MRI Diagnosis: Torn Meniscus, ACL, LCL, MCL, & partially torn PCL

Basically… my knee was FUCKED.

Forced to get surgery and be out for a while.

I was super angered because I’d given everything to achieve the milk-toast physique I had and was fighting hard to keep it. At the time it felt like it was over for me.

Turned out it was the best thing that could’ve possibly happened to me.

Because I finally realized why I do what I do.

See, when you’re in the habit of doing something you start taking it for granted & lose the genuine energy towards that thing because “it's just a part of my routine”.

But this injury ignited a relentless force within me. One that had always been there, but had been stuffed down & extinguished.

It was also the first time I realized that I reap what I sow in this life & that if I want to become undeniable, the details matter.

For example, I never trained my legs before that moment… EVER.

I got injured because I hadn’t trained my lower body to do shit. I’d been pulling the wool over my own eyes. Ignoring a critical aspect of my training because I didn’t want to do it. I was soft–physically & mentally.

Sitting in the hospital bed incapacitated, it became clear that achieving the vision in my head was going to require a more methodical and surgical approach.

That was when I really started to dive into the details that I was ignoring due to wanting to be “jacked and aesthetic bro”.

But even after that… it was far from smooth sailing.

I finally got to a point where I thought i was within striking distance of my goal of being in supreme shape.

My older brother, my younger cousin, and I went to our first jiu-jitsu class and after we got done we set a time to go at 6am the following morning

I texted them in the morning and neither one of them woke up for the 6 am class

But I decided “fuck it” and went to the class anyway.

After rolling in jiu-jitsu in my 2nd class ever…I was getting high on my own supply because I tapped someone

This over confidence led to me overextending my abilities.

Ended up snapping my finger at the tail end of class.

I continued to roll till my finger blew up like a balloon and was clearly out of place, then I went to the hospital for the official verdict.

Just as I thought; a complete finger break.

Once again… within striking distance of the physique I dreamed of having. And once again, another surgery halted me in my tracks.

I realized there was another element of my training I’d neglected. Last time it was legs. This time it was mobility. I never worked on it, ever. It was just “grrr” to the sets and lifting like an injury-prone meathead.

At this point, I gave up.

I’d trained so hard and restricted myself so heavily, only to have my dream ripped away from me, twice. I couldn’t take the stress anymore, so I said “fuck it”. I am going to eat however the fuck I want and no more training.

I went off the rails. Despite over half a decade of hard work towards this one goal, I began to completely sabotage my efforts.

Purposely hit the elevator down button on my life and willed myself to rock bottom.

I got into the worst shape of my life and genuinely believed at that time I would stay that way for the long haul.

Even after my finger completely healed I continued binging on junk food and added to the downward spiral.

“This is who I am now”, I thought.

It wasn’t until a trip with my family in Turkey that I snapped out of this haze. We took a boat tour with some of the most beautiful views my eyes ever laid on.

The guide pulled the boat over and asked if we wanted to jump in. Everyone - including me - said yes.

At first, I couldn’t wait, but when I went to take my shirt off I felt the all too familiar sting of shame & embarrassment. I jumped in as soon as I took my shirt off and kept my body underwater.

It rocked me. I’d been deeply miserable about every part of my life for a long time, and this moment acted as a mirror, showing me the truth I’d been hiding from.

I had no job, was numb, scared shitless, and a fragile human being.

From the once talented kid to an adult with nothing to show for it & all of it came to the surface.

Training was the ONE thing that I did for myself throughout my life. Everything else up until then was to appease everyone around me.

And when I abandoned training… it was symbolic of quitting on myself.

Understand I wasn’t miserable because “I was fat”.

It was because I was hiding behind the fact that I let myself go and completely gave up on myself on a personal level.

My mind betrayed me (as it did often) but I didn’t have training anymore.

To give you context, I would NEVER show anyone these emotions or that I was embarrassed by it but deep down I was at rock bottom.

The lesson of “you make your bed you sleep in it” seeped into my skin.

When a man hits rock bottom, he has two choices:

Go down the route of becoming the lukewarm “stable” version of himself with ample predictability in all facets of his life.

OR

Be the guy that LEANS the fuck into the ugly, the dark, and the miserable.

Use those volatile and powerful emotions and aim them in the direction that turns you into a truly relentless and resilient individual who will stop at nothing till he gets what he wants.

Understand up until that point, I lived life as a loser.

I lived life in the middle & led a very normal life path

All of this leading to an extremely lukewarm version of myself

That life is what got me into this mess…that life is what fostered deep disdain for myself.

I got back from the trip and decided I WILL get into the best shape of my life… the type of shape where random people ask if I play a “professional sport”.

I was over 215 lbs at this point and in the worst position of my life.

But this time around I had a fresh brain with EVERYTHING that I’ve learned about fitness and health and now I could be surgical about it.

So it began.

Started with 20 minute workouts, and would bump up the time and intensity little by little.

To 25 minute workouts, then 30 minutes, 35….40… more sets…more intensity…etc.

Went from 4 junk meals a day to 3 junk meals and replacing 1 junk meal with a healthy 1. Then 2 Junk Meals & 2 Healthy meals…then 1 junk meal & 3 healthy meals…etc.

At this point of the story I have done all this work just to be back to where I started before I was indulging in self-sabotaging behavior.

As you can tell… I had a real habit of doing that for some reason.

Back to where it all began… almost like seeing your childhood bully for the first time since grade school.

And this is where I knew I would have to go to a place mentally that I have never been before.

We are all forced to confront our demons in one way or another.

“You can run but you can’t hide” is one of the truest statements ever told.

And at this point of my life, I was so used to being terrified of my demons and the ugly parts of myself.

The box that I hadn’t had the courage to open up until that point.

And I realized that every decision I’d made up until that point of my life had been from weakness & fear.

At that point there was one choice on the board… open the damn box and lean the fuck in.

Instead of allowing my previous demons to abuse me …I put those mother fuckers to work FOR ME.

Want to know something? That decision changed the trajectory of my life.

I would not give up my demons for every last fucking dollar on the planet.

The energy you feel from me, the vitality, the aura, the resilience, the relentless nature etc.

Comes from the darkest of places.

It all came out.

And I realized the time is now and I will get this done or I will die for it.

There is something about having a goal that you can’t explain why you want it but you just know you have to have it.

This meant more to me than just being “jacked”, it was my reputation with myself on the line that I was fighting for.

And if you know you are capable of doing something and you ignore it …i promise you it will rise to the surface and typically that’s at night before you go to sleep where your brain is so loud you just want it to shut the fuck up.

I went to a place mentally I’ve never been to before and I did not skip a beat.

It was absolutely surgical and all the right answers felt like they were presenting themselves.

I was lifting with pure unfiltered ferociousness but with a real brain behind it.

Every time I would go to “take it easy” I would use those demons to take me to a place mentally where “no” was simply not a factor.

I was now cranking up my workouts from 4-5 days a week to 6-7 days per week.

Not because I even thought it was “optimal” or “best” but I genuinely had so much energy at this time because I had something to conquer; myself & my past.

Everytime I lifted I could smell the finish line getting closer and closer.

My mind was callused in all the best ways and the goal meant more to me than my well-being.

I didn’t care how banged up I was…I didn’t care how little sleep I got or if I didn’t feel like going to the gym.

Every training session felt like I was pouring out my soul and was shedding weight off my shoulders.

Stacking victories over my former self.

I was wearing it on my skin and truly felt like I was already that guy.

But not one part of me bought into my own hype because I had learned that lesson before as the once-talented kid.

Quite literally there was nothing that could take me off my game.

Everyone knows...as someone who trains hard you will never be satisfied but when I looked in the mirror just 6 months from being in the worst position of my life.

I realized that I did it… I had never been in this type of shape in my life

I genuinely looked forward to waking up in the morning.

It was the first time in quite some time I looked at the mirror and thought to myself “This is everything you’ve seen yourself as”.

Truthfully looking back it had little to do with aesthetics and more so to do with the fact that I could look inside my own eyes and not feel shame.

Strong, ripped, confident, relentless, and with energy oozing out my skin that I have never felt before in my life.

During this time I noticed everyone was looking at me differently & starting to ask questions.

A man who walks through life knowing exactly what he wants and getting it...is alluring to everyone.

And it’s because it is rare and its not something you see often.

You will walk into rooms and people will gravitate towards you.

As crazy as this is going to sound…most of my life all I ever did was lose.

But I always knew I was a winner in my heart…my blood was too hot to not be.

I give too much of a fuck to simply not have everything I’ve ever wanted.

With 1 hour at the gym for 4-7 days a week.

And eating the foods I genuinely LOVED throughout the whole way.

I did it without counting a single calorie, I did it despite all the mainstream fitness narratives.

Everyone at the gym would ask me how I got into such great shape & why I do certain exercises.

Which brought about the realization…

Everything I have learned has been on the back of pain that forced me to readjust my approach.

All the injuries and blows I took prior…forced me to get so deep into the details that I came out with some of the most impactful needle-moving actions.

My biggest advantage as a lifter, was that I never bought into the idea of using someone else's information to figure out my own problem.

I didn’t buy a single training program.

I didn’t search on youtube “how to get abs in 2 weeks”.

I didn’t download myfitnesspal or use food scales.

None of that shit.

I figured it out myself.

So that's how I came up with this super unique way of doing things and guess what?

It fucking works.

I’m not some genetic freak who's always been jacked.

Matter of fact, quite the opposite.

At my peak prior I was in “alright shape” like a lot of you reading this.

I’m not the guy who worked out for 3 months and wants to sell a program.

I was doing work in the dark for the past 10+ years to make sure that the things that I communicate and talk about are proven to be true.

You see after working out for a long time you realize plateaus are a part of the game.

BUT…(and this is extremely important)

Most of you believe when that happens you have hit your “natural genetic ceiling”.

This is unbelievably wrong and is a result of your limited belief in yourself.

You have no clue how far you can go as a natural.

You plateau for years because you don’t know what you are doing and that’s okay because I didn’t for half a decade.

Working so hard to find myself in the “weight lifter pudge” shape with zero vitality.

The answer is in the details of the fundamentals.

And just because they are “details” doesn’t mean they are complex and confusing.

Matter of fact they are simple.

Because simplicity is excellence.

And my philosophy behind everything is to simplify to amplify but that requires years of hard & diligent work.

You have to go through the weeds of confusion and complexity to come out with the simplest of answers.

I went through that because i didn’t realize there was another option.

Right now, you have another option.

Instead of going through the years of anguish and frustration like i did, why not take the experience I bled for and SHORTCUT an ENTIRE DECADE’S worth of information?

This is why I am so passionate about what I do.

Because training was always something I did for myself, never was asked to do it, it was something I felt compelled to do and come back to.

It was the only thing in my life I would do for myself because it was my standard.

And it is the foundation of what I am building my life on.

I would have never posted on social media if I didn’t achieve this.

My life would not be what it is today if it weren’t for the fact I got into this shape.

It has little to do with the 6-pack itself…I earned my self-respect.

And ever since I’ve done that my life completely flipped from “nothing to live for” to “everything to live for”.