- I was born on December 21st, 1991
in Miami, Florida.
(inspirational music)
Growing up in Miami, it was always hot, so as a kid,
you spend most of your time out in the sun,
hanging out with friends, listening to music,
just being active.
I got into fitness at an early age
working out in the park by my house.
And shortly after, I found myself
traveling all over the world,
competing, teaching, meeting some amazing people
and making some of my greatest memories.
(laughing)
I didn't know what this was all leading up to,
but it felt right.
After developing an arsenal of knowledge and experience
of perfecting my craft, I came back home
to open the first calisthenics gym in Miami,
Calisthenics Academy.
And soon after, there were Calisthenics Academies
all over the world.
(inspirational music)
(laptop beeping) I would wake up
to thousands of messages a day
from people who were changing their lives
through my teaching.
Alright, I just got Eduardo's message.
He's calling me right now, (phone ringing)
let's see if we can get him on a video.
Your body transformation is incredible.
- Yeah, that's what's great for me.
And the first video that I saw
was a video that you did.
I love it and I start to watch
all of the videos that you already posted.
I train every single day with my wife and my son.
- [Chris] Amazing, bro, amazing.
- Everybody is transforming their bodies.
And I have great mettle
through doing workouts with you.
- I needed to find a way
to put everything I knew into something tangible
that someone could obtain and instantly access
all my knowledge to start changing their lives.
We opened THENX back in 2000...
Man, time flies.
Last year, 2016.
I think it was at the end of 2015?
It was just an online website with all my programs on it.
We hadn't started the YouTube channel yet.
So two years later, now we got the gym.
Hello and welcome to one of the very first
YouTube videos of THENX on here.
As you can see, we're putting the gym together.
Now with the app, half a million downloads,
almost a million subscribers on YouTube,
it's crazy to see what can just happen
in just a couple years, actually.
This is like a true blessing though.
I mean look at this, this is what we're doing for work.
Every week we see our stats go up, our views go up,
our subscribers go up, our memberships
on the website go up.
You know it's, we're growing crazy
like every single week, you know?
THENX is a lifestyle.
(triumphant music)
It's a gym.
It's a YouTube channel.
It's a family.
But most important, it's an online platform
where I broke down everything it took
for me to get the body and skills that I have acquired
through my journey into easy step-by-step programs
and daily workouts that ensure your development
through an application you can access
from anywhere in the world with our app on your phone.
Things that people will train for years
in professional facilities,
they were learning in a matter of weeks with my app.
Sometimes days.
Half a million downloads later, here we are today.
My day starts on the computer.
I normally wake up, answer a couple YouTube questions,
answer some emails, I really have a support team
to be answering the main emailing questions
and then after that I come straight to the gym
and I train.
Train, train, train and then after that,
I shoot either for the YouTube video or for the app
and then after that, it's normally meetings,
developing the app, coming out with new programs,
market research on new products for you guys.
There's a lot of time that goes into selecting the products,
creating the products, manufacturing the products.
You know, we go through many, many different samples
to find the best one.
So we're constantly working on that.
(panting)
(sighs)
We've come a long way.
We came from literally, from nothing.
The way that this company really started
was just an idea
and I put all my thoughts and all my knowledge
into something online.
And then from there, everything grew from there.
When I first started doing this,
I started out of passion.
I didn't have an idea to create THENX or create these gyms
or even to become a trainer, you know?
The reason why I became a trainer
was because I was so passionate about this sport
and about movement, that I just wanted to share
this sport or share this concept with more people,
because it was becoming like a community thing.
More people were showing up the the beach
where I was working out at, for example, you know?
At Miami Beach, when I first started working out there,
there was like nobody there.
You know now, come 2017, you have to get in a line
to wait for the pull up bar.
I really just wanna bring this to people around the world
and I want people to start engaging,
start using their bodies.
And that's what I wanna hope to bring.
So if it's with apps or if it's with a YouTube channel
by bringing videos every day
or with my programs where I can actually teach you
how to do that handstand or how to get in the best shape
of your life and then in turn you can teach other people,
the movement just spreads and that's really my goal,
so the more everything just grows, more things
will happen along the way.
(electronic music)
There's a lot to keep me going every single day.
I just have so much to be grateful for.
You know, at one point in my life, couple years ago,
I had literally lost everything, you know?
I mean, that's a story for another time,
but I mean, I thought I had lost,
literally the rest of my life.
I lost my son.
Basically, at that point in my life,
I was like 19 years old,
that's like when like everything started for me.
I was literally living on the brink of not knowing
what would happen to me for the rest of my life.
And I lived like that for the next two years.
So every single day, I live
like this could be my last day.
What would you do on your last day?
How would you spend it?
When I was living like that for the last two years...
Oh my god, calisthenics for me was like, boom,
I excelled remarkably fast, even in business,
something I've never done before,
I excelled remarkably fast.
Video editing, never owned a camera in my life.
You know, I edit all my own videos.
My life completely changed.
I started taking advantage of every second I had.
So I always think, as an optimist,
that there's so much opportunity around,
especially in the most difficult situations
is where the opportunity really lies.
(grunts) Like this weight vest.
I could do way more reps
and I could probably do it better too,
if I just took this thing off.
But I'm gonna struggle through it.
I'm gonna put myself through the struggle
because the opportunity in this
is that when I take this off,
I will smoke anyone that has never put this on before
or that doesn't train like this.
So trust me, you wanna make things more difficult
on yourself.
Don't ask for a lighter burden,
but ask for a stronger back.
(inspirational music)
Time seems to be flying nowadays.
Every day is something new,
but it's always filled with laughter, fun,
friends, passion and love.
When you love what you do,
you don't really work a day in your life.
Even hard work is fun.
I wanna use my story to show the world
that nothing is impossible.
You just gotta believe in yourself.
Don't worry about how it's gonna happen
or how everything could go wrong.
Just think about how everything could go right.
I've done a lot, but it's still not over.
With this channel, get a glimpse into my life
and follow me on this journey
as I continue to share with you
the behind-the-scenes and secrets
to my training, nutrition and day-to-day life.
For example, if the bigger one becomes available,
we could just exchange the one that we're going in
and just pay the difference and the upgrade to the...
To the 3,000 square footage one.
And then at that time, if we want to,
we can just close our gym.