- Back in 2013, I opened the world's first calisthenics gym.
It started a movement and every day
we'd have people come into the gym
flying hours from another country
to learn the art of body weight training
and freestyle calisthenics.
And soon after
there were calisthenics gyms all around the world.
It started off with my first gym Calisthenics Evolution.
After gaining some experience,
I built an even better facility
with a more fine-tuned gym setup on the beach
called Calisthenics Academy
where we created some of the best athletes
and hosted Miami's biggest calisthenic competitions
and really put Miami on the map for street workout.
I outgrew that spot
and moved into a bigger facility a lot of you may know
called Thenx Studios
which was the birth of my main YouTube channel Thenx.
After years of being a gym owner
and just getting into YouTube,
I took a step back
from having the responsibility of the gym
to work full-time on creating content.
Now I've been grinding on YouTube ever since
but I've always kind of missed having a spot
dedicated for training and developing
top calisthenic athletes.
That's where Mateo comes in.
Mateo's one of my best friends
that first taught me how to box
and he's opened the best gym in Miami
right down the street from my office.
Mateo has every top athlete training and boxer
from UFC Champ Israel Adesanya
to boxing legends like the Evander Holyfield
and Floyd Mayweather.
And now we'll be hosting some new calisthenic champs.
I've been boxing there every night,
It's like my second home now.
So it's only right that if I bring the bars back to Miami,
it would be at the Boxr headquarters,
the House of Champions.
So I'm excited to announce Mateo and I partnered up
and locked in a designated calisthenics area
where we'll be building
the best calisthenics bar setup in the US.
All right man, so this is the spot?
- Where are we starting?
- We're gonna start right here.
This is the most important part.
We're gonna strategically place everything
so that it's perfect for freestyle calisthenics
as well as like people coming here and training,
leveling up your skill.
I've personally designed it down to every detail
from the width, high, and material of every bar
for specific purpose on training and developing
the most advanced level of of street workout.
The bar setup will be multi-functional
as individual stations
or the whole set can be used for freestyle calisthenics.
Dude, I'm gonna be training here like every day.
So we're gonna have two dip bar setups.
One's gonna be thinner than the other one.
The thinner one emphasizes more on your triceps.
The wider one is more on your chest.
- Wow.
- But also we're making sure
that it's the perfect length to be able to come to the side
and be able to maltese right in the middle.
We'll have bars with the perfect width and grip
for human flags, planche, maltese.
Different technical techniques I teach
you need specific setups for,
even a bouncy bar to send you flying higher,
and a whole lot more I'll break down in a future video.
And best of all we're gonna level up
the calisthenics community of Miami.
Host workshops, have street workout competitions.
But for now let's bring this vision to life
and make history.
- I actually want to do a transformation doing this, bro.
- I'll do it.
- [Camera Person] This is the accountability right here.
- The only thing is...
- [Camera Person] Chris, Chris, where'd you-
- You gotta tweak some of the stuff
that I feel like I'm weak in.
- Mateo and I just decided
we're gonna start a brand new series.
We're gonna get Mateo training calisthenics.
We're gonna see how far he can go down calisthenics journey.
- I'm up for the challenge.
- That's it.
Let's hold him accountable, guys.
- I'm up for the.
- We have to see him at least once a week,
once a month on the channel.
- I'm ready, bro.
- All right man.
Nice of you to show up today.
- Good to see you, my man.
- You ready for your transformation?
- Bruh, I'm excited.
- We're gonna be turning Mateo into a calisthenics king
and today is day one of training, bro.
For the first month the main goals are gonna be
to master the muscle up, the handstand,
and let's see if we can get a one arm pull up in there.
And the last time we linked up
you were able to do 15 consecutive pull-ups.
That's really good so we're gonna start off from there.
- I'm ready.
- So today is gonna be a pull day.
Everyone else watching, if you can also do 15 pull-ups
this is gonna be a great place for you to start.
And you're gonna see what you have to do
to start taking your chain to the next level
become a calisthenics athlete yourself.
But before we get started I just wanna try a quick technique
that's gonna use a lot of your energy.
- Okay.
- So we'll, we'll do this right off the bat.
I want you to get used to explosive pull ups.
So first, lemme show you what that looks like.
You just want to yank the bar
and try to pull up as high as you can.
- Just like a punch, that explosiveness.
- Yeah, exactly, explosive.
You want to have not really any momentum.
If you can have a little bit at the beginning, it's fine.
But the goal is to have no momentum and just boom,
just pull as high as you can.
Excellent.
Give it a couple more.
Just do one and you just wanna be
as explosive and powerful as you can.
So another thing I like to do with technique
when you're trying something pretty difficult
is to just do one as perfect as possible
every minute on the minute.
Same explosiveness that you have in the ring,
explode on the bar.
- Bet I'm gonna get more explosive from doing this, right?
- Oh yeah, bro.
Because think about it.
You're here and you're just going boom like that.
It's the sudden explosiveness.
So I think this is gonna translate in the ring.
You guys let me know what you think.
We gotta test it in the next bar.
- We have to.
- All right, Mateo.
I'm gonna show you one last little technique
to improve your explosive pull ups.
This is gonna ensure that you're using no momentum
and it's just pure dead hang.
Great pull.
One of the main techniques that I use
to get a strict muscle up,
pull up super high to my waistline.
So we're gonna start off with weighted pull ups.
As much weight as you can and then just drop set it
all the way down to the easiest progression.
So for everyone watching,
with calisthenics you want to use pyramids and drop sets
with a progressive overload
like you do with weights in the gym weight training.
And every week,
you'd either increase the reps, the progressions,
or decrease the reps of the pyramid and drop set.
Now with body weight training,
instead of doing the same exercise
but with a lighter or heavier weight,
we use a progression or regression of an exercise,
both for our pyramid and drop set.
Allowing us to work past the point of fatigue
as we'd otherwise not be able
to continue lifting the heavier weight
or doing the harder progression
which will allow us to reach hypertrophy
and build more muscle and strength.
So I would try to do this one close grip.
- Close grip?
- Yeah.
Another game changer that's gonna have you progress
and build strength a lot faster
is by switching up the grips and hand placements.
You gotta be struggling during your workouts.
If you're not stressing, you're not struggling,
you're not growing.
- I like that grip
- Right?
- Yeah.
- If you guys need a weight belt
to take your training to the next level,
you can go ahead and pick one up thenx.com/shop.
Yep.
(Chris grunting)
Man, I can't wait to tear these bars up.
Next vlog we're gonna freestyle all of this.
Bro, your pump is insane, bro.
That's crazy dude.
You got the calisthenics back and everything right?
- His workouts work.
We just literally got started.
- Yeah.
- Imagine in the next month.
- All right, we got pretty much the main workout done.
We're gonna move on now into technique.
- [Mateo] Gotcha.
- We're gonna be working on muscle ups.
One of the main things you can do for muscle ups
is weighted pull ups but we did a bunch of that already.
Now we're gonna move on into negative muscle ups
and straight bar dips.
Because once you get to the top of a muscle up,
you need to be able to press.
We're gonna start from the top like this
and we're gonna go all the way down to this position, right?
Once you can't go any lower,
you're gonna hold, you're gonna lean back,
and the pushing is gonna turn into a pulling.
So from this position, elbows in, lean back,
hold it tight to your chest.
See, all the way down.
Lower to the lowest part of your dip.
Keep the elbows in and just lean back.
Legs up.
Yeah, bro.
Perfect dude, what the (beep).
There you go, elbow in, good.
Forward with the feet straight, exactly.
Yo, the progress you're making is so crazy.
- I hate it, but.
(upbeat music)
- How do you feel?
- Yo, I feel amazing, I feel
(Mateo grunting)
- You feel a difference in weights than calisthenics?
- Yes
- Or do you feel it's similar?
- Big difference.
The difference I feel in this
is that I have to really pushed beyond limits
because I'm using my body weight, right?
Whatever we learn right here
I'm gonna apply back into the ring
and prove that his workouts actually really, really work.
- All right, let's finish this up.
We got three more sets and then we're gonna move on.
All right we got those negative muscle ups out the way.
Now the last piece of the muscle up
is getting good at the straight bar dip.
So if you can come up, if you can work the negative,
all you gotta do is just get good at that press.
Muscle ups are gonna be cake.
All the way down, all the way up.
If you lean forward, emphasize more on the on the chest.
All the way down.
Boom, yeah, hell yeah.
Feet tight, tight, tight.
There you go.
Squeeze them feet together, point your toes.
That's gonna help squeeze your core.
And for you guys watching, definitely wanna work on
the different hand placements of your straight bar dip.
Try doing them wide.
Try doing them more shoulder width.
Also try doing them closer together.
Try supinated grip, try archers,
there's so many different styles.
We're pretty much done with the routine, bro.
There's just one last thing I wanna prepare you for.
We're gonna close out today's workout with.
- [Mateo] What part?
- We're gonna just work a little bit on the handstand,
just touch it up.
That's gonna prepare us for our next lesson.
First thing I'll show you is the pike hold.
So this is the thing that you would start
from the very, very beginning.
Your grandma can start here to learn a handstand.
You start in a position, walk up,
go on the tips of your toes and just hold a pike.
Straight line from your hips to your toes.
Straight line from your hips to your hands.
- I'm not that flexible.
- Feet, tight, tight, tight together
and walk back with your hands.
And go up, pike up, with your hips.
Right there is fine.
Perfect, bro.
All right, so you did the pike perfectly.
There's a bunch of other progressions
that would work your way up to the other progressions
but we'll save that for your shoulder day.
Since you have only limited of energy now
we're just gonna kinda speed run through this thing.
This is gonna get you used to being inverted.
It's also gonna strengthen your shoulders
to hold your entire body weight upside down.
So what you're gonna do is just walk up the wall.
And at the very beginning
just walk like to where you're comfortable.
If you're only comfortable here, just stay here.
If you can keep going, keep going.
And you want to try to be very, very close to the wall.
Like that.
- Got you.
- Okay, when you're ready to come down, you go like this.
You just take small steps, you see.
If you take big steps, you might fall.
So step with your hand and your feet at the same time.
- All right.
- Start, yeah, in a push up position
- About there?
- Yep, then bring one foot up.
Yeah, and start small steps.
There you go.
Hands and feet at the same time.
Hell yeah, you're hella close.
Lock out your arms.
There you go, super straight.
Push and breathe.
In through your nose, out through your mouth.
Don't breathe too hard, but breathe.
There you go.
And when you're ready to come down, just start walking down.
There you go.
Micro steps with your feet on the wall.
Walk with your feet too.
There you go.
Excellent, dude.
So now over time, you wanna be able to do that for reps.
By the time you can do that like three times in a row
you're gonna be super ready for the handstand.
Look at that hand, bro.
Hell yeah, we got a lot of big things coming.
Like we said before
we're gonna do some competitions out here.
Host events, workshops, get you guys right.
It's not just about us
but also taking your skills to the next level.
So make sure to pass by a Boxr.
Check out the yard, check out the bars we built out here.
We're gonna showcase the bars of the next vlog as well.
Gonna freestyle these and show you exactly what we did here.
The dimensions, the sizes, why we did it like that.
All you guys have to do is just smash that like button
and make sure you're subscribed.
Mateo, I think we're good for the day.
- Yeah
- We got you started on your handstands and stuff like that.
So we're gonna save everything else for the next vlog.
So that's a wrap, guys.
If you wanna check out more of Mateo
definitely subscribe to his YouTube channel.
He does podcasts with some legends.
I've done one as well, we're gonna drop it really soon.
He just did one with a Evander Holyfield, right?
- [Mateo] That's correct.
- And so many more other legends.
So make sure to head on over
to the Boxr Gym YouTube channel
and subscribe there as well if you haven't already.
Thank you so much for joining me on this workout.
I'm really excited for your journey, brother.
- It's an honor, bro.
We got some exciting things coming up together, so.
- Oh yeah.
- The world better watch out.
- Yes sir.
We'll see you guys next time.
Mad love, peace out.