- What's up everyone,
welcome to another day of my fitness journey
where I'm getting back to my strongest self.
In my last vlog,
I showed you guys that I lost my full planche,
but I've been training.
In just a couple day, here's where we're at so far.
In the last couple vlogs,
I kept seeing the same question in the comment section;
Chris, how did you get injured?
So, I thought I'd make a dedicated video today,
to answer that exact question.
I'm gonna throw up some footage of my workout,
show you some progress I've been making.
But while you're watching that,
I'm gonna be telling you guys five mistakes
that got me injured,
and what you could do to avoid them
and prevent it from happening from you.
So, starting off with the first mistake,
I feel like we've all done it,
or we all may still do it,
and that's trying an advanced move
or pretty much any lift or exercise
without a proper warmup set.
And for someone that likes to train at the gym,
that could be staring off your bench press
straight with working sets
without any warmup sets.
And if you're someone that trains calisthenics,
that could be something
like going straight into full planche holds
or straight into full planche pushups,
without any type of warmup sets
or working any light easier progressions
before just going into such a heavy move like that.
And I'm definitely guilty of that.
A lot of times,
I just have to go straight into moves when I'm filming,
or when I meet up with fans
and they want me to just hit a planche
right there on the spot.
Or even when I just go to the beach and I'm hanging out
or I just wanna get a workout out there,
a lot of times, I just go straight into the hard stuff.
And think about doing full planche pushups right off the bat
without any type of warmup or warmup sets,
that's like going through your heaviest bench max
and just starting off with that right away.
Obviously, that's gonna lead to injury
and that's not gonna be great for you.
The best way to avoid this
is to actually do your warmup sets,
don't just go straight into your working sets,
always have some type of prerequisites.
Or before starting your working sets,
start off with really light warmup weight
or easier progressions that you can do
to warmup your body, warmup your ligaments,
your muscles, and your tendons,
before going into such a crazy demanding exercise.
One of the main problems for me
was that I could always do it,
so I would always do it.
But that doesn't mean that it's good for you
and that doesn't mean that you should,
because over time,
look what happened to me,
now my arms can't even lock out anymore.
Over the years,
it does make a big difference
and it does take a toll and have an effect.
Day by day, you may not notice it,
but once you notice it and it's too late,
you wish you would've started
doing something about it way before.
The second thing that got me injured
was neglecting flexibility, mobility,
and stretching in general.
This one kinda goes with number one,
but with number one,
I was more speaking on your warmup sets
and having a proper warmup before a specific lift.
But generally, you should also working on your mobility,
your flexibility,
and your stretching as well,
especially for specific exercises like full planche
that's really demanding on your ligaments and tendons.
And for an example with gym training,
if you want to be more explosive
and lift heavier with your legs,
you're gonna need to stretch your hamstrings,
and have good mobility.
Imagine going for good quality heavy squats
but you don't even have the mobility
to perform the exercise.
That's gonna not allow you
to lift as much as you really could
and it could potentially injure you.
And when it come to full planche,
that's another thing that I could've done
to prevent my injuries in my arms.
There's a lot of scar tissue in my arms as well.
I should've been stretching out a lot more,
the ligaments and tendons in my arms,
each individual finger,
as well as my wrist,
very thoroughly before and even after
every single one of my workouts or training sessions.
And now that I've been doing it,
I actually felt a big difference.
And after a thorough stretch,
once I go to attempt my full planche,
I feel a lot less pressure in my arms,
making me less prone to injury
but also allowing me to train harder.
And that moves us onto number three,
and that's gonna be overtraining
or just doing way too many activities all at once.
So a lot of you that have been subscribed
for the past couple years,
know that I picked up Muay Thai, boxing,
a lot more cardio for my Muay Thai and boxing,
dirt bike riding,
all on the daily.
And even some rock climbing here and there,
and these are all demanding sports.
And at any sport,
you're always pushing your body's limits
and that's gonna make you prone to injury as well.
And that sometimes is something
that you really can't control for the most part,
the best thing to prevent it
is basically to just be doing the first two things I said.
Not trying any serious exercises without properly warming up
or any warmup sets,
and definitely working on your flexibility, your stretching,
and your mobility.
Now, don't get me wrong,
this doesn't mean that you can't train on an elite level
or you can't take on a bunch of elite
or high skilled sports.
It just means that if you're gonna take your training
to the next level
and make it that much more serious,
you need to make sure that your recovery is just as serious.
Think about a professional athlete, like Lebron James.
His body and his performance is everything,
that's how he makes his money.
That's how he became the legend that he is.
So, if his body and performance brings in
hundreds of millions, if not billions into the NBA,
why would he not spend a large amount of money and attention
on his health and his recovery,
to make sure that he's always able to perform
at the highest level,
and that's exactly what we all need to do as well.
If you're gonna be taking your training to the next level,
you're gonna be training every single day really hard,
like a professional athlete,
you need to start investing into your recovery
just like a professional athlete as well.
Your body's not gonna be able to go on and train forever
doing the same old shit,
while you neglect it.
I'm a perfect example of that.
But sometimes, you gotta pay to play,
and I'm paying for it.
Just a lot of training, everyday compounding,
and putting a toll on my body.
When everyone is sleeping, we out here training.
For example,
my main injury is my arms and they won't lock out.
And one of the main ways I first acquired this injury
way back in the day,
was by hyper extending my arm really bad
on a resistance band.
I did it to both of my arms.
I was working on half festal pulls behind my back,
locking out my arms straight
and pulling them in,
and on one of my last reps,
the band just snapped back
and it hyper extended both of my arms.
So, that's when I first started
really not being able to lock out my arms,
it would slowly start to get a little better
but I've been boxing and even Muay Thai
the past couple years,
and if you box, you know that sometimes this happens,
you can punch for the mitt,
and if the mitt doesn't meet your hand,
you're gonna hyper extend your arms.
This has happened to be a handful of times
on both of my arms
and even if you're the best mitt holder,
sometimes it's just gonna happen.
And that brings us to number four,
not working on the basics and not working on your foundation
or even building a solid foundation.
Before I picked up all these other sports and activities,
I would train calisthenics for hours,
which would allow me to train
the fundamentals and the basics,
along with the advanced movements,
like the full planche pushups and so forth.
But since delegating my time with boxing, Muay Thai,
more cardio, dirt biking,
and everything else I previously mentioned,
I've shortened my calisthenics training
to just focusing on the main advanced movements
without touching the basics.
For example, just going for full planche just straight away,
like I said before, wasn't that great.
And without doing any of the foundational exercises
with the full planche,
like the full planche lean,
the tuck planche holds,
the straight up strength training exercises
with the dumbbells like the flies, holds, and presses,
the ring taps that we did in the last vlog,
pretty much all the exercises that we did in the last vlog,
I wasn't doing any of those exercises.
I would just go straight
for the 90 degree handstand pushup,
and just rep those out,
go straight for the full planche,
full planche pushups, rep those out,
one arm pullups and so forth.
And like I mentioned before,
I was able to do them,
but my body would start hurting more and more,
the more I would go on
and neglect all of these other things.
So it was basically like I was trying to build
this crazy strong building
with holes all throughout the bottom
where the foundation is supposed to be really solid.
Of course, this is just gonna come tumbling down,
and that's exactly what happened to me.
But that's the whole point of this vlog series,
is to show you guys what the comeback is gonna look like
and that you can absolutely do it too for yourself.
All you gotta do is watch,
make sure you're subscribed,
and follow along,
and download the Heria Pro App if you haven't already.
Take my workout programs that I'm doing
to get back to my strongest self, and even surpass that,
with you anywhere you go.
It's like having me as a personal trainer
right in your pocket.
And now as you can see from my previous vlogs,
I am working on these progressions
and the prerequisites for all these advanced movements.
I'm not making the same mistake
in skipping all these fundamental excises
and just training straight planche,
mainly because my body wouldn't even let me do that anymore.
But regardless, I'm making the right steps,
and we're making progress,
and that's the whole point of the series
is to show you guys exactly what you have to do
and what it takes to make progress.
We're making progress, baby.
'Cause at the end of the day, like I said in vlog one,
even 1% progress in 100 days is gonna be 100% progress.
And it's not about the destination,
it's all about the journey.
Eventually, you're gonna get there,
so whether it takes three months or three years,
that time is gonna pass anyway,
and you're either gonna have what you want
or what you wish you would've started
three months or three years ago.
The best part is that it's never too late
and you can always start right now.
You don't have to think or dream about one day,
you just have to start thinking about day one,
and that's today.
This is exactly what started me on my journey,
and I want us all to grow stronger
every single day together.
And now for the fifth and final mistake,
that's gonna be something that maybe
all of us are still doing today,
and that's not enough sleep, plain and simple.
Your body produces hormones
crucial for muscle growth and repair
while you're at sleep.
This hormone helps rebuild damaged muscle tissue
and stimulates new production of muscle fibers,
so you could be doing everything right,
but if you're not getting enough sleep,
you're not allowing your muscles
to optimally recover or grow
if your training and nutrition is not on point.
And running multiple businesses, being a father,
and just being involved
in a lot of different sports, activities and hobbies,
this is gonna leave you with very little time to sleep.
But I'm working on it.
Not really, it's actually past midnight right now.
I don't know if I'll ever be able to just lay in bed,
I'm too excited about life right now.
Maybe this is a mistake
I'll still be making for a little bit longer,
but I guess I'll work on my schedule
and try to get more sleep.
But at the end of the day,
if you're taking your recovery, your mobility, flexibility,
your warmups, your training, your nutrition, seriously,
that's gonna go a really long way.
You're gonna be able to stay in the game
for a lot longer than the average athlete.
And that's exactly what I'm gonna be trying to do
along on this journey,
to get to my strongest self and even surpass that.
Remember,
it's not the person that trains the hardest everyday
that becomes the best,
you can train really hard every single day
and eventually lead to injury just like me,
it's the person that can train the most consistent
without becoming injured, while stay progressing.
That's the person that's gonna be the best
and that's exactly how you want your training journey to go,
training smarter, not necessarily harder,
but consistently making progress
while being healthy,
and that's all that counts.
So thank you guys so much for watching.
If you enjoyed the video or learned something at all,
or if any of these tips helped you,
really appreciate it if you smashed that like button.
Anything you guys want covered in the next video,
or want to talk about,
I'll be down in the comment section below.
Let's have a conversation.
And if you haven't already,
make sure you subscribe with the bell notification on,
so you don't miss out on this journey,
and how you can take your training to the next level.
Next week, Thursday at 11AM US EST,
I'll be dropping a progress video
to show you guys how much stronger I've gotten,
and what I did to get there.
You're not gonna wanna miss it.
I'm gonna be showing you guys some secret tips
and some secret exercises
that you probably never seen before.
So make sure you're back here next Thursday, 11AM, US EST.
I'll see you then.
Mad love, peace out, baby.