“We all need something to struggle against and to struggle for. The aim in life is not to avoid struggles, but to have the right ones; not to avoid worry, but care about the right things; not to live without fear, but to confront worthy fears with force and passion.” – Eric Greitens Have you...Read More

“Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and need a comrade to pull you up? So what?” -Marcus Aurelius In the spring of 2015, the spring break of my junior year at JMU, I was sitting on the coach...Read More

Twas the night before Christmas, except that it wasn’t, because it was actually December 1st and 8am in the morning. This time marked the beginning of BSP NOVA’s first Santa Around The World (SATW) competition and it was a blast. We started this competition with the hope to create a fun event for our members...Read More

The world lost an amazing woman in Diane Melick on Saturday April 28th, 2018.  She fought long and hard to beat all the odds with pancreatic cancer, and seriously kicked it’s butt for somewhere in the ballpark of 16 months longer than she was given to live.  But even Diane, one of the strongest humans...Read More

Today’s blog is an actual email we received from a BSP NOVA member, Katie Jacobson, last week.  You may recognize Katie as the BSP NOVA homepage cover model—you know, the girl smiling ear to ear at the top of her deadlift—yup, that’s her.  And with her permission we’ve decided to turn that email into a...Read More

“Most New Year’s resolutions are actually January resolutions. We’re so eager to have an amazing month that we exhaust ourselves in the first three weeks of the year and never make it to February.” – Jon Acuff in “Finish” So how do we make real, lasting change? Don’t be so hard on yourself. Make that...Read More

Today’s blog post comes from a wonderful human being—BSP NOVA member, Supriya Baily.  Supriya has been training with us since April of 2015, and she continually attains things that SHE never thought possible (like a 255# barbell deadlift, which might actually be up to 265# now), and continues to set aspirational goals (she’ll get into...Read More

“Where in the grand heck do I start?”   That’s a good question—we, as people in a bunch of situations, ask ourselves that question. It’s one that people new to the gym ask themselves all the time.   And it’s a good question.   For those that have never exercised in a gym setting before,...Read More

This past week Jeremy Brown, a member of BSP NOVA, posted a question to Facebook looking for opinions as to what defined “in shape,” spurring a stimulating social media conversation. Almost everyone has a picture in their mind of what “in shape” looks like (to them), often depicted by athletes like Simone Biles or Michael...Read More

People that exercise typically want their workouts to be challenging in some way, but challenge runs way deeper than that. Challenge is a way for us to examine ourselves, where we currently stand, and close the gap toward where we’d like to be. They’re also a hell of a lot of fun. Beyond seeking out...Read More