come in over 200 lifters all members of the okay podcast are there but uh jeff shout out jeff graham what's the name of his podcast the yeoman the yeoman podcast listen to the yeoman podcast he interviews people very successful people in business doing a bunch of things cool podcast in any event his house in in North Carolina in 2017 was 100% like yours, Trey. And this year it was 80%. And he was talking about how 100% versus 80%, the coolness factor difference is way greater than 20%. Yeah.

Way better at 100%. Exponentially times Star Wars 3. Easily probably top five coolest things I've ever seen. Whoa. I've seen Jeff in person

and like... I mean... Jeff's up there. You've seen a've seen it you've seen a midnight yell i've seen a midnight yell you've been at the arnold you've been in the top five it was it was actually it lived up to the hype i'll put it that way nice yeah i'll take that there's an earthquake too this week everybody's freaking out about it you know where is the rapture uh it was up around uh new jersey new york area and everybody was like did you feel that earthquake did you feel that earthquake that something just happened i saw someone post a video of like that damage from new york earthquake

it was like a chair fell over and then like a picture was like tilted. Well, our guest is here. Should I let him in? Oh, amazing. Let him in. Let him in. All right. Here we are. Episode 015 of the OK podcast. And we have coming from, I assume, sunny Florida. I don't think the eclipse effect had much on them. Big Jim DeNofa. Did I say your last name right? Yeah, man. Yeah.

I've had you saved in my phone since 2012 as DeNofa. Yeah. And I'm like, you can't change it at this point. No, yeah. I mean, the standard is to say it wrong in some capacity. Yeah. To me, I've had that name my whole life. It seems really simple, but I have. Yeah.

It's pretty difficult, apparently. Denofa. Yeah. No. It's pretty good. Do I sound right on this? Yeah, you sound good. Sounds good.

Really? Sing us a tune. Yeah. Yeah. All right. This is my, you sound good. Sounds good. Yeah. All right. This is my first time on Zoom. Oh, well, welcome. Welcome to Zoom. Wow. You made a Google Hangout guy.

Big Google Hangout guy. Made it through COVID. Wow. Well, I live in Florida, so, you know, we didn't really participate. That's true. We did participate. Oh, that's good. So we got a, we didn't really participate. That's true. We never explained.

We did participate. Oh, that's good. So we got a lot we want to talk about to Jim for, but so Jim, you're like, I don't know, maybe the eighth guest we've had. And we missed this important thing of introducing our guests because we think because we know who you are, that everyone knows who you are. And don't get me wrong. There's only maybe like 500 people that listen to this, but there's probably 496 people that have no idea who you are. So for a little context, Jim was Jeff and I's CrossFit coach in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, while we were going through artillery school. And he ran CrossFit Havoc. It was a couple miles outside of base and uh he was awesome and very instrumental uh for our time there we loved finishing class and doing nerdy artillery stuff

and coming and slinging weights and moving weights and we i i have some coaching cues i use to this day that i learned from him and jeff does too And he came to our graduation and I've always, we've always kept up with this guy. Got to see him at the Arnold a few years ago. Yeah. Jim who owns the gym, but, and he goes even back further than that.

If you, if you want to go super OG, like what year did you do the video with Ripito? It was like 2008, nine. Oh, yeah. I mean,

it was a DVD. Yeah. I think it was 2008 maybe i think it was 2008 yeah that's when people used to watch dvds so it was relevant some some sometime around then but jim is uh calls himself a geezer lifter still big video crossfit uh yeah wow we were gonna gloss over that you can buy it on the side of the interstate in texas yeah yeah yeah they're still for sale somewhere yeah uh but anyway jim thanks for joining us uh yeah i'm uh i'm really excited i uh i i listen to podcasts but i I don't really do them. I think this is my, my second. Oh, good. I did. I did one before. And then I was really excited about it. And then it ended up, the guy didn't record it. So I thought it did a good job. I was pretty excited. So this is a conversation. This is a FaceTime. Yeah, I have a podcast. Yeah, yeah.

You'll definitely be on the podcast. Wait, real quick. Let me put you on a quick pause. Jordy, we are recording, right? Yeah, we are recording. We're recording. You're good, Jim. You're good. Verified.

Verified. Jordy doesn't lie. We'll kind of do some round robin, a lot of questions. But tell us now, we knew you, CrossFit gym. I don't know, maybe 100 of do some round robin, a lot of questions, but tell us now, you know, we knew you CrossFit gym, I don't know, maybe a hundred members, a lot of military folk. Yeah. Like what are you doing now? Same thing. Like any, I mean, I know you're obviously in Florida now.

Yeah. CrossFit's had, it's like rollercoaster ride. For sure. Tell us a little bit about like your spot and what you're doing these days. Yeah. So, I mean, we opened the gym in oh nine. Um, so we just hit 15 years in February, February 1st was our 15 year anniversary. So pretty cool. Um, I don't, I don't know. I'm not a real big anniversary guy, I guess. I didn't really, uh, most people didn't even know that, that we'd been open that long. Like, it's just not, I don't know. I,

I kind of just let it, let it happen. Um, but as far as the gym goes, like I, I have a lot of diversity in our gym for, for being a CrossFit gym. So our gym's kind of always been a little bit different when it comes to the CrossFit model. I have a specific section of the gym that is, like we have a monolift, we have a leg press, a leg extension, hack squat, cable crossover. So like a little mini like globo gym, if you will, in there. And then the rest of it is like a normal CrossFit gym.

So we have a lot of people that are just in the gym training, doing strongman, bodybuilding, powerlifting, weightlifting, whatever they want to do. And then simultaneously we'll have class. So it's kind of cool because you like allowing those communities to interact and then there's like a there's a bit of like reciprocity with uh like people respect each other when they see how hard they work so like a normal interaction between someone who you know trained at a bodybuilding gym that they

meet a CrossFitter like, oh yeah, I'm not into that CrossFit stuff. Like, yeah, well, it's, it's weird. So, but if you go to a CrossFit gym and you watch how hard people are working, like it's, it's difficult to not have a level of respect for whatever, whatever it is they're doing. I mean, whether you agree with the methodology or not um people are putting out and they're and they're doing their best it's it's difficult to put down effort whether you like what's happening via the effort or not like if you see somebody putting out i mean if i see somebody see somebody, you know, running a marathon, I, I can't put that down. I have no interest in doing that, but you can't, you can't put that down. I mean, I just,

you know what I mean? So I really, I really like that. I like having the communities kind of mesh and, um, having people interact in a way that's generally pretty damn healthy. So I don't know. I don't know if that's what you're looking for from me. Was that, was that, that's good. No, that's great. And like, okay. As, as a, as a fellow gym owner, when she didn't warn me enough not to open a gym, now I'm stuck. I'm curious. So, you know, when I opened mine, it was like strictly the starting strength method and, and that worked. But what I learned was, Hey, you coach people how to do this method. And it's actually not that complex. It's like, Hey, learn how to squat, press bench deadlift. Now you know how to do that. Add some weight. Okay. Now you're no longer a novice follow any of these 1000

programs and you will have success if you show up. And so now the model is like, Hey, come in, learn how to lift. And then there's a bunch of open gym days. I'm curious for you doing CrossFit, which is kind of a different mindset because you're coming in for that workout for that workout leader, you know, for to compete against yourself. It doesn't really matter how strong you are. Of course it does in terms of the loads you put on the bar but it just all comes down to like work capacity so you have that side then you have like you call it a globo gym but if you got a monolift and hack squats i would say like you almost have a power lifting section over there sure what percentage is it 50 50 is it like hey i'm a 70 not that it matters i'm just curious in terms of as you you talk about that, you know, integration. Yeah. Well, um, so a lot of CrossFitters now, um,

I, okay. So here's the thing. I, I like CrossFit, but people can really get deep on Jim right here. People can be total geeks about it. Like the, the bet, the best CrossFitters, uh, you know, you guys have heard of Rich Froning. You've heard of that guy, right? Okay, cool. Yeah. So, uh, I've never trained with Rich Froning, but I've watched a lot of his stuff. And from what I've he's like yo let's work out let's just do some hard like uh let's you know check the boxes of of um hitting the big lifts and maintaining um the you know the things that are important I mean obviously you guys are are very protocol based when it comes to barbell training, you know, and there's like very basic linear progressions that, that you can adhere to.

But in, in the, if you're going to compete in CrossFit, it's like, you don't know what you're going to do. So just do a whole bunch of random shit. Right. And,

and be ready. Can I say shit on this podcast? Yeah. Yeah. You're okay. I already said it. You're good. I already did it three times, but we'll just count. And as long as you stay under 45, you're good. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But like, you know, they, they make things like way more complicated than it needs to be.

You need to check the boxes of, Hey, I can do these skills, and I can do these skills when I'm tired. I can do a heavy snatch when I feel really yucky. I can climb a rope when I'm out of breath. I can do all these things. The reason I brought that up is because I have a population of people that pay for extra CrossFit programming. They have a CrossFit coach like an online coach and they're doing these like arbitrary workouts and they're like you know putting it in their journal and they're in there and and they're very meticulous about what they're doing and she's

like you're doing random things like you're not doing a well thought out program. You're, you're doing just, you know, what, what people would imagine a CrossFit, uh, protocol would be like, yeah, do this weird stuff and then do this weird stuff and put it all together and then try to lift weights when you feel really bad. Um, and they'll pay, you know, two, $300 a month for a coach to have them perform these, these workouts. And to me, it's a total waste. It's a total waste. Not because I think, Hey, my gym's programming is better than theirs.

But the, the thing that you're going to get out of training at a CrossFit gym that you, that's a little different from what you would normally get at a, at a CrossFit gym that you, that's a little different from what you would normally get at a, at a normal gym is, Hey, we're all going to do this hard workout and we're going to do it together. And I'm going to try to beat you at this workout. And you're going to try to beat me at this workout. And when you have people that are doing programming outside of that, they're just doing random workouts and they're doing them by themselves. And you kind of miss the, the essence of training at a CrossFit gym. Like you might as well just go to crunch and use their bumper plates and swing around on their pull-up bars. And, and, you know, I don't know. It.

It's, I don't know if that's what you asked me, but I guess I just kind of went off on it because it's, it's a, it's a little frustrating because like, listen, man, I've been doing CrossFit since 2006. Right. And it's fun, but I really don't take it that serious. Like I pretended to take it serious at one point. I tried to pretend like I was going to be one of those guys that goes to California and it's not me. Like I'm a, I'm a ham like I was going to be one of those guys that goes to California.

It's not me. I'm a ham and egger. I'm a mediocre athlete that I like working out, and that's what most people are. It's difficult to tell people like, yo, you're regular. Sorry. You're just like me. In fact, you're not even as good as me yet, and I regular. Sorry. You're, you're just like me. You're in fact, you're not even as good as me yet. And I'm not good. Like, you know what I mean? You've been doing this for, so just when people, um, take themselves too serious with training and like, um, just pretend that they're like, their goals are, are these, uh, you know,

these grand goals that like, Oh, I'm good. Someday I'm going to do this. And so like, yeah, probably, but are, do you like it? Do you like lifting weights? Do you like doing muscle ups and walking on your hands? Do you like that stuff? Because if you'd like it, then you'll keep doing it but if you're doing this this crossfit programming or whatever programming you're doing because you think you're going to go to the crossfit games odds are you're spinning your wheels i mean it's going to be 40 people out of every person on the planet and now it's not you yeah somebody else odds are some division one college athlete that didn't make the pros and he says yeah right you need me to just do this yeah yeah well i could just pick your brain for hours but i think it's more interesting if we

kick it around jeff yeah you know jim well uh yeah yeah hit it well i was just gonna tack on to that yeah it's like people they want the complexity right away like you probably even seen this with like barbell lifters that come in and they immediately are like well i'm an intermediate i've been lifting for three weeks and they want like the really complex like all the funky like programming and weird intervals for like crossfit and it's like noel you've been doing this for six months like let's let's let's stick to the basics and like build you up a little bit um yeah people just want that complexity right away but i was gonna ask jim uh so yeah you qualify or classify yourself as like the geezer lifter right you've you've done all all kinds of lifting um yeah johnson strongman you did some olympic lifting

some power lifting and then yeah all that came to a head with crossfit and so like what are what are kind of your current goals now like what's like the the lifts like you're chasing are there numbers that you're still like going after still trying to hit prs for sure yeah um and i guess i guess that's there's like's a concept that I came to the realization about maybe five, six years ago at this point. My mediocrity in what I do is the reason that I'm still doing it. The guys that get to the top of the mountain, you know, and they go and they win world's strongest man, or they win, you know, worlds in powerlifting, or they win, you know, the Olympic games, or they win the CrossFit games, they eventually retire. And like, that's because they did did it like they they did the thing

um i've been training since i was 13 um i'll be 44 in a couple weeks so and i still have a lot of things that i haven't done yet so it's it's kind of a it's kind of a great thing for me to um still not have been able to check all those boxes because I'm still hungry after three decades of, of doing this stuff. I still want to keep training because I have goals that are, are just still ahead of me. So what, what are those goals to be specific? Cause I know, like, I know, I, I don't know you super well, but I know you well enough that, you know, exactly. Like, I watched you put your body weight in the bar.

Oh, yeah. I still remember that. And say, hey, who can squat your body weight more? And I think you did 110 and you did it, what, 140 something times? Well, we could go with 140. It was 120, but 140 sounds way closer. 140 sounds, whoa. And it's like, how close were you to the eclipse?

Like those 20 reps between 120 and 140 would count a lot more than between 20 and 40. But I've seen you do some crazy stuff, but I mean, like, I don't know, like what is your main lifting goals? So I recently hit a PR on my back squat, um, like literally two weeks ago. Yeah. And that was, uh, that was actually a really emotional moment for me because, you know,

I squatted 400 pounds when I was 15. Right. Um, and there's kind of this, um, I I've been talking a lot about this stuff lately with people. So it's, I guess I'm just going to kind of keep going with you guys. Yeah. But like, so I, I kind of peaked early. Like I, I, I weighed 165 pounds. I was 15. I squatted 400 pounds. So that's pretty good for a 15-year-old kid. Yep. Yep. Verified.

Right. But so fast forward 28 years, like 28 straight years, no breaks in training, no, I mean, different goals along the way, but I never stopped training ever. Like I could count on one hand, the amount of one week breaks that I've taken from training in, you know, the entire time that I've, I started, um, I just have always done it. I've never not done it, but I, I hit a 500 pound back squat. So it took me 28 years to put a hundred pounds on my back squat. So, you know, like it really, it really got to a point, um, about a year ago. I was like, well, that's it. Four 85 is my PR. And that's just what I'm going to, I'm going to die with a four 85 back squat. And it was really stung a lot. Like I was like, God, how the hell can I do all of this stuff for this long? And I

still can't hit this freaking number. It was really frustrating. Um, and then I, I did it. I had a run where like, I was, I made up a little goal. It's a four week cycle. I was squatting three days a week. And the, the very simple it's just two work sets per day three days a week and i didn't get hurt i was like oh my god i didn't get hurt i like i was so excited to i just i always something always happens i'm like mr glass but i uh nothing that's where the word geezer comes from yeah exactly so everything lined up it was you know a friday afternoon and i was getting ready to to do this 500 pound back squat and as i was getting ready all my buds were walking into the gym like there was like nine guys in there that i

care about and that cared about me and they were all there i was like oh gosh this is there was so much pressure to do it and and i did it and like i legitimately i i did it and then i walked outside and i cried like straight up i it was just it was a you know it's like kind of an arbitrary thing like wow you did a 500 pound back squat like have you ever you ever heard of, I don't know, 20,000 other people that can do that, you know, but it meant a lot to me and, and I know how much I went through to get there. So it was, it was a big deal. Um, so, so yeah, I mean, you know, I'm pretty sure Grant, you have a couple runs at it it meets

and stuff right isn't that yeah yeah i've had a couple runs on my best squats 515 uh i thought i'd never hit 500 i think i failed 506 times before i finally hit it and i kind of tell a similar story that's not as great as yours but i always say say in, you know, um, uh, in 2014, I squatted 485 and I didn't squat 500 until 2019. And I always tell people that story because they come into the gym, they're working hard, they're adding weight to the bar and things plateau. And I'm like, yeah, this is where you just have to be consistent and keep coming. And they're like, yeah, but I want to make progress. I'm like, well well you don't know where the progress is going to come from it comes from within the consistency and you have to keep going and i always say like it took me five years

to add 15 pounds to my squat in your case 28 years to add you know 100 pounds to your squat yeah and i always tell them the stronger you are the harder it is to get stronger which almost exactly to make it even worse because you'll go into a training cycle and you're like, I know what I was doing to squat 500 pounds. I was blacking out my room. I was going to bed at nine. My diet was perfect. My training sessions were two and a half. I didn i didn't do anything do you want to come over and eat pizza and watch a movie no i'm going to bed it's like now people like do you still want to hit a pr i'm like well of course but also it's like you know like what it takes but i'm kind

of like you like i always tell people i haven't missed a workout in over 10 years i mean because it's like i know it's the process that that keeps it going. I also, you kind of broke me though, because when I was in your gym, which I guess is now 12 years ago, you told me that men's strength peaks at age 33. Oh dang, did I just say that? You just missed it. You said, assuming they've been training from a younger age, but you were like, 33 is the number where like men peak. And I'm like,

well, that's bullshit. I don't know why. Okay. Thanks. I'm going to change his stance on that. I'm going to start 32 now. Cause I'm 30,

I'm 35 now. And I was like, ah, I can kind of stop my peak of my primes. Yeah. Why even try? That's like when people, you like you know 88 of statistics are made up it's just it's the same kind of nonsense like i said yeah you give me four yeah yeah let's kick it over to trey trey what do you got for for gym and y'all have covered

a lot of topics i don't see you stole a lot of my questions but it's not a big deal man so at your gym is it predominantly like whenever you're doing the coaching is it predominantly crossfit or is it kind of a healthy mix of whatever kind of so yeah so i mean like the way that the gym runs i have this will lead to another question by the way so okay that's fine yeah follow-up question yeah follow-up question so i'll have my class of you know whatever 15 people whatever um and they're we're they're doing the workout of the day and we're you know getting into it and there'll be people just kind of around the gym on the outskirts that are doing whatever they're going to be doing. So I have guys doing powerlifting training or weightlifting training or whatever, but just kind of on the outskirts.

And it works well normally. Um, there's, there's always going to be somebody who doesn't really understand the etiquette of, because the etiquette at our gym is a little different than a normal gym. Like, yo, I know you're using that rower, but I have 15 people in this class and I have 10 rowers. So give me that. Like you're not using it. It's a benefit of owning it. Yeah. Yeah. owning it yeah yeah um and so you know it's but normally it works pretty well because people kind of will normally be gotcha they'll they'll be fine i gotcha you know cooperate so i guess my

follow-up to question is that is so i've never really i've done like a crossfit class like occasionally every now and then tag along with the buddy or something like that and then would you say this is me just being ignorant just like that. And then would you say, this is me just being ignorant just in general on the sport. Would you say like, since its inception, which was, I feel like early two thousands is when I remember it popping up.

Right. Since the inception, like has CrossFit changed as a whole, as far as like what the, I don't know if the goal is the right word or just kind of like daily exercises for the average joe or has your view of crossfit changed since inception or sure i mean i've definitely gone through a a journey with i mean i've been doing crossfit for uh 18 years now um so it's it's a while you know to to be doing the the same thing and

i have i've had like um definite waves of of my feelings about crossfit the the methodology because this this is one of the issues with crossfit right this is why people don't like it it's it's this is it right crossfit's three things it's a brand it's a methodology and it's a sport right and the issue is that people will confuse the brand the methodology and the sport like okay hey i like hey i do crossfit oh you compete in crossfit like no i just i go to a gym and i do burpees and back squats because some guy tells me to, and then I want to have abs. I don't care about, I don't care about going to the, I'm not going to go to the CrossFit. I don't care about it. Right. And then there's,

then there's the brand CrossFit and you know, it's, um, the guy that, that invented it, Greg Glassman, he's kind of out of the picture now, but, um, there's, there's the brand. And then there's like the affiliates under the brand and then there's how they represent the brand and some people are disappointed with that and and rightfully so i mean there's like i don't know 15 000 gyms so there's going to be things that turn people off about about the brand and um my job is to make sure that my community my little gym is is healthy and people like what they're doing so I I'm not a grant could

probably tell you but like I eat the food that I like to eat. I don't, I'm not a paleo guy. I'm not. He's been outworking his diet since 2008. Yeah, that's exactly right. I've never, the only diet I've ever been on in my whole life. I've been on one diet. McDonald's diet. You got it.

I've been, I. Tell us about it. Tell us about it. Yeah. So I was at, I was at breakfast with, buddy, and we were talking about Super Size Me. And I was like, yeah, that guy's a freaking puss. He really wimped out on that movie. And he's like, what are you talking about?

I was like, he freaking wimped out. He just let himself get fat for the movie. It was bullshit. It wasn't real. wasn't like a genuine thing you just like wanted to play it up so i bet him i was like i can eat mcdonald's every day and and i'll be fine like i'll i'll weigh the same and so what i got out of it is he paid for my meals for a week it was only a week it. That's still, that's still impressive. Yeah. But so I ate McDonald's three times a day and I had to, it has to be a large meal every time.

Um, and then I had to get at least one McFlurry per day. Um, and so I, um, I, yeah, so I weighed 203 pounds at the beginning of the week and then 203 pounds at the end of the week. So it was, yeah. So honestly, I think I was kind of in a deficit because I usually eat more food than what that diet entailed. So I mean, I would get double. Could you tell a difference though, like in your energy level, like when you're working i dude i freaking stunk i that was the worst part was i i was like yeah i was i i'm not like luckily i got i got pretty lucky like i'm not like a stinky guy like i'm not like a like i sweat but i don't really stink that bad. I don't know how that happened, but I just, I'm kind of lucky. And by the end of the week, I just, I was just leaking these like fumes almost out of my skin. And that was definitely, that was second worst part was having to drive to McDonald's every time I wanted to eat.

Because you can't eat cold French fries. You can't buy two meals at once and then save it for later. I wasn't going to do it. I'm not going to eat cold fries. And then you can't even. How do you reheat up McDonald's French fries? You guys don't eat McDonald's. No. Do you guys eat?

No, I knew it. Well, I'll eat McDonald's. I'll eat anything. What are you talking about? Speak for yourself. Jordy down i haven't had mcdonald's in a while potential sponsor potential sponsor potential sponsor mcdonald's let's kick it over to jordy what do you got for big jim okay i have a question more of a maybe a technical CrossFit question. So I'm unfamiliar. I've never done CrossFit, but I've maybe been CrossFit curious in the past. And so there are, like with every training modality, I don't know of a better word.

That's a big word. But with every training modality. I understand that in Florida. It's okay. Okay. I lived in Florida for a while. It's okay. There's pros and cons.

Like there's trade-offs to every kind of style you're going to do. And so I was wondering, for me not knowing much about it, what do you think CrossFit specifically is best at? And what is it worst at? Like I imagine a powerlifting program is going to be best at, you know, getting your squat bench deadlift higher, but it's not going to be the best at maybe, I don't know, cardiovascular fitness, like what are the trade-offs and what is the best and worst at when it comes to CrossFit? Sure.

I mean, well, CrossFit by nature is a GPP program, right? So like it's, you're just already lost. Explain what that means. So general physical preparedness.

It's like a police call for the general people. You down with GPP? Yeah. Yeah, you know me. Okay, there you go, man. GPP. Okay, thank you. No, so yeah.

So GPP is general physical preparedness, meaning like, hey, you have to perform this task. Can you do it? Are you strong enough to do it? Do you have the work capacity the muscular endurance to do a any i don't know you know basic tasks can you jump over a fence right if you're um can you pick up a bag of dog food at at walmart and carry it to your car um so like those those are basically so when cross um, makes their kind of sales

pitch to the general public, that's kind of what they do. They're like, Hey, we're just going to get you ready to be able to do, um, ADL activities of daily living, right? Just like normal, normal living, um, tasks. And it, it is definitely effective for, for those things. Now, is it dangerous? Yeah. It is definitely effective for those things. Now, is it dangerous? Yeah.

Is it dangerous for no reason? I don't. It can be. Because CrossFit can be so many different things. And that's the issue with it. It's like when people are like CrossFit nerds, like, that's crossfit that's crossfit that's crossfit i guess man like i'm doing back squats and burpees like does that make it crossfit i'm just doing those two things like it's not you know it's right that's a catch all. That's not right. Like, like, like, like brand overreach where it's like, oh, like we, we own those movements

now, you know? Um, like if you're, if you're at a gym and you're doing back squat, uh, you like, like you guys do, you know, barbell training, obviously is every person that comes to your gym, a power lifter. No, no, exactly. I answer that very emphatically. And I don't want them to be. Exactly, yeah.

You're just lifting weights. Just because you're doing power lifting movements doesn't mean you're a power lifter. Just because you're- Those are just exercises, not a program. Yeah. Yeah. Did I answer your question?

What was your question oh i just was wondering what are the pros and cons across like what is it good at what is it not so good at like we actually just brought you in here for rants and hot takes it's pretty good so far you're delivering so what you're answering the questions irrelevant we're just here to make instagram reels myspace myspace but okay a succinct answer, Jim. You have 30 seconds. Time starts now. Pros of CrossFit, highest pros of CrossFit, lowest cons. Okay. Highest pros of CrossFit. Being confident in your ability to perform basic tasks outside of the gym.

Tasks that your life will kind of throw at you, like being ready to do things that you weren't prepared to do mentally. Like, okay, I've got a change of tire. I can do it. You know, as long as your dad taught you how to change a tire. But can do it. As long as your dad taught you how to change a tire. But yeah, cons of CrossFit.

The general public's perception of you doing CrossFit. And also, I mean, yeah, there's definitely a chance that you're going to get hurt doing CrossFit without a doubt. And just like there's a chance if you go to the Y and play pickup basketball, you might get hurt. It's the same idea, right? And people just can't get past that. Like, oh, you can get hurt doing CrossFit. Well, yes, you can get hurt bowling. Yes, you can get hurt doing CrossFit. Well, yes, you can get hurt bowling. Yes, you can get hurt without a doubt. Would you agree with me in like that over-optimization is never that good?

Like in terms of like lifting, right? I often tell people, you know, they get their squat up to 400 pounds. Your case, 500 pounds. My case, 500 pounds. And I'm like, you know, should I squat 600 pounds? Does my life get better? Am I able to do more things? No. Right. By far. No. And so for everyone, there's like a number. Right. And I feel like that number's unclear. I actually think it's more of a mindset of like, Hey, I'm always trying to be as strong as I can. But like when you get into

over-optimization, which a lot of times like in power lifting becomes with steroid abuse and it's like why did this guy uh you know rip his quad well because he's on a bunch of stuff and he's squatting 150 pounds and like his body's not made to do that of course he did it and in crossfit i mean i don't know if the steroids are there like they are in power lifting, but for sure, like over, I mean, I've definitely, there's, there's performance enhancing drugs, but yeah, but you see over optimization, like, Hey, you don't actually, you know, handstand walking is a bad example, but that's why I was saying across, like as you don't need to squat 800 pounds. And so I feel like over-optimization often like leads to the injuries. Cause I mean, I always tell people, Hey, I found CrossFit in 2008. I followed the guy who's a preacher man now, uh, at a NorCal, Greg Amundsen, right? That was the first account I found. You remember him?

He's a preacher now? Yeah. He's a preacher now. I think in Florida, actually, maybe you should go to his church. Really? Yeah. But he's a preacher now, but's a preacher now i think in florida actually maybe he should go to his church really yeah but he's a preacher now but yeah i followed greg amundsen he was what a police officer firefighter police officer i believe yeah but he had like a great a great fran time right and i followed that guy and then i was like this is cool and then in 2008 i went to work to dc and i joined potomac crossfit and it was one of the first crossfit gyms on the east coast and rob wolf came mark ripito came and it was like hey come in we're doing two barbell lifts it'd be like you're gonna squat you're a press you're gonna bench you're a deadlift

and it was always it wasn't like sue it wasn't like a linear progression but it was like it's heavy and it's hard and then it was like now we're we're going to do the WOD. What's the WOD? 20 box jumps, 20 pushups, run around the building three times, three rounds. Like very attainable stuff. I was like, this is cool. I get strong. Exactly. I get my conditioning in. It's over.

I love CrossFit. Fast forward like four years. I moved to Raleigh. I go to Christmas Abbots Gym. And it's like, today's handstand holds. And I'm like, what? Like, why? This doesn't make any sense.

And then they started getting like, and that's where the sport part of the brand came in too, where it's like, hey, we have to, how do we, basically now we have a bunch of athletes coming in. I mean, I remember when I could power clean two 25 under your coaching. And then later I went to CrossFit gyms like, Whoa, you can power clean two 25. And now it's like,

dude, every guy that CrossFit can snatch three 15. Like you are nothing. Yeah. But anyway, I feel like the over-optimization is like what hurt that. And what hurts like a lot of things. Right.

I think that that's my problem with power. That's the problem as a, as a general barbell coach. Like I would say what I try to sell to people is like, Hey, I'm just here trying to make you be more able to do the stuff you want and be stronger than you are now. Like that's all I care about.

But what they picture in their mind is 1000 pounds squatter, right? 1200 pounds sumo deadlift. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't care about that. Like, hello, 40 year old lady. I just want you to deadlift 185. But the over-optimization on, in the extremes, just like, that's all people think of. do you think that that came from like the commercialization of the sport or i i think so um yeah yeah i mean because when when you see and then that's that's the issue with the the three concepts right yeah the brand the sport and and the methodology is people see the sport on tv and they think that's what CrossFit is like, no, that's the sport of CrossFit, right? That's not what we're doing at my gym. I've got, I've got today, right? I have my 1030 class. I had a nine-year-old little girl in my 1030 class. And then in my, in my 12 o'clock class, I had a 65 year old guy. Right.

And so I, and then literally everything in between those, those two people I've got in there. So like there's, I, I'm not going to have that nine-year-old little girl throw a bunch of weight on her back. I'm not going to have that 65 year old-old little girl throw a bunch of weight on her back. I'm not going to have that 65-year-old woman try to walk on her hands. Like those things aren't necessary. That's not why they're coming there. They're not coming there to compete in CrossFit. And that's the issue is people think because I've seen, it's like you don't watch, you know, the Super Bowl and think, well, I can't play football. I shouldn't even own a football. I can't throw a football because I'm not going to't watch the Super Bowl and think, well, I can't play football. I shouldn't even own a football.

I can't throw a football because I'm not going to be in the Super Bowl. Well, yeah, you're like every other person. You're just a regular guy or a regular girl. It's okay. You can own a football. You can own a barbell. You can use a barbell. Just because you're not going to be, you know, a super strong

person. It doesn't mean that you're not allowed to participate and just be a part of it because I'll tell you what, like aside from, you know, family and, and relationships, friends, things like that, training with weights has been one of the most joyous parts of my existence as a human being. I mean, I being able to put a bar on my back and, and feel a barbell in my hands pretty much almost every single day of my life is, uh, I'm lucky. Like I'm so lucky lucky that that i found something that makes me so happy and it's and it's so simple and like bro how lucky am i that i'm not like um i don't know like

i'm not like a whiskey connoisseur maybe you guys are that's fine fine. Um, but like, I don't, but I don't care about it. Like, I don't care about those things. I, I just care about this little thing, this little area of life where I get to try really hard at something and, you know, I enjoy other things, but like if I'm going on vacation, I need to find a gym. I, I, I, because I want to, I want to do it. And that's because it's not because i've got these goals and i've got to hit these goals like i'd like lifting weights i don't know it's i'm lucky man it's it's pretty cool it's pretty cool that that i found something like that i made it my job i made it my existence yeah it's really cool all right so here's what we're gonna do we're gonna do a round a round robin and we just want to we just want a hot take and they're gonna ask you anything it might be what do you think about

women's basketball it might be who knows mine's gonna be a little personal based off a personal interaction with you and i just have a question but yeah we just want like 20 30 seconds of like what you think that's hard for me grant clearly i Clearly. I know. I know. I'm telling you 20, 30 seconds. I'm telling you 20, 30 seconds so that I get two to three minutes. Okay. But yeah, 20, 30 seconds. But we'll just, we're each going to ask you a question. It might be a little random.

And then you just answer the best of your ability. So I'll start when I was at your gym, taught me a bunch of stuff. One, you always call me a weirdo when I walked in. Yeah. Bell swings. You would tell me this is mom. This is dad is dad yeah and the kettlebell is the swing mom and dad are going to push you on the swing don't use your arm moms and dad are going to push you on the swing i use that to this day tommy kettlebell swings bunch of stuff i'll never forget my deadlift pr that i said in your

gym 445 i we had an artillery training exercise so you met me there at 4 a.m. in the morning. And I've thought about this later as a gym owner. See, look at me. I'm going over my 30 seconds for my question. I thought about it as a gym owner later. I was like, man, I don't know what clients I would meet at the gym at 4 a.m. But you did because I was like, hey, I want to train. And I'm supposed to, you have me on this program. I'm supposed to PR my deadlift. The only time I can do it this day is 4 a.m. You're like, I'll be there. And I did 445. And I remember that anyway. Yeah. You also one time told me, and I wrote about this in an article once I was squatting and I was like, anti belt. I was like, I don't want to use a belt. And you

were like, go over there and grab a belt. And I went over there and grabbed a belt and I grabbed a four inch double ply leather belt. It was Navy blue, maybe purple in color. And you said, I have had that belt since I was 16. Yeah. You told me to put it on and you helped me, you know, put it tight enough. And you taught me how to like Val Salva. Do you still have that belt? I still have that belt. Nice. Nice. I still have it. I'm on the very last prong of it, but I can still squeeze into that thing. Yeah, it's not necessarily functional because it's so freaking tight that I can barely push out against it. But I definitely have it.

And I like, you know how women try on their prom dress every few years to make sure it still fits? It's the same kind of thing. This is the way you have to belt you were to prom. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I do. Yeah. Good.

So before I kick over to Jeff, text me a photo of the belt tomorrow when you're in the gym. I'd love to see it. For sure. Yeah. All right, Jeff, hit him. That's a great story. Mine's way less sentimental, but it's more topical

to what we were talking about before you jumped on the call. Solar eclipses, what's your take on those? Yeah, I really wanted to care about it. Like, I was like, everybody was talking about it. I was like, yeah, man, solar eclipse, I'll be in on the hype. And then the lady next door to the gym had these glasses, and I put them on. I was in the middle of training, because that's usually when I try.

I usually train between like 3 and 4.30. So I put on the glasses, and I looked at the eclipse. I was like, yo, that's cool. And then I just went and i just went back into the gym we were doing front squats today so i was doing some front squats i was like all right i saw it i did it um so but you know what was pretty cool um i don't know if this is i was talking about this a lot at the gym today um dude i talk so freaking much in front of my damn classes that it is you would think that after 15 years of owning a crossfit gym you could finish a class in an hour i i barely do it i hardly ever freaking do it because it's tough

in front of it's it's impossible man i i say too much shit i i just i stand there like yo i got all these people they gotta listen to listen to me. And I'm just going to say some things and they're going to hopefully get a little bit out of it. And most of the time, the people that have been coming for a while, like, ah, they just literally walk away as I'm spouting off whatever nonsense. But I was talking about this article that I saw um in a newspaper and uh it was uh it was from like 1979 and it said uh full solar eclipse next solar eclipse will be 2024 so it's like pretty cool seeing that date like on the cover of a newspaper from 1979 like man this is the future right like this is the future i guess i guess no matter when when yeah it's like no matter when it's always the future like no matter what day it is it's the future that's deep

it's never not the future kick it over to trey so that crossfit class just ended and now we're starting the next one okay next class all right summer olympics coming up right i believe this summer okay yeah yeah do you do you think hot take do you find it insulting that table tennis is in the summer olympics but not a crossfit uh no no no i i don't i i don't i don't think crossfit will ever be in the Olympics. Really? Yeah. I'm not – obviously, I like it. It's just too all over the place, man. The Olympic Games has – there's very set protocols for whatever sport. I mean, they're surfing now. I don't know how the hell you judge surfing like

like what the yeah what they should do is just have a crossfit player play every single event yeah i mean that actually would be pretty cool yeah yeah i mean yeah i don't know i mean it's i when i first started doing crossfit i thought like oh man someday across it's going to be in the olympics when i first started competing inFit, I thought like, oh man, someday CrossFit is going to be in the Olympics. When I first started competing in powerlifting, I thought powerlifting would someday be in the Olympics. But the people that run the sports, they don't do that. Like there's so, you know, in powerlifting, there's, I don't know how many federations there are, gazillion federations. I think it's 598. Really?

No. I mean, it's something. I wouldn't, a 598. Really? No. I mean, it's something I wouldn't, I wouldn't. Yeah. You all sort of blaved a thousand 64. Like there's no nuggets. It's, it's insane.

Like it doesn't even make sense. It's always in flux. I hold this record and this power lifting federation at this state, wearing this thing on this day. Like it's insane. Yeah. It's silly. And that's what keeps the sport from being taken seriously and it's the same thing with crossfit like there's

so much goofy stuff that they always try to throw in there that it's just not i don't think it's a feasible sport to have you know an international competition i mean the crossfit games is an international competition i don't know i just don't think it'll ever line up. So God bless table tennis. Yeah. All right, PJ. All right. So I've used this one before, but I feel like I have to. So you're in Florida.

I lived in Florida for a few years. Is Florida the best state in the country, or is it not? What are your thoughts on Florida? Man, I've lived in a couple of different places. I lived in Oklahoma, Texas, Pennsylvania, California, Hawaii, and now Florida. And I really like this place. I really do. I, I, I can't see myself living in another place. Like, I just don't picture myself leaving here. There's a lot of things that are pretty frustrating about it, you know, like traffic, but, but, but here's the thing. Like if you live in a place that that's great, there's going to be traffic. Like if you live in a, in a, in a dorky place, then nobody's going to, there's no, no, it's going to be there. There's not going to be traffic.

I'm not saying that like, if there's no traffic in your town, you live in a dorky town. That's not what I'm saying. That's what you're saying. We understand. That's the way I took it. Dorks.

Yeah. Dorks. That's right. Dorks don't listen to this podcast. Cool guys only. You're not traffic, you're a dork. Yeah.

Wait, so where are you in Florida? So I live... Probably would have been an important question an hour ago. So there's Tampa and St. Petersburg, and then there's the Sunshine Skyway Bridge that runs

south of St. Petersburg, and I'm directly on the south side of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. I feel like you're close to our last guest. Petersburg, and I'm directly on the south side of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Yeah, okay. I feel like you're close to our last guest. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, back-to-back Florida guests.

Yeah, back-to-back Florida guests. Yeah, wait, he was from Fort Lauderdale. Naples. Naples. No, Naples. Okay, so that's like another hour and a half south from me. But Gulf Coast. We've got two Gulf Coast Floridians.

Gulf Coast Floridians. So basicallyabamians yeah yeah close enough yeah so so jim you can tell we got a high-tech operation going on here there's like a soundboard these lights go off every now and then yeah it's pretty cool over my head i like the horns yeah thank you he's got a laptop i have a microphone this stuff doesn't happen free so we have sponsors and our sponsors are very important to us. When I say sponsors. Yeah, come on. I want to hear about these sponsors.

I mean, paying sponsors. And when I say sponsors, I mean sponsor. And our sponsor is BW Tax LLC. So what we like to do to our guests is give you a couple nuggets of information and then if you were a 1950s ad man you read you know you take that information and then you tell people why they should go to bw tax so we're gonna round robin really quick bw tax you always end it with bw tax llc.com i know it's a lot to take in but here's's what I'll tell you about BW. Just get as close as you can. Here's what I'll tell you about BW Tax. Today's April 8th, which means that next Monday is April 15th, which means that by the time you listen to this podcast, you have three days to do your taxes.

And if you're in a pinch and you think it's too late, before you go to H&R Block, you want to get someone that actually cares about your taxes. That's my nugget. I'll kick it to Trey, then Jeff, then Jordy. BWtaxllc.com located in South Carolina, Greenville, South Carolina. But you don't have to be in South Carolina and use them. Yeah. Yeah. You can use them anywhere. Anywhere. All right. All right, Jeff. Yeah, you just got to know they're the tax experts.

They can handle your state tax return. Well, I guess you're in Florida, so don't need to worry about that one. No state tax return there. Let's just say, if you said, hey, do my Florida state taxes, they would knock it out of the park. They could do your federal taxes. They know all the ins and outs of the tax laws and all the

complicated things that the government has set up to try to trip us up and take our hard-earned money, but not BW Tax. They'll help you hang on to that money and get you a good return. Yeah. And when you call them, they'll answer. You'll talk to a real person. Yeah. So with that information, just tell the listeners why they should use BW tax we know I mean the thing that I've always liked about BW tax LLC.com is that they are a smaller company and and smaller companies care more in general there's there's not a hierarchy of people that are telling you you know make more money make more money from our clients. They want you to make money. That's why you use them because when you use them,

they're going to give you the tools to get the most money back from the government. That generally takes all of our stuff, but it's their mission. It's their job to get as much money back from the government and put it into the pockets of hardworking Americans. Dag gum. Dag gum. That was a great ad read. So we save good ad reads. And so before you leave, and I'm going to thank you in a second, I'm just going to give you an example of one of the ad reads that and so before you leave and then i'm gonna thank you in a second i'm just gonna be an

example of one of the ad reads that we like i feel like yours is out there my man yeah i think you're gonna make the we have we have nine buttons here out of like five ad reads we've filled two and i'm gonna play this one absolutely bw tax i love them they're based out of south carolina but they can do taxes for you anywhere. They have CPAs. They have the team that you need to cut through all the red tape. They did trades taxes, got them in and got them out. We've got to mention that whenever you're calling them, don't think you're going to be talking to some chat GPT, some bot. You're not going to be put on hold for 25 minutes and then told we're going to call you

back and then end up at church when they finally do and not be able to answer because you're in communion with the people that are around you and how people stop when you make the call they're going to answer bw tax llc from south carolina to everywhere uh. Yours is up there, dude. Yours is up there. I think you're going to get a button. Once we put a music bed to it, it's right there. Wait, what's a good Jim song to put behind it? Oh, yeah, Jim.

Do you have a song? Anything come to mind? When I said Jim, I meant J-I-M, not G-Y-M. Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. That's why we have a producer. They just figured it out. You choose the music.

Oh, okay. All right. So, Jim... I can't tell you how cool it is, particularly for me and Jeff, because we came to your gym 12 years ago. Dan O'Connell came there. Huang came there. Huang came there.

All those dudes. And we've all remembered you throughout our Marine career. Oh, yeah. So I have a picture in front of CrossFit Havoc in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I know that you took the gym to Florida, but to me, that's where that place is. For sure. Cool to have you on.

You know, like three years ago when you came to the Arnold and I had a booth, like we years ago when you came to the Arnold and I had a booth, like we had a moment, like we didn't cry, but it was close. It was really close. And that was awesome, man. Dude, let me tell you something, Grant. I'm, and I'm, I'm dead serious here. I like seeing, seeing you do all of the things that you're doing in the strength community and all of the knowledge that you're spreading just about how to use a barbell, how to use this magical tool that you've discovered and that I've discovered.

That you helped me discover. Yeah, but you're freaking doing it, man. You're doing the thing that people set out to do and like you've found a way to do it. And I don't want to say I'm proud of you because it'll be, but I am. But can I say that? Can I say that I'm proud of you?

Yeah, yeah. You're like, you're way older than me, dude. I haven't even hit my strength peak yet. I think, I just think it's freaking awesome. Every time I see you come up on whatever social media platform. Even with my mustache? Yeah. I was wondering if that was going to get brought up.

I avoided that topic on purpose. No, seriously, Jim, that means a lot to me. Seriously, I really do appreciate it. I'm telling you, the fact that you're here there's a podcast and jeff's here makes it even more special i ain't trying to be jay but like it's cool um we want to like for what we can do help you so where do the people find you if they've listened to this and they're like, wow, this dude's on to something about tax help, the future of CrossFit, lifting weights. Yeah, clips is.

Do you want them to go to your website? Yeah, sure, man. Do you want them to go to your Instagram? Where can the people find Big Jim? Yeah, so, I mean, CrossFitHavoc.com, that's our website. I just got 1,000 followers on Instagram. Guys, it's a really big deal. Like huge, four digits.

I was, I've been waiting. Like, it's like when I hit my 500 pound back squat within a few days after that, I hit a thousand Instagram followers and my lifespan. So it's two X. So if you could squat 2,500 pounds, you'd have 5,000 followers. Wow. Yeah, man. Matt checks out.

Incredible since then. Yeah. So, but no, yeah. CrossfitHavoc.com. What's your Instagram handle? Jim DeNova. It's really. Creative.

Straight to the point. I will say, if you've liked a little bit of Jim's hot takes and rants, he has rants on mustaches. What about shrimp tails? Shrimp tails. Shrimp tails. What America, Italians in America are doing to your pasta. It's ridiculous.

It's worse than vaccines. It's awful. It's completely terrible. They're getting you. So if you want some random, I won't call them random because they're very important. But to some people, they seem random. Listen in. And despite me having a mustache, thanks for calling in, Jim.

Yeah, man. This was awesome, guys. Seriously, thank you so much for inviting me. Let's do it again sometime. Yeah, for sure. I'd love it. I'd love it. Thanks for joining, dude. See you. Thanks, dude.

He's great. Good guess, man. So good. Good dude. Good guess. He's a good dude. Good dude. Good dude. Good dude. Good dude.

Yeah, good dude. So here's the way I see it. One, UConn's playing Purdue right now, which is a testament to us for saying, hey, rain, sleet, or snow, the show must go. But also, Jeff, you're the director of slides i think i think i think we had 10 minutes like okay i mean i think there's only one topic to go with talking about the women's national championship the lady gamecocks taking over hardware perfect

season undefeated were you nervous you nervous in the first half? Oh, you guys are talking to me? You guys think we're talking about one? Yeah. You might have a couple things. The number one ladies fan. So, I actually wasn't

that nervous. One, because South Carolina's stats are to be the best second half team all year uh i mean don't get me wrong i did not like a 10 nothing start but it was nothing like as a patriots fan as a red sox fan as a gamecock male football players fan like i actually was always like oh they got this and then when they came back from 11-0 in the first quarter and tied it up, and then in the half, when Kaitlin Clark only scored one point

or maybe two points in the second quarter, I was like, oh, we're good. So I wasn't that nervous. But yeah, I thought it was a great game. Yeah, I thought it was fun to see. I liked that it was like a lockdown defense. It was amazing like just put a hand in her face like just literally put a hand in her face and like she's done um

i still think she's an amazing player but it was amazing how they they shut her down so 18 points in the first quarter and then average four points per quarter you have to tell you have to tell diana like this is not a normal thing for a sports fan like i'm gonna hop on this bandwagon and then like a month later we're the best yeah that's not normal i don't know yeah well she actually hopped on while they were the best and then just kept going okay greatness yeah yeah no i mean i will say i've taken her to four gamecock games and they've all been abysmal losses. And she was like, why like this school? And,

and so that's why when we went to the sec tournament game for basketball, she was like, I love these Gamecocks. I was like, me too. But yeah. Yeah. Well,

what do you think? Do they, they run it back again? How much of the, how many players are coming back? So maybe too soon to tell, but yeah, go ahead. Trey is crock pot coming back? Uh, so maybe too soon to tell, but yeah, go ahead.

Troy is crock pot coming back. What's your name? Croc pots coming back. Yeah. I'm trying to wait. I'm trying to wait when to ask her to come on the okay. Pop it. Crock pots coming back.

Um, I think honestly everyone, but, uh, Camilla Cardola is should, should be coming back. Uh, I think that's not fair.

I think the question is, does Dawn Staley come back? I mean, I don't know why she wouldn't. Why wouldn't she? I think the fact that the five starters this year were completely different than all five starters last year tell you the sauce there. Not that they don't have good players coming in but like i think that's the question but um i mean she's still under contract so i assume she'll be back

but yeah maybe they run it back but it was it was good so i have a question to kind of segue one did you guys all watch that game i know jordy did because he texted me right at the end trey jeff he didn't i was keeping up with. I didn't get a chance to watch it though. Yeah, I was working. Are you keeping up with UConn or Purdue right now? It's halftime right now. Only because I brought it up. Did you know that?

What? That it's halftime? I knew they were playing but... Okay, okay. Dude, I was really into that guess man. I was like... Everything he said, I'm like, oh yeah. It was great. Gamecocks are champs. Dude, I was really into that guess, man. I was like, everything you said, I'm like, oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was great. So Gamecocks are champs.

Jim DeNovo remains king. Yeah. Anything we need to cover before? I mean, if I open up my fishing story, I could go for an hour. Oh, I say let's push that. Was it good? I guess. Did you have a good time? Yeah, i'll put it to you this way it was cool about 18 months no last year last

april my brother was up in north carolina taking his girls to a camp texted me it was like hey do you want to meet up for a hike i was like yeah i met him somewhere this was right after we moved here we hiked for six miles and he was holding something in his hand and he had looked up the hike and they were supposed to be like a stream and so he had this like fly fishing stuff with him and that was when i first got the bug because he was like oh i was hoping we're gonna hike into this like stream and then i was gonna fish and i was like wait what and he's like yeah well like i have a family i have four girls and like what i like to do is like they all like to hike

they don't necessarily like to fish so we then go on a hike and then all of a sudden there's water and it's like what must i do fish oh just cast and so that was the plan but we never found water and like diana likes to tease my oldest brother she's like oh that's six mile hike to nowhere and um because there was no water but i was like when it like first trickled my mind so anyway so him coming down we went out uh the first day with the guide was awesome my brother caught you know fly fishing guides hairs hairs fly fishing at a greenville south car potential sponsor but they speak in absolutes so jeremy pulls this big fish when i post on instagram i think jeff and trey both commented to that's a good fish and he catches it and he goes how big is it and the guy

goes 21 inches and jeremy goes biggest fish i've ever caught and i'm like so was it the biggest fish you ever caught he goes i don't. Last time I caught a big fish, the guy in Montana said it was 20 inches. And this guy says 21 inches. So I had him send photos and we're like compared. And it was like real close. But I was super pumped that he came down to fish and like caught what?

Caught a monster. May or may not have been the biggest fish he's ever caught down to the ounces. I think he caught like 15 fish i caught over 10 like i mean it's it is like once you catch like five like you just you actually really do lose count it's a really great day and the second day we went out it was awesome and he was like teaching me some stuff because he fishes a whole different style right like i think more like what jeff does like still water doing the swing like you know dry casting and i'd like oh yeah i have i've only fished like big water high sticking

fast water like feeding like it was just it was just completely different so it was interesting so we did some of that and we had a great day and we like talked about a bunch of stuff and then it was like it was like four o'clock and we hadn't caught a fish. I'd had one that I hooked, fought and he busted off. And I was like, man. And then Jeremy actually felt bad.

Cause he was like, I suck. Like I've like the one that got you into fly fishing. I've been doing it for 10 years. We haven't caught a fish. And I was like, Hey man, like I've come to this river,

the Chituga a few times. Everyone fishes like the bridge, the bridges. And I was like, hey, man, I've come to this river, the Chituga, a few times. Everyone fishes the bridge. The bridge is where the truck is. Let's just hike back and fish the bridge, and we'll leave at 530. So we walked down to the bottom of the bridge at literally 515. I'm like, 530, we're leaving. I cast twice. Boom, fish.

Catch it. And we're like, yeah, we're not skunked. He takes a photo, and then he's like,'s like oh cool let me show you this swing thing and he's like showing me something like third cast he catches a fish he's like the bite's on i was like we're leaving he's like what am i we're leaving right now we're leaving on a high we both just caught a fish we didn't get skunk let's get out of here but yeah it was it was a good trip but what i'll tell you that trey were like we got in at the bridge and there was like two guys like 40 meters down and so all day when there had been people we had like avoided them and then we get in there and jimmy goes oh

we're totally high ho in this guy and i go yeah he's real casting. And he's like, what? I'm like, he's a spin caster and scented worms. I don't care about this guy. And like, I do my first cast. That guy catches a fish. He hooks it, pulls it up, trout this long, unhooks it, throws it on the bank. What kind of dirt bag keeps the fish? And Jeremy looks at me and goes, oh, I don't feel bad at all.

And I was like, yeah, this guy keeps not a conservationist. Oh, my gosh. You're not allowed to eat them. Oh, boys can have a little bit of fun. Never catch a 21 inch or if you take all the 12 inches

out of there. Am I right? Right. Trey, you always shut us down and every week you get better. Take us in for a while. What's the, what episode are we on? 015. 015.

015. As we say. Everybody, I just want to thank you for listening. As always, this has been the we say. Everybody, I just want to thank you for listening, as always. This has been the OK Podcast. You've been listening to

PJ, Grant, Hefe. I'd like to thank our guest Jim for coming on. What a great time that we had. I'd like to thank our sponsors, BW Tax, as always. You literally have one week. One week. I just checked my calendar to file your taxes or file extension i don't know how to do that guess who does bw tax give them a call uh you can find

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Find all the links there Coach, did I miss anything? No, you're good. Great job. All right. Thanks again for listening.