The Okay Podcast Powered by The Strength Co. - EP 31: Meet the Female Artillery Officer Dominating CrossFit, Powerlifting, and Strongman

Episode Date: August 2, 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 Join the Slack and Use code OKAY: https://buy.stripe.com/dR6dT4aDcfuBdyw5ks Check out BW Tax: https://www.bwtaxllc.com TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Trump Loves Bitcoin 03:08 - What’s New For The Strength Co. 07:29 - Missing Training 09:10 - Training With The Marrs Bar 10:40 - Preview of The Guest 17:08 - Jeff and Tres Join 20:26 - Women’s Rugby 23:52 - The Olympics 24:59 - Jack White’s National Anthem 34:00 - Nova Ward Joins The Show 36:19 - Nova’s Marine Career 43:18 - Women In The Marine Corps 52:37 - Nova’s Fitness Journey 01:04:29 - How To Prepare For CrossFit 01:10:28 - Social Media 01:16:43 - Staying Consistent As A Marine 01:18:52 - Nutrition 01:26:29 - Training Advice 01:29:50 - Final Thoughts 01:38:37 - Grip Strength 01:51:05 - Saved Rounds In this part of the conversation, Grant and his co-hosts discuss various topics including Bitcoin, memes, the Mars bar, female lifting, grip strength, and the Olympics. They also mention Jack White's performance of the national anthem and the USA women's rugby team winning the sevens tournament. The conversation is light-hearted and includes some humorous moments. In this part of the conversation, the hosts discuss their experiences watching the Olympics and their favorite events. They also talk about the physical prowess of Olympic athletes, particularly in gymnastics and track and field. The conversation then transitions to an interview with Nova Ward, a Marine Corps artillery officer. Nova shares her journey to becoming a Marine and her experiences in training and deployment. She also discusses being a woman in the Marine Corps and how she has not faced any issues or discrimination. In this part of the conversation, Grant and Nova discuss the integration of women into combat arms and the impact it has had on the military. They also talk about their experiences in powerlifting and CrossFit, and how they have transitioned between the two. Nova shares her journey from powerlifting to CrossFit and her upcoming competition in Japan. They also discuss the importance of building a strong base before diving into CrossFit and the role of core strength in overall fitness. The conversation concludes with a discussion about Nova's social media presence and her use of a Canon EOS 50 camera for filming. In this final part of the conversation, Nova Ward discusses her approach to filming and editing YouTube videos, her gym Left Coast CrossFit, and her strategies for helping Marines with their fitness goals. She also shares her thoughts on nutrition and tracking macros. The conversation ends with a fun segment where Nova does an impromptu sponsor read for BW Tax LLC and shares her Instagram handle.

All right, and welcome back to episode 031 of the OK Podcast powered by the Strength Co. I'm your host, Grant Brogy. We are broadcasting live, recording live, airing Fridays at 0900 for you military types from the upstate, the beautiful upstate of South Carolina we are up in uh direction North First South and we are up in elevation uh or altitude the upstate of South Carolina today's date is July the 30th almost the end of the month the block height is eight five four seven three six on our block clock shout out Zach Copley yeah okay um glad to be here, but a busy month, but we have not missed a single episode. We've made it, we've made it happen. We've made it happen. We've made it happen. Absolutely. Even despite Miami trips and Marine drill and South Dakota, I think I was in the upstate of

South Carolina for eight days in the month of Julyuly that's not a lot and i podcasted four of them so you see where my priorities are at to keep things going okay okay uh let's see what's new what's uh well i know bitcoin 66 at least yesterday i was a little out of the loop for a while you know why did you hear what trump said about bitcoin well he went to the bitcoin conference obviously where of course north carolina charlotte tennessee tennessee nashville nashville nashville yeah same same yeah yeah he was up there he uh it's like i when i listened to it it was like he read all of the history of bitcoin twitter memes okay and just repeated them like he said bitcoin's going to the moon yeah we're gonna fire gary ginsler sec chair day one i love it called everyone in

the room high iq the list goes on yeah the list goes on he he said he said that we think he thinks that you know why is the government selling the bitcoin we should have a stockpile yeah who wants a stockpile of bitcoin in the government in the government in the Bitcoin? We should have a stockpile. Yeah. Who wants a stockpile of Bitcoin? In the government. In the government. In the government. Hey, we got a lot of debt. It hit $35 trillion.

So he talked about it and then it just, it mooned? Yeah. I mean, you can't really in real life connect those things, but I'm just saying. I mean. He talked, it went up. Bitcoin said, I want more winning. Yeah.

All right. I didn't realize it hit 70. I was a little out of the loop. I wasn't waking up to my block clock every morning. I'm, you know, it's crazy. What's the high 74? Something like that. Yeah.

73, 74 somewhere. Okay. So I never, I never checked the price anymore. Yeah. I never check it. Because you just, every Tuesday, look at the block clock. Yeah. I get my updates on Tuesdays when we record this.

Yeah. But also if anything important happens, like someone will post on X like, Oh no, it hit 50 or Oh, broke 70 again. And I'm like, okay, we're good. We're back in the game. We're good. Well, we're up. What'd we start at? 44. It was, yeah. Something like that. So it's definitely up. Oh, there's the robots. Three 66, two 82. I'll take it though. A soft 70. I love it. Close to 70. Round it up. Uh, let's see what's new this week.

The Biden meme still skyrocketing. You posted another one, right? Uh, posted another one yesterday doing like well above average. Um, yep. It's the one where he's like,

uh, I know how to do this job. And it was something about power lifters. Actually, Connor made that one. Um, memes are the message, man. Yeah, but the other one just keeps going. It's over 20 million.

That is an insane number. Yeah, and so we got a couple thousand new followers at The Strength Co. who this podcast is powered by. A couple thousand? Yeah, so I think we were at like 30 and some change when we posted that. Or like just had hit 31, somewhere right in there. And now we're at like 33 and some change when we posted that or like just had hit 31 somewhere

right in there and now we're at like 33 and a half 33 okay it's like 2500 followers i mean i can't attribute it all to that meme but i kind of can um i mean just like 20 million views all the comments all the sins like 600 that yeah so you can see like how many times i thought you meant like jesus christ died for our sins no no no that also happened i thought you meant like zins or not sins no no actually that's a that's a um i've noticed this about accents so when you say that i say it just like you sin sinned so if what are you saying past tense like i sinned if you say the past tense of the word like in the religious term sinned yes i say that the same way as s e n d sinned oh i don't think i do you do oh sinned sinned i would say sinned okay well some a lot of people say send send like eh like eh versus eh uh yeah send would be what

you do against god yep full send would be what you do in the weight room that sounds you all let the listeners decide that sounds exactly the same and also the other other people say it send send that still sounds kind of sinned send and if you're if you're my mom you say sinned It sounds kind of sinned, send. And if you're, if you're my mom, he's like, see and yeah, yeah. And also if you say the word, um, anything, anything I say any like, eh, like it's an eye, ah, anything versus anything, anything. What do you call the holiday before Christmas? Think, uh, I say Thanksgiving.

So the emphasis that then Fossus is on the giving, giving. Yeah. I always say Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving. Yeah. emphasis is on the giving. Yeah. I always say Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Yeah. Yeah. I'll see you Thanksgiving. Okay.

My mom would say Thanksgiving. Yeah. Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway, there you have it. We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but we have thanks.

And full sinned. Yeah. And full sinned. Full sinned. Lost a train of thought. Biden meme went well. Still cranking. Yeah. And full send. Full send. Lost a train of thought. Biden meme went well. Still cranking. Funny that those things work.

What else is new? We did the little vlog. I didn't get any inputs because I was gone. Oh, I just full sent it. Yeah. You full sent it. It did well. I was really thinking about how to frame that.

I thought it would be terrible. Yeah. Well, you know, typically vlogs on this channel don't always do the best. The super fans. The super fans love it. We get like a thousand views and then it's done. A thousand people who love it. Yeah. And then it dies, right? It dies. But I want to attribute all of this to my genius editing, but sorry, I'm swallowing my, uh, my LaCroix or breathing it in. Beach plum. But yeah. But I was trying to think about like, okay, you have this whole event. How do you frame this video or how you craft this video?

So I was like, well, the coolest punchline of this section is you deadlifting with fire and you missing your bench because of the rack. Right. So it's like you had to build, I don't like just ignore everything else, except for the whole buildup to that. And then when you hit that, it was like, it's done.

Okay. Like cut it. I'm trying to like frame it. Frame it. Yeah. It went good. Well, I think last year we called it the best power lifting meet.

You've never heard of. Do you, do you mean we called it the same thing that mass anomalous called their video? That's how they call it this year. I bet they don't know that, but they might. So, but we did it last year. Really? Yeah. We did it first their video. So they call it this year. I bet they don't know that, but they might. So,

but we did it last year. Really? Yeah. We did it first. Yeah. But, but it wasn't it the best power lifting meet you've never heard of. I think it was that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know the never heard of is right. Yeah. But anyway, but it was cool. It was really,

it looked good this year. Uh, like the turnout and like, Oh yeah, it was bigger. I don't know the numbers, but it felt like double. It felt like double. So yeah, that's a win. Um, let's see. I just went seven days without going to the gym. Oh, full seven. Well, I don't know if I lifted last

Tuesday and then lifted this Tuesday. It's debatable. Yeah. Is that six days? I don't know. It depends. But I will, when was the last time you went seven days without lifting? Six slash seven. Probably something Marine Corps related. But last year I went to Fort Hood in the summer for 14 days. But we had like a break in the middle where we were back on the base and there was a gym. So I think i went probably something similar like six days really um yeah but this is definitely up there i don't

generally go more than no no three no so um but yeah it actually felt good folk it's like you're like what like i got back yesterday i was super tired i went to sleep you know and then i woke up today and i was busy and i was like what is off and then i left the gym and i was like yeah i saw you at the gym that's what i needed yeah you saw you squatting the mars bar yeah back in stock next week if you're looking for a mars bar mars bar light um injection molds done bars are bent finishing the chrome sleeves this week got to get them back get them boxed up and they'll be back in the store. If you're looking for a Mars bar, whenever we tend to go out of stock in them, whenever they come back,

they go pretty fast, and it usually takes a couple days to ship them because they're made in Kansas, and it's a small town, and it ships like a coffin. So when the UPS truck comes, he can only fit like five of them. So we get backlogged it might take a couple days don't freak out but the Mars bar is coming back um what else I still never used the Mars bar you know man am I missing out no don't do it don't do it till you need it because I'll never go back you'll never go back okay yeah I mean you will because you'll just feel like you need to but um yeah it's great it's great I get questions about it all the time. People often ask, how do you adjust the load when squatting with the Mars bar? And the short answer is it's more, um, just because the bar is even lower. So it's even

closer to your hips. Um, that probably doesn't account for the 20 pound difference though. Like, what do you mean? Like if you're're if you're going to squat three plates on each side for today yeah you probably wouldn't put three plates on each side for the mars bar even though it's a little bit better leverage a little bit more actually you would add so i did 425 today for two sets of five because my first one back, I didn't want to get too sore. I bet if I was on a straight bar, that would have been like 385. That is a large difference. Yeah, it's a big difference. It's probably, what would that be percentage-wise? Like 10% more?

Yeah, something like that. Yeah, I think that's probably right. It feels way different. Okay, so Mars bar, you have to film those for Instagram because it looks cooler because you got more weight on the bar. Yeah, and you have to film for Instagram because your shoulder doesn't hurt and you can actually squat. So it's like, I have to.

I can't not do this. Oh, look at that. It's like a little pop-up. It almost looks like an iPhone over there. Oh, yeah. Is there one person there or two? I know at least Jeff is. We'll see.

We'll wait until Trey pops up. I got a guest tonight. Female type, female lif lifter pretty intense one uh excited to have her on uh miss nova ward so we'll tell you all about her in a little bit um she's jacked she's jacked she's strong she crossfits she power lifts she's a marine uh should be some good conversation. Have some folks asking us for some more female contacts or content on the page. Again, 98% of you that follow are men, but we care about the 2%. So we're going to do that. We also got to reformat those like playlists and stuff.

Still haven't done that. Yeah, we got in on the Strength Co. And what? And on the Strength Co. channel. What were you talking about okay podcast oh yeah I'm really concerned about those 150 subscribers yeah yeah yeah I gotta organize it yeah yeah no on the strength Co yeah yeah yeah so we need some more female content if you've got female lifting questions send us to at the strength Co Instagram DMS drop in the okay pod Instagram DMs email us the okay underscore pod at Gmail talk to us on X if you're a slack member you can ask us right there but we need

to cover some more female stuff it's really not that different if you're a beginner I feel like it is the same and then it gets different after the NLP is that right yeah I think the NLP lasts long or last shorter in terms of three sets of five. You got to go to five sets of three quicker. Most guys probably don't even end up at five sets of three, but women almost always do. I think the press and the bench press act completely different because women have something called breast, which account for a lot of body fat percentage and less muscle mass in the upper body. So those lifts tend to kind of peter out and not perform as well for as long as they do on men. They tend to, you know, level off on men too, just because there's more muscle mass down in the lower half of the body. But men and women both have a lot of muscle mass

lower in the body. So it's very normal to see a woman that's been training with a great squat, a good deadlift. When I say great, you know, I mean, 200 pounds, mid twos is not like freakish. It's the equivalent of a upper three deadlift in a man, probably not equivalent because way more guys are squatting and deadlifting, but in terms of what it takes, not being a genetic freak and getting your numbers up, that's fine. But I mean, it's, you know, it's very rare to see a woman pressing a hundred pounds, uh, possible. Yeah. I mean, this is, this might be useful for some people listening. So

they may relate to it, you know, the 2%, but, um, Kate, my fiance, same thing. so nlp she's done it for wow has it been four or five months now yeah probably something like that yeah something like that and her squat and deadlift are just still kind of linear i would say has she missed or has it been like a pretty consistent she hasn't missed but it oh no she's missed a deadlift and she's, no, I mean like, so four months, like is she getting three sessions a week or is she getting like three every 10 days? It's two to three a week. And there's been maybe two like week offs weeks off because of travel or whatever. Right. Um, so as good as a NLP can usually go right with real life. Right. Um, and squat and deadlift still going up.

Deadlift is like getting iffy because she's missed one. I remember she missed, um, like a set one time. Um, squat's still pretty good. We're just kind of building back up from her being off a little bit. And then that press and that bench just hit a wall. And so I had to get the micro plates. How small that was really useful. Um, you can make half pound, everything you need to make half pound jumps in between. If you're doing 40, 40 to 45, you can go half pounds all the way between there. Okay. So, which I didn't realize you don't just need a half pound plate. You need like 0.25, you need 0.25 and 0.5 and 0.75 and one point, you know, like, and you need a bunch in order to make it. Yeah. Um them together but um but yeah and i she's recently started doing i don't know if you would recommend this but i i since it was like a lot and the

deadlift was starting to go and that was kind of a cue for me um said do two lifts a day yeah so and because i could have done the starting strength thing where you say i think this is right okay deadlift every other session and then in between those on the off workouts, you're doing chin ups or rows or power cleans, right? Something like that. But she just switched to two. She just actually just started doing that.

She's done two workouts like that. And so we'll see how that goes. The squat still moving. Squat still moving. Yeah. So I downside of that with females is they seem to like tolerate the squat really well. and so it might it might be worth to keep the dead the squat in on that deadlift so she could have let's say Monday

and Friday where she squats and presses and benches but like the deadlift is only one set of five it's probably not a ton of weight because she's small yep and so it might be worth sometimes women seem to um do really well squatting three times a week and they love the results that they get from the squat. So usually it's worth, it's worth leaving it in and you might end up making that a light day. Yeah. Um, but yeah, but no, I mean, she's over, she's over one to one, like 1.25 to 1.5 body weight on squat and that's good. Yeah. So she's moving, but she gained weight. If we talk about that.

No, no. I thought she did. Not even like a pound. No, she's like holding steady, which I don't know. That's just jeans or something. I thought I was just going to make you bulky. That's what happens. You, you know, with 20 inch pythons on 20, 20 inch arms, 20 inch arms.

I have a quick question. If we have time. Yeah. Hit it. And then we'll let these guys in here all right so best way a lot of guys ask about grip strength and we even have peter attia talking about how your best predictor of longevity is your grip strength or your whatever yeah and that to me that feels like a chicken egg problem like if you're strong you're gonna have good grip strength it doesn't mean make your grip strength get better and then you're going to live longer. Sure.

But it is a good indicator. Like I have a two part question. The first is a question. The second is a, is a exciting game. What? Wait, wait,

wait. I feel like Trey want to talk about grip strength. Oh, he does. Yeah. Yeah. He dropped the Peter Tia video in. Okay.

Well we can pause. We can switch. Let him in. That was a little teaser. Yeah. Teaser. All right. Episode 031 of the...

Okay. Okay. Okay. Guidelines. Okay. Okay. Podcast powered by the Strength Co. Sponsored by none other than Mr. B tax bw tax you know it's july it's about to be august this week and i don't know about you but when i think august

i think september and when i think september i think april 15th and it is time to get going on my taxes. And whether I'm a small business owner, a Marine, a father, or all of the above, you know, I need someone to help me and there's no one quite like BW Tax. So thanks for keeping the lights on, BW. We appreciate you. Alright, what's up?

Nothing. Nothing. Right, just in time for the lift hard lit easy classic update did i miss it guys did i miss it right on time right on time ready to dive right into it right fresh just happened definitely not old news nope nope the master slides back breaking news takes me back to deadwood news such a i mean such an important topic it's been you know top of the news cycle yeah wild bill i've been on this like uh old outlaw podcast kick ever since i left south dakota listened to all the wild bill one uh

now i'm in the buffalo podcast yeah he's still alive yeah actually so i think we talked about last week we went into the number seven saloon because like there was a guy outside he's like free show starts at 7 30 featuring wild bill hickok and we were like oh okay by the way it's hitchcock everyone in the youtube comments has told me i guess they don't really follow the podcast and know that i'm homeschooled it's hitchcock not hickok but anyway you know hickok 45 on youtube i don't oh yeah the gun dude i know yeah the best the best gun tuber on youtube fastest gun but anyway uh so we we we make it through like 15 minutes of this guy's presentation diana's like bored out of her mind. And Connor's favorite part was, and there I was in the street.

And all of a sudden, I shot him right in the chest. And then I heard, hey, Bill. And I went, bam. But I shot my deputy. And so like all weekend, Connor was like, hey, Grant, bam. And then he shot his deputy. Anyway, Connor found the whole clip on youtube and it is like identical like it's i mean obviously it's identical the guy does this over and over and over he's like 11 minute 30 second marks when he shoots his deputy and uh it was pretty funny

but anyway also historically accurate it matched up perfectly with the podcast legends of the old west i listen to so well that's pretty cool. Yeah. Verified. Anyway, you feel caught up on the lift. Hard live easy. Now I feel like I know everything about it. There you go.

He watched the final one of metal. I loved it. Great one. But we don't know what it was for. Oh, I don't know. It's for just one. Just overall,

it's either bench and deadlift for just bench. You're the most hay in the barn. I think is what it was. Most hay is in the barn. All right. Well're the most hay in the barn, I think is what it was. Most hay. The hay is in the barn. All right, well, we got up in the slide deck. We got about 10 minutes for our guest gets on here. Is there a slide deck? Oh, you guys want to talk women's rugby?

Absolutely. Big news in the women's rugby world. The USA won the sevens tournament. First time ever. Did you see the final play Trey um no do you have any concept of rugby I like I know

I know the sport football adjacent like you throw the ball backwards and you hit people yeah yeah um so

usually it's there's scrums and all this different stuff but in the there's I guess in the Olympics I didn didn't know this, but there's sevens league, which is like your smaller, faster people. But it's still kind of similar style of like rucking and stuff. But the goal is just like get the ball out to the wing, which is your seventh guy in a line. So more scoring. Go fast.

So it's way more. Yeah, more scoring, more running. But anyway, she she's probably like third down the line and gets it and just like trucks two chicks. I did. Yeah. Should have been done and then just took it to the house. And I was like, see, this is why you do your squats and you're dead.

Twice. Fives. Yeah. America's best export trucking people. Yeah. Trucking. They don't wear a helmet, right? No.

Usually you tape your ears or there's like a little scrum cap that you wear and that's just that's so you can hear better yeah do you think nfl players should wear helmets uh i think this is the science shows that they should wear helmets well i asked here's the hot take well i trust the sciences but here's a hot take. Well, I trust the sciences, but here's my question. Here's my question. Would it be something like, if you don't have your helmet, you're going to change how you hit people. You're not going to be spiking people with your helmet.

Okay, no shoulder pads, no helmet. Would it be safer? Because you can't just bang people's heads against each other the whole game. No, I do think there is an argument for that. that like oh you have to you have to hit people a little different i want i don't know what like the the data is on uh like cte for you know retired rugby rugby players and stuff like that i wonder if it's like yeah you know i don't know. In line with NFL or what? Don't don't. Well, they can't remember. Oh, OK. No, you're good.

Well, don't don't fact check me. But I think you're like, take me a second. I think that there's fewer concussions and brain injuries in bare knuckle boxing than there is in boxing. And I think it's for a similar reason, because you can't just haul off

and crack some dude in the cranium without paying a consequence. So you're really like careful. I read that Harvard study. I think that's accurate. Yeah. Well, was it Harvard? I think it was Yale.

This just in, back in the day, we played football with leather helmets. And so as Jeff once famously said on this podcast, I think we have empirical evidence on this. People would die back then. I don't know. I don't know if that's attributed to not wearing helmets, but there are people that would die.

I do know that. I do. I do know that in rugby, the collarbone and femur break rate is very high. Femur. Interesting. Yeah. Collarbone.

I can definitely see. I can you probably a lot more like dislocated shoulders yes yes i would think like knee like torn acls and stuff yeah you know anyway the women are the champions what else you've been watching the olympics jeff i haven't watched any olympics at all i haven't watched one second, actually. I'm pretty disappointed in myself. Yeah. Although I guess I could see all the memes. It's the timing of it. Opening ceremony. That's all I watched was the opening ceremony.

I missed it. I was gone. Oh, you missed it. Oh, yeah. Did you see all the- What was the problem? There was- You should just watch it.

I won't get into it. A lot going on. There was a lot happening. It didn't look like an opening ceremony to me. It looked like something else. Grant, it's not going to be up your alley. It looks... It kind of looked like it.

You're not going to... They came out dressed as storm whoopers. That's what it was. There are costumes involved. I think it was more like a bar in San Francisco. A bar in in san francisco i did see that celine dion didn't show up or something or showed up late i don't know that was she competing said yeah uh she was supposed to sing with someone she did sing russians on the sevens rugby team i don't know yeah i had two people roast us last

week and it's jeff's fault for not being here. Oh, no. It was last week's when we talked National Anthem, right? Two weeks ago. Oh, so you were here, and we didn't bring up Jack White's National Anthem. Jack White? I didn't even know he did one. Did he do one?

Excuse me. Technical difficulties. Keep going. Jack White. I don't know this one. Singing. What sport? Let's guess. You really don't know this one Jack White. I don't know this one. What sport? Let's guess. You really don't know this one?

No, I don't. Okay, because we're big Jack White guys. You guys are friends, right? I'm very disappointed in myself again. Did he do it ironically? Detroit Tigers. 2022.

Dang, it's not that long ago. Oh, recent. Okay. Maybe that'll be the opening music for this episode. Yeah. What was his blue hair Jack White era? Blue hair. Remember blue hair Jack White?

Oh, yeah. That's gone. Before we get into that, did you see that video i sent you of him driving through atlanta no i sent you on instagram you probably didn't see it but like he goes live but it's like someone holding his phone and they're just in like a seven or ten passenger van whatever a bigger van and they're just like jamming out to his new songs and he's driving and he like doesn't know they're filming he's just like passing people and weaving in and out and i was like man that would be my luck to like get cut off by jack white start blowing the horn oh my bad my bad hey records in there yeah my bad yeah go ahead open up your

seat yeah okay good i didn't know about the uh seven or i don't know that the seven nations army i don't know what he did either but uh but it's good to the national anthem looks like Detroit Tigers I'm gonna fast forward here but I'll see what he plays we're close and Southwest Detroit native Jack White Sounds like the National Anthem This is so Jack White Looks pretty cool on YouTube. The slide guitar is killing me. It's a dude.

Okay, okay. Now it's freaking up. For all the people just listening or watching Grant watching the phone. It's a reaction. Reaction to the reaction. Follow us on YouTube to watch Grant. I'm going to fast forward and see if he sings.

I don't think he does. A la Jimi Hendrix style. Just guitar. Oh yeah. Yeah, that's much better than that one girl. Hope she's doing well. Yeah, rest in peace. That was pretty good, man good that was great jack white best

national anthem ever i like it yeah chris tapleton i think is he i think he was the best right now yeah that was hard i wonder how that girl's doing in rehab right now probably awesome yeah we gotta get her on the podcast next week she'll sing for us post rehab but hey this is your opportunity to give the national anthem one more shot to show people you can really do it

go ahead all four of our listeners are ready to hear it I definitely won't auto tune it alright next slide wait are we winning the Olympics I definitely won't auto-tune it. All right, next slide. Wait, are we winning the Olympics? I think we're going to medal count.

I saw some other table a couple days ago that was like weighted the medals. When are you watching it? Are you watching it at like 2 in the morning? Who, me? Yeah. I haven't watched it much. I don't even know if what i watch is reruns i got out of the field sunday night i got to philadelphia for a monday morning flight simper fired on my

laptop in the lobby women's beach volleyball was on nice and um men's volleyball yeah there was two volleyball things on okay and. And USA was playing someone. And watched a little bit of that. And then today, in the middle of the day, I caught... What's the gymnast's name that's like 4'10"? Oh, Simone Biles. Simone Biles. Yeah, but I don't know if it was live or not.

That's the thing about the Olympics is you never know. It's all in like two in the morning is when it i i have i mean i have seen the olympics on just the replays from the previous i guess like but but i haven't like oh man the only time i've ever done that in my life twice uh i guess four six years ago when cj cummings weightlifter from buford south carolina he's was competing in weightlifting uh i think i got up at like i was in vermont i got up like 6 a.m to watch him compete and then i mean when michael phelps did his run that was like i think the whole nation stopped outside of that and what was the guy with the gold shoes usain bolt uh the jamaican dude original guy.

You're talking about Michael Johnson. You're talking about Michael Johnson. Yeah. Would we have been like five or six? Yeah. We were pretty young. Yeah. So I remember my dad being really into that and like rabbit ears watching it.

But like outside of those three times, I can't ever remember being like, oh, I got to catch this Olympics game. I mean, I'll watch it if it's on, but I had never been like really gotten into it. I'm more of, I like when the track and field starts. Track and field is on. That's more second half. Is that like the baton running?

Yeah. Yeah. So like the, you know, shot put, all the relays, all the javelin relays. Yeah. Is that happening this summer? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So no bobsledding. No bobsledding. put the relay javelin relays yeah is that happening this summer yes yes yeah yeah yeah okay

okay so no bobsledding no bobsledding it's usually so gymnastics and swimming is like first half and then track track and field second half yeah i think i'd rather watch the track and field i feel like in the speed walking too with no knee bend. No knee bend. Zone 2. Cardio only. There's so much drama. Someone's always accused of cheating. Oh no, they ran. Shoes running.

How do you define walking versus running? You have to have one foot on the ground. But you can't when you pick your foot up. If at any point both feet are off the ground when you're running. When you pick your foot up, the other one's on the ground. Whoa. I thought you meant as opposed to two feet

on the ground all the time. One can be... That would be called standing. That's a shuffling. That's rollerblading. Wow. Look at PJ. He's been standing there for an hour.

Look at that stillness that's beautiful he's moving a lot anywhere that's deep i feel like gymnastics for men is underrated it's so cool is it because why are their biceps so good is it because it resembles ballet that men don't like to do it i mean obviously men like to do it better in the olympics but i just mean weightlifting is pretty niche sport yeah but like if you lift any weights because you respect literally the weight of the bar you're like watch it like gym gymnastics like i don't feel like most gym people first word of gymnastics watch it but if you watch it you're like holy cow what a feat of strength like the rings and stuff i can only do two muscle ups and this guy just like spun around nine times the cross the iron cross

off of a like an uneven bar or a parallel bar you're like dang these guys are yeah they get some height too on the floor they're like doing their back flips and boom dude they're launched themselves yeah yeah what's the average height of those guys are they like five four they're all three yeah it's not really a fair comparison to my strength because they're all short true let me see you do that at six one brother let me see you do it at six one grow seven inches and do that again there is some kind of discussion there about like like why are their arms so jacked you know like no one has more jacked arms than olympic gymnast and you know when your arms this long it just looks easy to get jacked i don't know i don't know there's a lot of short not jacked people you sound like the coach

greg argument here uh you can't bench 315 if you have long arms i that was you brought up the short arms that wasn't me i'm like is is it true that if you just do endless chin-ups then i help you get pre-jacked you know who that's a great question for yeah novel let's get her in here oh what's up look at us wearing this this shirt. This is a big moment in OK Podcast history. That's the first female voice on the podcast right there. There it is. Whoa.

Can we tell her how to adjust her screen? Oh, right. Jen Thompson. Yeah. What? I forgot. It was like a half interview. She was only on for like two minutes.

So welcome to the podcast, Nova Ward, right? Strong name. Good name. Thank you. Your Instagram's Nova Sky. That's my middle name. Nova Sky Ward? Got even better.

Are you a captain yet, or are you still a first lieutenant? No, still a first lieutenant this year at the end of the year. Backbone of the Marine Corps. Yeah. We're hooking and jabbing for sure. Well, Nova, first you got to tell us, what's that name? Like what's your lineage?

Well, so technically Scottish. I was born there. Lived there until I was eight. That's pretty cool. And then came over here. So a little mixture of English. Word is kind of traditionally English. So English and Scottish.

Oh, you were born in Scotland. I did not know that. Do you have a pretty sick Scottish accent? I can, but I'm not going to do it. We just want to know if you can. We'll do it in post. We'll do it in post. I can.

Trey, we got to get her warmed up first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Wait, were your parents like dual citizenship or did you like come here to become a citizen i didn't know um so i i have dual citizenship currently still um but my dad's side of the family is all born bred in scotland and then my mom went over there to go to school okay so she was a u.s citizen yes she's a u.s so then when you're born she said she thought so when you

were born you were automatic duel yes two for one yeah that's what a deal interesting interesting so you're in uh socal are you living in like uh north of base south of base north of base same place you were before nor cal yeah yeah not not as good of a house to be fair but not the same house we don't give away too much what address are you at now do you want my social security as well you give it out so much this is true so we mainly want to talk to you about working out and stuff, but we got touching your Marine Corps stuff. And so your artillery officer, like three of us,

four of us, PJ is an honorary. Oh, PJ is an honorary Marine. I don't know, but not a Marine, but he often has, he often has good insights when we go down the,

go down the T lasbap too hard. By insights. I have dumb questions that maybe other people are thinking. Yeah. He's not a JTAC. Listen, you probably bring a lot to the table. I got dumb questions for today. Don't worry. Did you always want to be a

Marine? No, it wasn't really in my purview until I actually lived out in Hawaii for about a year. And I met a bunch of Marinesines out there and um i just like i really vibed with the culture and just the general personality the the dumbness of what came with it um and so when i graduated i was actually getting ready to go to physical

therapy school um and i kind of just figured like hey it's kind of now or never the body's only going to hold up for so long so i I kind of got to give it a shot. If I'm going to. Okay. That resonates so much. The dumbness of it. Yeah. The dumbness of it.

So you were not ROTC. I was not. OCC 12 week wonder. Yeah. Me too. In COVID. Oh, in COVID.

But that was interesting. Wow. Was it all virtual? Yeah. All on teams. uh well it was just strictly teams um no we had um we had like two week of like acclimation where we were like in these barracks in quantico and they would like take us out and like herd us places and then put us in a room so that we basically quarantined for two weeks okay it was terrible okay so that

was on top of the 12 weeks so it was an additional two yes geez yeah okay so then was tbs covid too uh it was a little bit initially and then we had um around the beginning of the new year we ended up because they let people go on leave so they quarantined us when we got back and then a couple people kind of lied about their covid or whatever whatever um and yeah crazy um and so then we got we got put in like a two-week quarantine i think two times during the duration of tbs okay and when you yeah go ahead trey was artillery your number one choice coming out of tbs my question uh it was my number one choice before i even knew what it was why yeah um i met i met one of the 0802 when i was out in hawaii um i met a bunch of grunts as well and i was like yeah i really don't want to do that um and yeah i was just talking to him about kind of what he did and i didn't understand like the

magnitude of what artillery was but i was like big gun go boom i was like that sounds phenomenal yeah yeah i'm like that's great okay and so were you did you do really well at tbs were you like did you always know like yeah i'm probably gonna get my spot or were you nervous getting your selection i'm sorry tbs It was a basic school. So every Marine goes to officer candidate school. It's like our boot camp. Okay. You commission as a second lieutenant and then you go to the basic school and you compete against your peers.

And then based off your standing, the higher the chance that you get what you want to be. Oh, that's cool. They don't decide until then. Yeah. I'm back. Thank you. This is why we need PJj um great question honestly um i think i fell out maybe in like this like the top of the second tier um or you know however they they kind of delineate that into the first second third

i mean real quick top of the middle of the pack. Yeah. Twisted. I was at the crest. Yeah. Show some respect. But yeah, I was never kind of worried about it. My my what's SPC. He was he was a pretty cool dude. He wanted artillery and they kind of kind of fucked him over and got him out of that.

So he as soon as I said that he was like okay he was like okay uh captain herm no i don't know i feel like major now i feel like uh captain now major via was there around that time too yeah was he there villa v-i-l-l A. I don't remember. He definitely wasn't in our class. Um, I don't remember him. Okay. So then you get artillery, you're pumped, you got your first choice, you go to, you go to Fort Sill. What'd you think? Um, man, uh, you know, don't know if i should advertise this but math is not my thing neither um luckily luckily all of artillery math is made up yes so um secret yeah like all of it right um so yeah it was it was a good time i definitely i definitely like i'm i'm pretty stupid so i just have to like study a lot so i just studied a shit ton, basically.

Yeah, and you did fine. It was a good time. What is harder, artillery math or girl math? Oh, girl math. Girl math, for sure. It doesn't even make sense. Way more intricate. If you buy the artillery, go ahead.

What's even worse is learning all that math and then going to Highmarch. Yeah, I love that. Not using any of it. artillery good what's even worse is learning all that math and then going to high marks yeah i love that not using any of it it's even more fun what's worse is going to the schoolhouse not even learning about high mars and they're like hey what do you know about high mars i'm like nothing bro you taught me nothing wait so did you go to high mars first no no luckily i went to a cannon battery thank god so you went to uh 111 211 111 okay got it and then you became a fire supporter right yes and that's where i currently am and then you just

got back from deployment i did yeah and you did the 31st yep did the 31st mu um as Did the 31st Mu, um, as a BFSO out there. Um, so it was a good experience. I think the workup probably was the best learning period for me. Um, we got out in the field a ton. We did SLTE, um, which is obviously in 29 palms. Um, so that, that was some really good training. Um, I thought the, the workup was, it was definitely hard, but it, that was probably the best training that I've ever had. Are you a fan of Japan? Yeah. I mean, I didn't mind it. I got a little like beater car. And so, you know, me and my roommates would just, you know, go off on the weekend and, you know, explore Island and stuff. So yeah, I didn't have any problems with it. I like it.

It's Okinawa, right? Yeah. Okinawa. Okay. Yes. Uh, PJ's what quarter Japanese? I'm half Japanese. And actually, the other half is English-Scottish, so Oh, no way.

Might be your brother. Maybe. Long lost. Oh, probably, yeah. Some cousin. Okay, so I gotta speak, and Trey, Jeff, and I will sound so old, but when we came through, women had not been let into combat arms MOSs. And I was an XO with Tango. And the first female hit 11th Marines on my way out.

I can't even remember her name. But I think that... What was the first female artillery officer? Was it Brody? Or something like that? Yes. It was. It was Captain Brody. artillery officer. Was it Brody or something like that? Yes, it was. It was. Yeah. So Captain Brody who I've met. Um, but it was definitely like new. And then I went to the SMCR and they hadn't really integrated females yet. They did the active component first. And towards my end of the time as an I and I, we had our first female FTO, but I'm just curious, like women have been in the Marine Corps since I don't know. I actually, how long have they been in the Marine Corps since the inception, right? Technically since't know, actually, how long have they been in the Marine Corps? Since the inception, almost.

Since the inception, right? Technically, since the inception, yes. Okay. Because they were like clerks and stuff. So coming in, was that challenging? I mean, Artie, we like to act like we're the toughest guys in the world. At the end of the day, it's often camping with cannons. But was it hard? And like, how did

you make it work? And I remember when we saw you at the ball a few years ago with my wife, she's like, Oh, I never understood how women could, women could do this. But then I met Nova and I was like, she can totally dominate all these guys, um, which we'll get to later on, but I'm curious, like, was it intimidating or was it like, Hey, when I came into OCS is intimidating. By the time I got to the fleet, I didn't worry about it. Did you like take backlash and only what you're free, like what you feel comfortable talking about, but I'm just curious what that was like. Yeah. Um, if I'm being completely honest with you, I never gave it a second thought. Um, like, like I can, I can hang kind of with the best of them. And I don't, I really just don't even factor it into anything. I've never, I mean, luckily, like, I can't, I obviously cannot speak for everyone, but I have luckily perceived no issues being in the is it being a woman in the Marine Corps? I'm like, it's fine.

Like, like I've never had any issues. Yeah. It's any other job. Um, I'm fine. Like honestly, everyone I've worked with, I think would probably like, if anything did happen, I know that they would back me. Um, so I think that's, that's kind of where it comes down to. Like, I, I truly have not had any, any issues and I really don't think twice about it. No, that's good. I always thought it was interesting. Cause a lot of folks, maybe they're really right-leaning, watch too much Fox News. Whenever that happened, they were like, can you believe this? And I was like, this is the best thing that happened ever. And they're like, what do you mean? I was like, well, because we as an organization or in combat

arms are like, well, women can't do this because it's hard. And I had a buddy that was on the artillery thing that was like briefing Panetta. And so basically, you know, DOD is like, well, how is it hard? It's like, well, we lift heavy stuff. And they're like, well, how heavy is this stuff? They're like, well, 155 is 105 pounds. Like, okay, how high do you have to lift it? They're like, well, this high into a seven ton. And they're like, okay, so what if you had to lift 115 pounds three times over your head? Would that be sufficient? And I actually think like women coming into combat arms made the MOS better as a whole, not necessarily because women were in, but because now it's like, hey, these are the standards of things you have to do. Now as a strength coach, I have a problem

with it from like the IST perspective, initial strength test, where you have a kid that's 18, goes and sees his recruiter. He can't do that. And they're like, admin, where I'm like, oh, give me this kid for one month. And he'd be able to do that 10 times over 100% or whatever. But yeah, it's funny how people think it was a bad thing. It's like, actually, it clarified the standards of what the job entails. it clarified the standards of what the job entails. No, a hundred percent. I like you, like to your point, like there's plenty of dudes who also can't lift a one by five and they still,

they're still in it as well. So like, if we're going to say that. Yeah. And every ops chief ever. Yeah. Right. True. I always thought it was interesting that like they were like oh it's going to be such a struggle to like you know integrate them into a platoon and stuff like that like what are you going to do when you go to the field but like it's always a question they're integrated right into the platoon it's fine like they're and it's like we've been doing this and it's, it's fine. You just, they're a Marine, you're a Marine. Let's go do this. And there's, there was exactly like, there was always talk.

Cause like, obviously out in SLT on those long extended, you know, timeframes in the field, you know, you're in a case van with a bunch of dudes, usually staff and O or like, for example, MTX, like we were sleeping out there in the dirt. Uh, or like, for example, MTX, like we were sleeping out there in the dirt. Um, and the question came up, they're like, and it was more, I think out of respect to me of like asking my comfortability level, which I, which I do appreciate. And they're like, like, do you, do you care if you're like, some of the girls are up in the barracks, if you want to go through that, I'm like, dude, we, we slept out with each other in SLT. Like it's nothing is different. Like nothing changes.

And do you feel like you've got like a lot of, we'll say street cred because we're reservists and we get to use like civilian terms. But like, do you feel like there's been opportunities as a female to be like, yeah, I could go to the barracks, but you're a platoon commander or you're a fist team leader. And you're like, no, I'm gonna do the same thing all the Marines do. And that you're like, no, I'm going to do the same thing. All the Marines do.

And that it's like, Oh wow. The ma'am's like, she, she's one of us. I think, I think maybe in a, in a couple instances,

like, like just for example, like obviously like, you know, pissing in the field is always like a fun thing to navigate as a female. Cause it's just, it's just harder. All right. Like you can get the two with the thing to navigate as a female because it's just it's just harder all right like

you can get the tube with the thing to collect do whatever but like is that the donkey i think that's probably the biggest thing where like we were out in like slte with uh with carnage battery and you know you're in the desert there's no freaking like there's barely any bushes like there's nothing you're hiding right okay um so. Um, so like we're in, we're in the middle of missions. I haven't pissed in hours and I'm like, Hey, all right. I'm going outside of that net two feet. If anything happens, call me. Cause I'm literally pissing outside of the net. I was like, all right. And they're like, they're like, yeah, sounds good, man. I'm like, don't worry. I'm like, okay. Yeah. So yeah. Field, field bathrooms are always so for pj's sake when you go to the field sometimes you'll get to a pause where there's a port-a-john where they like put them out but like if you're

deployed or if you're just in 29 palms there's often not and so there's just trees i mean in the 28 palms there's not really trees so just dirt so we usually use like ammo crates like if you gotta drop a deuce yeah you go to the gun line you get the ammo crate that the primers come in it's like an ammo crate but there's no top and no bottom okay you dig a hole you set it over it right marines will get creative a lot of ftc guys will have a metal folding chair that they drill out the middle put a toilet seat on fancy Cadillac. Yeah. Grab the chair and you walk crazy. But yeah, there's no bathroom. So it's like when you need to use the bathroom, you just figure it out. But like, if you're a guy and you just need to take

a leak easy, like, yeah, it's, it's, it's an easy day, but yeah. Have you tried the little like, uh, stand to pee devices or whatever? Not to be gross. I'm just curious. I've never asked. No, it didn't go well. It didn't go well. What I will say actually worked better. I don't know. It worked better. You know that I don't... I actually don't

know the legit name for this, but the donkey dish. The things you fill with. Yeah, it's the donkey dish. I'm not going to lie to you. Contraption many times on the things you feel. Yeah, it's the donkey dick. We just see it on the web. I'm not going to lie to you. Contraption many times on the podcast. So, you know, I will say that worked better.

Okay, good to know. See, yet another name. Another reason that that thing is a good piece of gear. A quick off-the-cuff quiz. So the main donkey dick I think we all think of is the, it's called like cap and flask fuel dispenser, which is, you know, what, what you're talking about now, what other items come to mind in the Marine Corps as a donkey dick? I can think of a few, but I'm just curious. Oh, uh, some of the antennas, um, on the radios for sure. Um, on the radios for sure.

That last one. Yep, UHF. Yeah, UHF, that one. Thanks. I can do that. Oh, God, what else? A lot of times the pizza cutter, which you're not supposed to call a pizza cutter. Oh, yeah, the pizza cutter.

Yeah, which no one knows the technical term for that, by the way. It's always pizza cutter. Yeah, it's always pizza. Whereas like RDP, we're like, don't say Rdp say range deflection yeah don't say that um and then the other one that comes to mind is that thing in the armory that's like silver and has the brush on the end with the button oh yeah comes out of that's the arm i didn't think about that but yeah that's the armory it's a good it's a good term um all right. Anything else we need to grill her about the Marine Corps before we get into like how to get her biceps?

I mean, that's what the people want. That's all I want to hear. I think that's what the people want. That's what the people want. That's what the people want. That's all Jordy. Jordy was like. You do.

You really do. Jordy was like, Nova's coming on? Like Jack Nova? And I was like, yes, like Jack Nova. I'm like, hell yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. So, hell yeah. Thank you so much. So, all right. So I'll tell you my like background with Nova. Mike Minigal,

first lieutenant deployed downrange right now on the 11th or 15th? 15th. Great Mew. Finally, the boxer finally got fixed. Yeah, finally departed. Got to see, got a little baby at home and wife hope they're doing well. But anyway, he was working at the gym, joined the Marine Corps left COVID times comes back. And he tells me like, Hey, there's this chick. Like she's super strong. She got her put the gym. I'm like, Hey, let's come up and let's lift. And I'm just thinking like, you know, when, in my mind, when someone tells me a female is super strong, I'm like, if you can deadlift 315 as a female, like you're super strong. And I think you missed 405 that day,

like got it just above, yeah, just above the knee. But it was close. And like you had just done 385 or something. And I was like, wow, she's like really strong. And then don't let me put words in your mouth, but I'll tell you how it is to me. You were kind of like going down the powerlifting thing for a little while and you competed last year.

And then now you've kind of transitioned to CrossFit. Like just talk us about like fitness is obviously a huge part of your life. It's probably helped you be very successful as a Marine officer because man or female, if you can out PT all your guys, there's value there no matter if you're a nerd or what you are. So just tell us your fitness journey and your powerlifting days. And I can say that because I know you did at least one meet. And then now you seem very into CrossFit. What's up with that? Yeah. So I guess I experimented with CrossFit. I played lacrosse in college and I kind of I kind of dabbled in CrossFit for a little bit there. Nothing serious, kind of just like messing around, trying to pretend to be strong age, which I wasn't very strong at the time. So, like, everything was super frustrating.

So, yeah, I did that for for a little bit and then kind of transitioned to strongman for quite a few years there to be strong prior to be fair yeah strongman whatever yeah yeah sure fire control um yeah sure um so did that for a pretty decent amount of time competed um quite a few times in that went to nationals um got super humbled um because those women are they can move some weight so like you qualified and went to nationals i did yeah okay and what like yeah pause story what did that like what lifts did you do how did you place that's interesting that's legit uh yeah so if i remember correctly there was, so there was a sandbag toss. So you had to do increasing weights and you had to toss it over.

I forget the height of it, but a height of a bar, basically. There was a log clean and press, a yoke carry. I believe there was a farmer's carry and then a deadlift. What are the numbers on those to qualify? So you can qualify through different state competitions. Um, so I, I wasn't even like nationals was not even in my purview. I just like competed at a state comp and then they were like, Oh, you won. Also, you can go to nationals now.

And I was like, uh, I think that one that I did was actually in North Carolina, which ironically, do you know Nancy Johnson? Does she run USPA out here? So, no. So she's like super big in the strong man community,

but was a prior brain. No, I don't. She, she's putting up crazy numbers, crazy numbers. my my only claim to fame is like beating her in that north carolina competition when she was like still in the marine corps and like not as strong as she is now um but yeah so so i qualified there um and then i ended up going

to nationals i think it was the same year nancy john looks jacked. She's huge. She's, she's such an animal. Can we get her on the podcast? Yeah. I mean, I'm sure she loved to come on. Yeah. Cause I mean, yeah. Primary total PT stud, like she was, you know, running 300. Um, yeah, she's, she's, she's the real deal. So you beat her through your first claim to fame i did by happenstance um so yeah i did that for a while um competed nationals i think i came in i don't even know i think maybe like six or seventh in my like weight class um maybe maybe like 20, 16, 20

somewhere in there top of the middle of the pack we're seeing a trend here just a trend good place to be I really like to be consistent so yeah and then did that for a little while until I joined the Marine Corps

kind of got away from like anything specific did a lot of like power building, um, kind of just to get my strength up and then, um, met Mike and kind of started working out more with him. And obviously he's kind of more aligned to like the power lifting realm. So he actually taught me how to squat better, which I'm forever thankful for because my squat was trash. So yeah, he,

um, so yeah, so he, he helped me a bunch with that. And then he kind of like somehow managed to convince me to do a powerlifting meet. Um, and I was like,

yeah, sure. Like whatever. Did you go nine for nine? Or what were your, like, what, what did you do?

No, I think you missed the lifts if i remember i missed a squat and i missed i think it was just a squat that i missed did you like fail it or get lighted for depth or no i failed i failed my last squat what's your what was your squat there do you remember i think it was like 298 that you got i want to say yeah that i got um and then after that i uh bench was two 206 i think that's good i want to say um no i didn't pull 400 i think i pulled like 395. so right in there yeah yeah okay yeah so right in there yeah uh. Yeah. So right in there. Uh, yeah, it's all right. It's all right. Um, we can, we can bump those numbers up. I feel like, um, but yeah, um, but yeah, so I,

I enjoyed that. I, I will say like, I have a pretty like, you know, ADHD mind. So I think CrossFit kind of lends itself more to my stimulus. So over deployment, I kind of was just doing the power build thing. I was building my own programming and just kind of trying to see where I could get with that strength wise over deployment. And then while I was on deployment, I ended up just dropping into a CrossFit gym on base. And I just really like enjoyed it and missed it. And I was putting up like pretty decent numbers like clean and jerk and uh snatch and all that so i was like oh maybe i should do this a little bit more in that um so yeah that's kind of where the path has taken me at this point

um and yeah so i'm kind of just i'm kind of trying to see where that goes um i'd like to be competitive in it but i don't know what's your best clean and jerk? My best right now is 235. That's pretty good. What's your best snatch? Best snatch, the snatch is a little itty, but 175. Okay. That's good. Those are good. So are you thinking about- Yeah, we're working on it. Are you thinking about doing like a CrossFit competition in which those two lifts amongst other things are incorporated or are you thinking like hey i've done the super specific power lifting thing maybe i do a weight lifting competition i've kind of thought about it

the weight lifting side i just really like i get really bored with that, with like the, this like being stagnant and just doing single lift. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I actually, I just went through the qualifying process for the Japan championship, uh, which goes out in November. Um, and I actually, uh, I think I got second, um, for the qualifier. So I'll be competing in that in November in Japan, in Japan. Okay. And what, what, what do those consist of? Like what, what, what exercises? So general CrossFit, they haven't released any of the workouts, but the, the workouts for the qualifiers, um, you know, consisted of anything. Uh, one of them was, um, like a hundred double unders, uh, and then into, uh, 25 wall balls wall balls um 25 lunges 100 double unders wall balls lunges and then 100 double unders okay um so that was just one of them i feel like jeff might have some specific

what crossfit movements you know jeff oh yeah that's the question that's in my head is like okay like boom workout comes out on the whiteboard and what what goes up and you're like hell yeah i can do this all day and then what is like uh shit this is gonna be this is gonna be a rough one um so yeah anything anything with a like a power clean power clean anything overhead like if i can get it to my shoulders, it's going overhead. Yeah, that's like kind of a jam. Honestly, like ring muscle ups have been pretty good for me recently. So really enjoying those.

Anything related to overhead squatting, long running. Yeah, you can count me out of that. I'm going to scale this one to something else. I'm going to scale the power cleans. Yeah. So, and I'm, I should know this. I'm going to really out myself here. Three mile for a female, still 18 minutes?

It is 21 minutes. To max. No, I didn't. Okay, good. I thought it was different different i didn't know what it was so what do you run yep 21 uh so i run anywhere between like depending on if it's a good day anywhere between like a 22 and a 23 30 okay okay so that's what i run but my standard is 18 years a lot higher but you know. But you know, we're old broken field majors. I'm in pain, like in true pain. Yeah, exactly. Broken field.

Any questions for on CrossFit, PJ? On CrossFit? No, I don't have any CrossFit questions. I guess what prompts you to switch from strongman to powerlifting? Is it just, hey, I'm getting tired of this and then want to try something new? Or is it something like you meet somebody and they kind of talk into it and you get hooked or not really i think like strongman was fun i just didn't feel like i i truly like enjoyed it enough to continue with it um like i like i like some of the movements in there for sure, but I'm not, I just wasn't like super overly passionate about it. Um,

same with powerlifting. I never really like looked at powerlifting. I'm like, Oh yeah. Like I want to powerlift. So it seems like all these things kind of led you to CrossFit. Yeah. Is what it. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. Or like back around to CrossFit at least. Cause now it's like, now I'm a little bit stronger. Uh, so it's more fun obviously when you're stronger. Um, cause you can put up some

some pretty cool numbers and stuff like that and like do a lot of like the cool tricks so like you know muscle ups and handstand walks and you know all the shenanigans that come along with it um but yeah i think it's just i think it's just like a stimulation thing for me as well like i like to be entertained when i'm working out and i I think CrossFit just keeps me guessing. And like, it just shows me how bad I am at like everything. Yeah, it's very humble. But you started with CrossFit, correct? A little bit, yeah.

So I dabbled a little bit in it. But then like powerlifting and strongman kind of allowed you to have a pretty good base to kind of. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. How much did that prepared you for crossfit i know it's a lot different doing power lifting or power building workouts in a crossfit workout did you feel how much of that carry over i think a lot of it carried over i think a lot of like the core strength that you get from power lifting from strongman i think that lends itself really

well to crossfit um just because if you have a strong core, like a lot of those big lifts and a lot of stability obviously comes and is driven from that. So I think that I think that working a lot of those heavier movements like heavy yoke, you know, log clean and jerk like and then just general obviously squatting and then, you know, deadlift as well. Like all of those combined work to build that core um obviously if you're doing it right um so i think that lended or lent itself really well to kind of transitioning over so if you were if if one more man so if you had a a new person trying to get into crossfit then you would you probably push them towards hey i would start building a base doing these essential movements first yeah for sure before you do any of the stupid like flailing around you know pull-ups

on the bar and stuff like you gotta have you gotta have the strict base like you can't just like get up there and just like fling around and hope for the best like you gotta you gotta have a good a good set of pull-ups you gotta have a strong base when you're squatting you gotta have a good set of pull-ups. You got to have a strong base when you're squatting. You got to have a good strict overhead press. Those are the big things that I would definitely push before they start doing any of the dumb shit. I knew you were based. I knew you were based.

That's what I was going to ask is, do you keep in your... So you're crossfitting a bunch. I want to talk to you a little bit about your social media stuff here in a second. So you're crossfitting a bunch. I want to talk to you a little bit about like your social media stuff here in a second. But do you keep like a strength training baseline that you overlay CrossFit on top of? Or are you just like, hey, if the WOD says work up to a heavy double, I'll work up to a heavy double. Or are you like, no, I will squat five by five the first day of the week. Or like, how do you, how do you think about knowing how important getting strong was to make you good at CrossFit? Like, do you try to keep that? Or are you just like, Hey, what the whiteboard says I'll do. So I actually, I did align myself, um, with a coach because I don't like, I just, I don't, I didn't know how to work myself appropriately in CrossFit. Um, so I work with a golden line training. Um, and he, I only started working with him about a month and a half ago. Um, so his kind of assessment,

um, he did kind of like an initial, like strength assessment with like where i kind of was standing strength wise um and mostly what we now focus on is building my engine because that's kind of where i where i kind of have a downfall so like he's like yeah you have a strong a strong base for actual strength um that like i've built previously so now it's kind of trying to round out the package with, you know, getting a better engine, developing that, um, and then developing kind of like the more technical moves. So throughout training, like there's definitely like, yeah, we're front squatting. Yes. We're back squatting. Yes. We're doing, you know, strict overhead press, um, or some type of pressing to kind of maintain that strength

capability. Um, but then just because I do have a little bit of a stronger base, it's now kind of trying to round that out. Are you talking like work capacity? Okay. Yeah. Like work capacity and being able to work longer and more efficiently during those, those, those workouts. I want to ask you some nutrition stuff and more efficiently during those, those, those workouts. I want to ask you some nutrition stuff and like body fat stuff. But first, what's your top overhead press? Because I always say I've only seen, and I want to make sure this is right. And I will leave out like weird stuff on the Arnold stage for competition.

But in terms of training people, I've only seen three women press 135 overhead. I don't mean that as a knock against women. I just mean... I mean, no, it's great. It's fantastic. I assume you can press 135? What's your top press?

That's what I was getting at. 180. BJ's just shrinking in his show over there. I gotta go do some overhead press. I'll be right back. Mine's 185. I got you by a hair. No, that's impressive. It doesn't really count if you do it with those rubber Chinese plates, but if you do it at the strength co,

you have an open invitation anytime to go up to the Costa Mesa gym and film it um i'll give you some t-shirts you gotta hit 185 get the 25s on there you know round it out i know right i know wow that's that's incredible yeah if you're listening and you don't lift weights which means you're not listening but um yeah 135 it's like i haven't seen many females do that like Like that is an incredible, and I say bigger girls, not like they're overweight, but even like tall girl, you know, because a lot of it's so relevant to, um, overall body weight. Right. And so it's like, you know, I, it's, it's just a really tough thing for females to get. And we were talking about it earlier on the show

before you came on about just the like a novice linear progression for a beginner and what stalls for women well what stalls for women and men is the press and the bench but with women it like shuts off and it's because you have breast which means that you have a lot of body fat on your upper body whereas guys it's all muscle And so it's just a really tough lift. 180, man, that's incredible. That's awesome. Okay. So I've seen like a shift maybe in the last few weeks. I follow you. If you don't follow her, it's at Nova sky. We'll give you a chance to plug yourself at the end, but like you upgraded your camera. I did. And you're like, I appreciate this because I sell plates for a living, right? So we're always trying to come up with media. Hey, how can we showcase things? But over, I'll give a guess in my head and you can say, but over the last month, your page has drastically changed from like, hey, I'm Nova, I'm a Marine and I lift weights and like, follow me if you're my friend to, I don't know what,

but like the, the media, like it's like, what are you, not that you're after anything, but like, what, what are you doing? Cause it's definitely different.

Like the last month or so. What's the end goal? Um, yeah. Uh, you know, I don't really, I don't really know.

Frank, like I, I think it's awesome. Um, yeah, I don't really, I don't really know. Like, um, yeah, I don't know. I don't really know if I necessarily have a goal with it. Um, I, I do really appreciate like cool media. Um, and I, I do love a good, you know, motivational workout cut. Um, I think they're super cool. Kind of nerd out on them. Um, they're, they, they fill up my for you page. So, um, I think, I guess kind of inspired by that. Um, and then I've been doing a lot of trading, um, with, uh, this girl, Katie Jones, she's a big deal. Yeah. Big deal. Super cool girl. Um,

super strong. Um, but I just, um, by happenstance, uh, ended up joining a gym that she actually works out out of. Um, and we just kind of hit it off. Um, and so she, honestly, she, she kind of just took a couple clips of me the first go around and she was like, you know, like, you know, you should, you should like kind of do more of this. Like, it's cool. Um, you know, people like it. Um, so I think that kind of drove me a little bit and I did like it. It was cool. Um, and it's fun to mess around with. Um, and I think like I spend so much of my time in the gym that I think it's cool to share. Um, and you know, if it, if it inspires someone or if it, you know, inspires Marines, inspires, you know, whoever, um, I think it's cool to put out there and, you know, I don, inspires, you know, whoever, um, I think it's cool to put out

there and, you know, I don't know. It's fun to showcase. Yeah. Can I ask you a nerd question? All right. So as the guy doing the cameras here, what's the camera that you're using? Nerd. Oh, uh, I am using the Canon EOS 50. Oh yeah. Easy. EOS 50. It's a good piece of gear. eos 50 oh yeah easy eos 50 yeah it's a good piece of gear it's good it's really good so that camera that's like a um that's like a good like base model canon okay yeah yeah it's stupid proof yeah that's a great way to put it no sometimes those are the best things these mics right here are what i would call stupid proof and i chose them for a reason like you could chuck these out the two-story window right now and you could pick them up and they still work. So I love them. So is it like a nifty 50 lens? It's a 50 millimeter. No, it's not. That's the body. Um, I would say that it's like maybe a

step below that. Yes. And the lens is fixed. I actually don't know. Is the lens attached, like fixed to it? Or can you change the lenses on that no you can change out the lenses um so i just have like the base lens at the moment i'm probably going to upgrade to one that kind of like auto focuses on exactly like the person that you're filming um it it does but i like the blurring effect usually in the background if there's like people around and stuff i think it kind of picks up an f 2. or lower, that's what you need. Yeah. Do you set it up on a

camera and film it yourself? She puts it on the donkey dick and then it stabilizes it. And then it just goes to the bathroom. It's there. It's easily accessible. It's win-win for all. Multi-purpose, I'm telling you. She cleans her guns at home. Yeah, it's great uh but do you film

everything and edit everything yourself yeah okay i mean for the most part yes um sometimes like katie will will like film some of the more moving pieces if we're there at the same time um and then you know vice versa for her um but yeah usually i'll just tripod it and you know set it up make sure the angle is not terrible and then kind of edit it together. And what gym are you at? So I'm at left coast CrossFit. What city? It's up in, I guess like Laguna Niguel area. So it's like 15 minutes from me. It's honestly one of the dopest gyms I've ever been at dope all right yeah it's crazy come out work out there do they need some usa iron definitely yeah everyone does

you have to yeah you have to hook me up everyone needs that everyone needs that um no that's cool it's cool and i what you said about like inspiring mar I'll be 100% honest. When I started doing YouTube stuff, I did not do it for Marines. I did it to sell more plates. And it's funny now as a battery commander, I had a sergeant section chief come up to me and he's like, Hey, sir, I was home the other day and I've been trying to lift weights. And you popped up on my YouTube feed. And I was like awesome he's like no I bought the book starting strength he's like and I'm running it and I was like hey we're in the field we'll have no time this drill but like August is a home site like I'll take you in but it was kind

of cool that like here's the thing that's like very I mean every I mean every person but every marine needs to be stronger and it's wow, you're starting to reach that. And it's just, let's say a whole nother topic, but it's just funny like Gen Z and like the, the youth of our current Marines, because they're like, sir, I looked up your strength code, YouTube. You got hella followers. Hella followers. I'm like, that's why you think I'm awesome.

That's why I'm equated to being awesome. I didn't know that's what it took. I can't, that's why you think I'm awesome. That's why I'm equated to being awesome. I didn't know that's what it took. I can't wait for your YouTube channel. Can't wait for the YouTube channel. I feel like a lot of women would like that. We'll have to do a workout vlog next time I'm there. Oh, that'd be sick.

Oh yeah. You can overhead press more than me or something like that. I got a good one. So I remember living with Grant. He was, I think you were like in the process of getting certified, uh, for starting to be a coach. And I think it like fell, maybe he was, what was the 29 palms exercise in December? Steel night. Steel night. Steel night.

I felt like right in the middle of steel night. And it was like the worst timing of it. Cause it like you're in the middle of training kind of doing everything you're supposed to do but it's like this two week field op so how much of field ops get in the way and the kind of what do you do whenever i guess for the marine marines out there to kind of keep something going or keep i don't do you take a pause what do you deload i don't know. Do you take a pause? What do you do? I don't know. What do you do? Yeah. I mean, it kind of just depends, um, on kind of like how long, obviously the field op is. Um, if you're on, you know, SLT and it's one of those extended ones and you're not actually out in the field, you're like, you know, um, on camp Wilson or something like they have gyms, there's plenty of opportunity to kind of just maintain. You're not trying to

get crazy and do anything wild, but just make maintenance basically. Um, but yeah, I mean, if it's anything for like a few days or, you know, even like a week, um, I'll kind of just let that be my time. Cause I don't really take D loads. Um, so I'll, I'll let that be my time to kind of just like refit, uh, come out of the field a little like feeling a little bit stronger and just gotta give myself yeah get plenty of sleep you know depending really good probably eat some mrs you know like actually get the caloric count up there um but yeah usually i use that as like as like my my deload everyone kind of freaks out about it and they're like i'm gonna lose my gains i'm like yeah like you'll be fine bro like it'll be good it's the

same as like and obviously a trip to i just got back from a five-day field up which in the reserves is long it's it's not a vacation but it's the same thing if you're like coaching someone it's like hey i'm going to hawaii for five days should I do? And I'm like, enjoy Hawaii. Enjoy your trip. Yeah, like have a great time. Be consistent when you're home and you'll be fine. Like you're not going to lose all your gains. No.

Roll real quick. Favorite MRE. Ooh, I was going to ask that next. There's only one right answer. True. I feel like that's false. I feel like that's false too. I like the, whatever the chicken bowl one is

not that one chicken burrito no it's it's that one's not bad yeah that's the one that one's good what's the worst one i like that one oh god the fettuccine oh you hate that one fettuccine alfredo i hate the maple sausage one because it always rips all over you. That one's good. It's hard to make it work out. Real sensual. Jeez. Yeah.

So speaking of healthy nutrition, so people will leave this. We'll link your Instagram in the show notes. They'll go follow you. You're like shredded. What's your body fat percentage thank you oh I've no idea okay but like every muscle's visible like how much of your new like are you a psycho about nutrition or are you one of those people that's like now I eat a California burrito every day for lunch at Ramones and everything's fine Ram No, um, no, I'm not, I'm not like that. I, I, I luckily have

grown up with a really good base. Like my mom was a super foodie. Um, so she, you know, she always, you know, bought local and had a lot of vegetables and all that shenanigans. So I come from that baseline. Um, and I really just kind of continued that, you know, into adulthood and what have you. Um, I, I do track my macros. Um, obviously the biggest one that I'm trying to hit every single day and fighting for my life is protein. Um, because, you know, around body weight protein. So I'm trying to intake at least 165 grams, um, which is honest, a job in itself. Um, but, um, yeah, I really just track everything that I eat. Um, and I, I do eat pretty clean anyway. So, I mean, like if I'm having, you know,

Chick-fil-A one day of the week, like, yeah, I track it and just make sure that like everything kind of, so you track every day, no matter what you don't like track for a while. And then you're like, Hey, now I know what a cup of ranch is like you every day you're inputting into do you use like my fitness pal or what do you use yeah i use my fitness pal yeah i mean so i got not to be fooled here like i got i haven't tracked so i've i've started tracking again religiously probably now for like a month and a half so same time frame that i've been i've been um working with my coach um but prior to that like on deployment i didn't i didn't track anything i was just eating eating for pleasure like i'm a big foodie i love food um i like i as long as it's balanced out with what i'm doing and like the

output capacity like i'm generally pretty fine uh and i know what foods kind of make me feel like shit and perform badly. So, um, excuse me, just kind of being in tune with like how I feel versus like, you know, exactly what I need. Um, I don't, I don't get to,

I'm not like, I don't get to think output versus input though. Like that's like a, like, cause that's the thing in my head. It's hard to teach people. I'm like, well,

yeah, I'm just sitting and I'm not training, like I definitely don't need as much. And yeah. Okay. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. That's it. That's kind of exactly how I frame it in my mind. I'm like, I mean, and that's also dependent, right? Because like what I, what I've noticed, I'm sure you kind of noticed as well. Like if you take rest days, generally i find it harder to eat on rest days because i'm not moving as much but i also will still like i won't eat probably as much as i do and then i kind of feel it the next day where i'm like oh okay like i definitely feel like an energy depletion because i didn't get exactly what i needed in um the day before. Right. Okay. Quick little question here. So, yeah, this is my cat, Calhoun.

He doesn't worry about energy output or input. He's on a permable. He's not tracking his macros. He's not tracking his macros. So, you have Marine. Yeah, you have Marine. He's carnivore, though. Smart. You'll appreciate that.

Like, literally, we just feed him ground turkey and chicken um he loves that um so you have marine comes to you they're corporal they're 22 body fat they're you know 20 pounds overweight you know you're you're getting past your platoon commander days but like you have this like you know marine not not like a total fat ass but like overweight over body fat like what do you tell them like what do you what like what's your advice because i feel like the marine corps answer is hey put them on bcp and the battalion duty will pt you every day at lunch you know, and then they run around or whatever. But like when you have Marines, cause we've all had these Marines that are like slightly out of standards, but, but like hugely great performers, like what you're like, Hey, this

is what you need to do. Um, so kind of how I've approached that in the past, like you said, it really kind of depends on like, and I don't want to necessarily always link it to performance, but I feel like it like your willingness to help a certain Marine, right, generally is based on like, you know, how well they're performing, right? So it kind of depends on that. Like if they if they're already they're already showing you a step right by coming to you and being like, hey, like, what do I do? Like, I've tried this. It doesn't work. I tried that. Whatever it is. Right. So, like, I always appreciate that. And like, I take that into account. And in the past, I've I've honestly I've gone with them and I'm like, hey, walk me through a workout that you do. Like, let's go work out. I'm not going to say anything. Let's do what you do. See what that is. You know, so I'm, I'm, I'm looking at how they're actually working out

because like, obviously if they're coming in, they're saying like, I'm doing this and I'm doing this and I'm, I'm not getting any results. I'm like, okay. I'm like, let me see what you're actually doing. Like walk me through your workout. Let's go run a workout together. And then I'll kind of baseline. Okay. So this is really what they're doing. Like ultimately they're not working that hard. Let's kind of elevate that and start pushing them into, you know, a little bit of uncomfortable levels. I think in the Marine Corps, we always kind of associate fitness with running. Um, and as much as I don't like running, like it's a necessary evil for everything that we do. Um, you know, you need to be, you need to be

able to run under load. You need to be able to rock. You need to be able to do well on a PFT, CFT. So like, that is all a factor, but I don't think it should be the sole thing of like, Hey, we need to go out on like a, you know, four mile run. Like, let's like get you into the weight room. Let's figure out where you can kind of, you know, lose some of that weight while also still maintaining like, yeah, there'll be runs, but like, let's work through what that looks like in the weight room. Cause maybe, maybe you just don't know what you're doing in there and you're not doing it effectively. So if we make some tweaks, add some stuff, subtract some of the dumb shit, then let's see going forward building, you know, a program kind of specific

to you, what we can accomplish from that. And then obviously like the nutrition part as well, like, Hey, what are you eating? What are you drinking on the weekends? You know, are you like, are you going out and getting smashed Friday through Sunday? Cause like, obviously that does play a giant role into like a lot of these guys lives that they don't necessarily think about. Yeah. So that's kind of how I approach it. That's interesting. I have a follow on. Yeah, go ahead. So kind of tacking onto that and you're, you're clearly in shape. It seems like you've kind of explored all of the different avenues of fitness or at least a lot of them. If someone was coming to you, maybe one of those Marines or something, they said,

Hey, I really want to get stronger. I just want to focus on like strength or someone says hey i really want to build some size and get bigger what's your general advice for them or what has worked well for you and maybe they're the same thing maybe maybe they're different but what's your take on that kind of advice uh yeah i mean it depends on like obviously like the the body composition that they're coming with as well um so just for example like one of my sergeants on deployment he like came to me and he's he's he's a stud sergeant like super squared away uh but he just he wanted to gain some weight and he wanted to gain some mass and size um and strength obviously um yeah he's he's on the the thinner side um not super skinny but he's on the thinner side. Um, not super skinny, but he's on the

thinner side. Definitely has a high metabolism. Um, and probably just is not getting the caloric intake that he needs to actually put on size. Um, so I kind of worked with him a little bit over deployment and like, he already kind of knew what he should be hitting. So like, you know, obviously the, the three big lifts, you know, uh, bench squat deadlift, he kind of already had that squared away. Um, but then adding on like the accessories that go along with that to create that actual base strength. Um, and then getting him on a mass gainer, because even though he's eating a decent amount, he still needed that extra add on for caloric intake. And then always a question of like, Hey, are you taking creatine? Um, that's always my, my biggest add on for anyone who's

like, I want to gain size. I want to gain mass. I want to gain strength is like, Hey, are you taking free? Are there reps and sets that you would tell him to do in terms of numbers? Like, Hey, you got your big lifts, your big three, you're kind of sticking to the, you know, whatever the lower reps I'd say probably maybe. And then the accessories are higher or what seems to work best. Yeah. Yeah. So what I kind of set him up on was, um, I think initially I set him up on, uh, like a five by five. So I worked him through a five by five, um, kind of set to see where he was and then i adjusted the rep scheme depending on the the week um with like a deload week so like you know a four week kind of program with a deload week in there uh fluctuating numbers but not going higher um than i believe

seven um and that was kind of later on when he gained a little bit more strength. Um, and then the, yeah, fairly low to kind of build his comfortability at higher weight. Um, and then the accessories were all within like the eight to 12 range. Did he gain weight? And had him work through that. He did. What's he now? He did gain weight. Um, so he so he originally when we got out there he was almost the exact same body weight as me he was sitting at like 168 um and then he went up to uh

180 solid yeah isn't it funny how like on a deployment your training's actually better because there's like so many few like there's so much less distractions oh much better so much better that's what i said before shop yeah yeah deployment training my favorite um so i'm holding the cat you have a special animal that you clearly love a lot i do your dog i do archie um my long-haired wiener dog um he is the light and bane of my existence um nah he's he's honestly he's a he's a good little dude um he kind of grew up uh with red dog which is uh mike minigo's dog um who absolutely bullied him and he really needed that he's kind of like a big cat yeah kind of kind of. Yeah. All right.

So there's like two things to do with every guest. I don't do them because I'm not good at it, but Jeff's going to coach you through how to say the name of the podcast. And then Trey's going to coach you through our sponsor read. And then PJ will ask you anything that you want people to follow you or, you know, wherever the media takes you. So we'll kick it off with Jeff and we'll see where he takes it.

Okay. Have you, have you listened to the podcast before? No stress if you haven't. Okay. So you kind of know. Oh, we found her. Oh, we kick off. Yeah.

So anyone listen? Wow. Okay. That's a 2% right there. So each episode we kind of start by, by doing our around the horn of the okay. So channel your think like that disgruntled or like first Sergeant, or if you had that battery gunny, that's like just always lighten up any Marine that just walks by the office

and just like, maybe they got the fucked up haircut or something like that. And he wants to snap him into the office and get him so give us your best kind of like angry first sergeant disgruntled crusty company or battery gunny give us an okay channeling that

vibe and action oh god that's a lot of pressure. Wait, like, okay, meaning... Okay, Smith, get in here. Who cut your hair? You guys let a barracks cut you got there? Get in here, Smith.

Okay. Okay. I guess we were allowed. No, barracks are not allowed. I guess we didn't blouse on a boost this morning. Okay. Okay, Marine. I know that we don't come in here with ripped camis.

Okay, we understand that. That's pretty good. Hell yeah. All right, Trey. All right, Nova. So we do this with all of our guests and the bar is set very low. We have a lot of people who want to be sponsors,

but we chose one. And it's BW Tax, LLC. BW Tax. And so what we have everybody do is we will throw some facts at you about BW. And you have to just do it. Write this down. You can write it down. I would love that.

I might need to. No one's ever done that. Yeah. Take a look. School circle. Take out your writing the rain. I got my note taking gear. There you go. need to who's ever done that yeah taking me fantastic school circle take out here right in the rain i got my note taking gear and so we'll throw some we'll throw some facts out about uh bw and then uh just do a little impromptu 10 second however long you want to go for honestly

add read okay and then okay the the best make it on the infamous, what do we call it? Soundboard. Soundboard. Soundboard. I'll get you a- So let's give some facts. I'll give a couple. BW Tax is based in South Carolina, but regardless of where you live, he can do your taxes anywhere.

Jordy? When you call him, they will answer. You'll talk to a real person, not just some bot. Biggie? They're the tax professionals. They know the ins, the outs, all the red tape and the obstacles that the government has put up to take your hard-earned money.

And they're there to cut through that red tape and get you the best return possible. Trey? His name is BW. He's a great guy, but he's even better at taxes. Do you need a little demo or do you feel like you got it?

Let's give her a demo. Do we have a demo? Let's give him a little demo. Who should we do? I'm going to go Matios. Is that Herbert? I thought that was Jim.

Oh, not Herbert. Oh, no, no. Jim Stewart. Not Herbert. The thing that I've always liked about BWTaxLLC.com is that they are a smaller company

and smaller companies care more. In general, there's not a hierarchy of people that are telling you, you know, make more money, make more money from our clients. They, they want you to make money.

That's why, 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, it's their mission. It's their job to get as much money back from the government and put it into the the pockets of hard-working Americans so there's a little there's a little sample for you get the idea yeah artistic freedom to take this wherever you want to yeah there's no rules there's no rules okay three three to one action we have the music and later don't worry oh yeah okay we'll make it sound cool all right based in South Carolina but wherever you live whether whether homeless or in a bougie house vw tax llc uh will help you maintain and receive the money that you earn i like it i love it that was good i love this tag on homeless to bougie yeah i love it

that's their next phrase do homeless people have to do taxes yeah they take the box dude you know what i was just thinking uh pete that was a perfect little uh or example to give because i i feel like nova would have fit right in at crossfit havoc in fort sill yeah so that was jim denofa who used to run a crossfit gym that was in lawton and like you know so many artillery officers you know went through there and i think you would have fit right in and literally vibed with that guy because former power lifter turned weight lifter turned strong man that then got into crossfit so like i definitely saw a lot of parallels between your two like fitness journeys oh that's cool yeah yeah my uh yeah oh that's super cool my spc's name was o'connell the new 111 battalion commander

and uh oh yeah my gunner instructor was pauka and my fire and sport instructor was pegram and so um when i left uh tbs o'connell was like you will go to crossfit havoc you will train with jim de nova and you will see pegram there i was like what about this parka guy and they were like well you might like if there's like a unit event where everyone's building morale he's like but pegram will always be there so jeff and i were big timers there uh it was marine corps flag we signed it and then big jim moved down to florida so he moved crossfit havoc from Lawton to Florida. But yeah,

that was Jim and a great guy. He was an army. What was his MOS? I don't know. I actually don't know his MOS. Yeah. We just call him Jim, Jim that owns the gym,

but, but you crushed it. That's a good 10 second clip. Oh yeah. We'll put, we'll find some good music to put on that. And yeah, I think,

I think you did great. All right, PJ, plug your media channels. Yeah your opportunity give us the plug where do we follow you where do we follow all the working out and the small dogs yes so i really only have one account it's at nova sky um on instagram you will see me flailing around hopelessly doing CrossFit. So that's super entertaining for everyone. And then you will absolutely see lots of photos and videos of my tiny wiener dog, Archie, which, you know, just makes everyone. And lots of good food. I kind of fall for the food. Yeah. Lots of good food. Lots of good food.

Lots of good food. That's wonderful. Well, Nova, thanks. Thanks for being a guest of episode 031 of the OK Podcast. Yeah, I was wrong. I was wrong. You're the second female voice on the pod. It's okay. I'll take it.

You only lost to a 51-time world champion, Jen Thompson. I will take that. Yeah, if you don't follow her. Top of the second half. Yeah. Consistency. Yeah. You're welcome here anytime.

Thanks for joining. We can't kick you out, so you just kind of have to leave. Okay, I'll leave. We'll see you next time. Oh, good dude. Good dude. You know, I'd give her a good dudette, but I feel like she'd take offense. So, good dude. Good dude. You know, I'd give her a good dudeette, but I feel like she'd take offense.

So good dude. Good dude is agnostic of gender or whatever. It's just being a good dude. Good dude. We're super progressive that way. Can you imagine that being your platoon commander and you're like an overweight 19-year-old that can't squat 135.

I would just be so ashamed. I watched her. I watched her at the ball. 111 ball, maybe two years ago. And I was like, man, these Marines know that like any day she can just kick their butts. Like it was. Yeah, she does a good job. I'm excited for her future as a Marine Corps officer.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good dude. Good dude. All right. What's left on the slide deck. Have a,

um, I don't, did we make a slide? Was there a pin for this week? Yeah, there was. Trey. One talk about grip strength.

How did I not see this? We don't talk about that. Go ahead, Trey. Yeah, let's talk about grip strength. I was at the gym today, right? That's good. That's a good sign. Was at the gym today.

Did deadlifts. What'd you put? Let's turn this into amateur lifting update. Amateur lifting update. Got questions about taxes. Callw get a question about lifting call great call great um so yeah amateur lifting question slash update did let me see what I started off because I didn't want to make the same mistake as the squats I'm just going super heavy and then being sore for the following week. How was that soreness?

It was verified. I was very sore. I went a little bit lighter. I started off warming up, worked my way up to I think I did 325. For five in the deadlift. Exactly, yeah.

Wait, baby. I worked it up there and then I realized as soon as I put it on, I don't have my I usually use straps. I don't have straps. I'm like, man, this is going to be see how my grip strength does.

So I did one set of five on that. And then the second one, like I was moving it, but like it was just my grip strength was kind of given out just because. Were you using chalk? No, I didn't see any chalk in it. I was at a gym here, so I didn't see any chalk there. So I was doing the hook grip and then just trying to try to move that so I got two sets two sets of five in but I'm like I don't think I'll be able to

hold on to the next one so I lowered it down and just did three more sets of five I think at 255 and just just just to do something so wasn't moving wasn't moving super heavy, but just better than nothing, right? And so, I don't know. I feel like, as far as grip strength goes, you're a fan of, you know, who's it? Peter Attia? Big fan. Big fan. Good dude. Good dude.

We'll get him on the podcast. Good dude. He's next week. Yeah, Peter Attia's coming on next week. He's next week. But I remember him, like, I watched an interview with him where he talked about like grip strength and like the correlation to like longevity, right? And I don't know how he came up with this data. So I'm like, it might be important because I know it helps just, it's a good, I think, barometer of what he said, just overall strength is how good your grip strength is.

just overall strength is how good your grip strength is. Do you have, are there guys, I guess, a long way to go about this who train in the deadlift, not using straps just to kind of improve their grip strength going on with the other, like all the other strengths? Like do you find that important or not really? No, I think grip, I think grip strength is important. What I think is that, and I'm going to sound like I'm regurgitating Peter Attia because I am, but like his point in longevity for grip strength is that if you have a high grip strength, you live longer, but you don't live longer because you just improved your grip.

just improved your grip you live longer because you've done things that have improved your grip so there are guys that really work their grip and most of those guys are going after like freakish things like grab a rubber 45 pound plate flip it and catch it you know or all that kind of stuff i i just think if you get your deadlift up with your hands you're. And this is why I'm not, I'm pro straps, but I'm not only straps, right? Like if you're a 200 pound man and you get to 225 in your deadlift, you need to hook grip. Like you need to hook grip your deadlift for a while and then your thumbs hurt. And then as you get stronger, do you, can you use some straps? Yes. If you're at the point where you're pulling what I would call volume deadlifts, multiple sets, hey, pull your first one with your hand and then pull your second two sets with straps. But I just think exactly what Dr. Atiyah said.

Hey, if you have a good grip strength, once you're showing that your lifespan goes longer, grip strength, which is showing that your lifespan goes longer. It's not because you sat at your desk and squeeze things. It's because you lift heavy things, you work out and like all these, like if you, if you're dead lifting 400 pounds repeatedly, which results in a good grip strength, your body weight's probably not terrible. You're probably thinking about your sleep. You're probably paying attention to what you eat. And I know there's outliers like power lifters that are way overweight, but even them, at least they're like working their heart and their muscles and like getting their strength up. So, I mean, I don't think that if you came to me at 50 years old and said, I want to live a long time, what should I do?

I wouldn't say increase your grip strength. What I would say is, hey, you need to get stronger. And as a result of that, your grip strength is going to go up. And I think it's an interesting correlation of, hey, if your grip strength is really strong, it's probably because you've done a lot of things to make your entire body stronger, which is probably regulated your body fat, improved your heart health and all that kind of stuff. So in your case, I would say get some chalk,

right? Like that's probably all you needed. Yeah. Or you pulled, it sounded like you pulled five sets of deadlifts, right? You pulled three 25 for two sets of five, then 255 for three sets of five. I would make the argument,

pull that first set of 325 by five with your hands and then use straps, right? Or Tanner from Asinomics had a great thing where he was like, hey, my top set of five. He's like, it's so heavy. It's, you know, 600 pounds. I'll have my straps on for the first four. And then I'll release the straps and hook grip and pull my fifth. So I know that I have that grip strength. But again, that's like kind of not that he's extreme strength in terms of extreme, but that's

kind of like out there. I just think like for most of my lifters that are intermediates on Wednesdays, they pull three sets of five deadlifts. The first set of five, I'm like, pull it with your hands. Second, two sets of five, I'm like, pull it with straps. There's no point in your low back getting in a compromised position because your grip's giving out. We already know that you're strong. You just pulled 365 for five with your hands. Like we've already worked the grip because the thumbs can only take so much of a beating. Yeah. I wouldn't like, i wouldn't put the barometer for fitness as grip strength i would say if you're strong the grip strength is there yeah i just that's a correlation that i wouldn't even think to make between it's probably easy to test it's

probably easy to test in a lab there's probably just practical considerations like you're not going to have them deadlift or squat in the lab as a case study it's like hey grab this thing that's so much easier just to do just giving handshakes so you would say that if someone wanted to improve their grip strength you wouldn't even give them like grip work you'd just be like get your deadlift up well if someone came to me and said i want to improve your grip strength i would say what's your deadlift yeah and if they were 200 pounds they told me their depth was 225 i'd say get your deadlift if it was 600 that's different if they were if it was 600 i'd say well what are you trying to grip are you trying to lift a car so like yeah but like i think if you just naturally progress your deadlift up and you're pressing and

you're benching all those things help but like me chin up deadlift chin ups like your your grip strength's gonna get it's gonna get better yeah do you guys want to play a quick game i brought props i forgot about this okay i wish you guys were here so try to pj tried to introduce this during the the early show and i was like wait a minute we'll save it train has a question about grip yeah bring the props bring the props so grant's claim is that dead lifting heavy gets your grip strength better so i have grippers i'm gonna have to do it here and we're gonna test wow to see how much that is true bag of grippers i wish you guys were here so i'll hold it up for the camera is this a wedding gift for someone no this was just me just being silly okay it was uh just having we're going to start and work up.

This is going to be the 50-pound gripper. We'll see how far. What's your best deadlift? 575? 575. Okay. Okay. Crushed the 50 pounds.

Not even a problem. I don't like where this is going. All right. So next we got the 100-pound. Hundo. Big jumps. I do love a good hundo. Oh, nothing.

No problem. Keep them coming. Keep them coming. Keep them coming. Where are these made? Grant, do not touch those. Do not touch these. The jumps get better. This is 125.

My strength code blades are made in the USA. Oh, no problem. Should we do the left hand on the next one? You can do whatever you want. Whatever is best. 150. 150. Let's stay with the left hand on the next one? You can do whatever you want. Whatever's best. 150. Let's stay with the right hand. Oh, hang on.

There we go. A little tough there. What was the RP on that? That was the RP. For the record, this was my best, so I got some work to do. Well, what if our grip strength is the same? I hope not. What do we got here?

175. This is where I tapped out. You to sweat come on here i think you got it does it touch yeah all right the big daddy over here 200 big yeah oh is this the last one there's more but this is all i have because the fresh one Try with my left hand first. The fresh one. Did you get it? Nope.

Didn't get it with my left hand. Let me try the right hand. Quite close, huh? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. I feel like with chalk, I would get it. With chalk, you got it. So, 185.

185. Okay. Nova's Press. Nova's Press. I can squeeze Nova's Press. Okay, perfect. That was fun. I just thought it was cool.

Good game. Interesting. I saw those grippers my friend perfect. That was fun. I just thought it was cool. Good game. Interesting. I saw those grippers my friend had up and I was trying them out and I was like, I wonder what I can... Just carry them around. Yeah, it's my EDC. I didn't get that. I didn't get that. EDC.

Everyday carry. Everyday carry. What's your EDC? What do you carry every day yeah what kind of flashlight you got there you got what kind of blade you run in there bro yeah i have an o-light right now every day there you go yeah anyway i just thought it was fun because it's good i was kind of surprised i didn't get the 200 yeah me too maybe you're just sweaty i just need chalk and it's hot disappointed yeah i know trey's hot this guy's ac off so that's proof

that deadlifts do carry over yeah at least enough to beat you at least i got the 150 i'm pretty sure we'll see if you got 200 you get the 175 right now you're all you're all hopped up on uh beach plum lacroix oh good flavor a silver silver one. He lost them. 175. Okay, I got to try 175. Yeah, your hands are sweaty now, right? Your hands are sweaty. Come here, cat.

Get after it. You got it. Let's go, PJ. So close. I think you got it. You got to want it. I think I was like a millimeter away. I'm dizzy.

All right, chalk. I'll just say chalk. Any save rounds or alibis? California weather is very nice. Verified that this last weekend. This is your new home. That's the new home. Yeah.

So big jump to command Nacho Battery 514. How are you feeling? Pretty excited. It's pretty cool. It's a good time. Yeah. Good group. Good group.

Save rounds, PJ? I don't think so. I was in Miami this last week. Ooh, Miami. Have you guys been there before? I've just listened to the Will Smith song. Yeah. Yeah. I had to give it a listen. California here we come. Oh, no. Nope. Yeah. No, that's it. No, it was in Star Wars. I remember that one. That was good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No,

it's cool. Miami's cool. We were basically in the same place that we were when Grant visited. Got to see the water. Went to the beach one morning i was good um everyone's more in shape in miami than south carolina that's that's pretty noticeable everyone's more in shape in a lot of places in south it's a low bar low bar but um it was cool man it was good got to hang out but um i'll just say i'm friendly not even close man and then when they're not friendly dude they tell you that tell you something rude in spanish so you don't even know how you're being insulted i could i could throw a couple spanish insults but i know my brothers-in-law listen to this so they wouldn't like it yeah yeah see see oh oh i got a good one for you jeff jeff this will be perfect you don't speak spanish

right yeah no okay spell socks as fast as you can as fast as you can just go ks now you're speaking spanish that's what's the ks never gets old it never gets old you can't speak Spanish. S-O-C-K-S. Which basically means like, what is that? Oh, wow. I didn't know that. S-O-C-K-S. That's a fun trick. See, it's a good one. That's a fun trick.

Yeah, just say it in the battery. One of my favorite ones was if you say, this is how you have an Australian accent. Raise her blades. If you say rise this is how you have an australian accent so raise her blades if you say rise up up lights rise up rise up lights fast that's how you say razor blades in australian rise up lights rise up lights oh that's pretty good uh then when i uh say it's like i think it's jamaican accent say uh beer can yeah beer can but it's like oh that's bacon beer beer can in a british accent it's beer oh yeah i can't remember what it is be a can be a can be a can there you go can ah it's bacon.

That's a good little reel right there. Foreign languages. How do you say okay in Spanish? Así. Eso sí que es. Eso sí que es. Razorblades. Así.

That's my favorite. Trey, take us down for a landing. What episode are we on? 0-3-1. 0-3-1. I'd like to thank everybody for tuning in. Listen to the... Okay. I'd like to thank

our guest, Nova. Great talk. Great conversation. Can't come back soon enough. Glad you made the time for us. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank our guest, Nova. Great talk. Great conversation. Good dude. Can't come back soon enough. Glad you made the time for us. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank our sponsors, BW. Keeping the lights on, as always.

Great man. Better taxes. Go to www.vokpodcast.com. Find all of our links there. For our social media, like like subscribe on the youtube leave a comment so we can interact with you uh go down to the show notes below you'll see the uh yeah we got the whatchamacallit what am i thinking like channel there that's the word i'm looking for the slack channel love to see you there um other than, we all have our individual social media accounts

and we all know what they are. Yeah, that everyone knows. If you're really looking for a personal, individualized, highly active Instagram account by one of the hosts, check out at BiggieJP. You want to talk about an active account,

I can't even keep up with the guy. The stories are just like tick tick tick tick he's live right now I had to get a second phone just for following Biggie JP there was too many notifications I couldn't handle it I try to do one every minute on the minute

it's pretty awesome no respect that that's all I got coach do we miss anything? no that's good thanks for tuning in we'll see you next time that. Hey, Mom. That's all I got, Coach. Did we miss anything? No, that's good. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time.