CARLO "SCARXLUS" FIGUS | Superhuman Statics | Interview | The Athlete Insider Podcast #39

View the interview here:

Or listen to the interview here:

The text of the interview (translated automatically):

Carlo never answers any questions in english. I am really happy to make this possible. I hope you can take a lot of value from it! I really really like his attitude, The message that he has. Enjoy this interview! Yo, Carlos. Welcome to the Athlete insider podcast by Gornation. My name is Phil and today's guest is the Italian statics master. Somebody who eats maltese planches for breakfast. And somebody that is really shocking the community with his crazy skills. I am really looking forward to the interview, Carlo Figus, also known as Carolus. Hi guys. yes, so you were one of the most requested athletes in the surveys and people are really looking forward to this interview. And I am really happy that you took time and that you made this interview possible. so yeah, Who is Carlo and how do you present yourself? Hi guys! My name is Figus Carlo, I live in Sardinia from Iglesias. Known as the name comes from the union of my name in latin. That's Carolus, and the name of a famous rapper, I love it and that is Scarlxrd. The x is equal to o. it is not Scarxlus but Scarolus. Okay, yeah this is what I was asking you before the interview, Because I didn't know how to pronounce it. And I didn't want to say: Scarxxxloeess, so, yeah so. So it's not an Italian word but, its not like something that you created out of your rapper and of your latin name. Great, Yes so lets come to the hard facts. people are always interested in. How old are you? I am 20 years old. how heavy and how tall are you? I am 165 centimeters, and my weight is 62/63 kilo's it depends. It depends on the amount of cheatmeals? Yeah. When did you start with calisthenics and why? it is a long long story, and it is a bit complicated. I will make it really short. I started Calisthenics since 2015. by the time of my life, since I Iost all my friends. Working near a park i recognized some very old friend who were doing some acrobatics. at the time i didnt know what it was so i started calisthenics. Okay, It was in 2015 or 2005. ah okay so 6 years ago approximately. wow! so for 5 or 6 years of Calisthenics you have a really really high level. like your statics are crazy and your last post went really well. It had like 100.000 views. yeah the weighted butterfly. so yeah crazy moves. did you already feel or think that you will become this strong? was it always your goal? absolutely not, for me it was impossible. I never imagined that gaining this amount of strength since I was very weak. I never imagined reaching this level. because when i started calisthenics all the athletes were a lot stronger. I didnt think i could beat them. because i saw maltese and planche like nothing. Like it was a pushup. When I saw these skills I became motivated to arrive one day at the level to motivate other athletes. for me to be here it is fantistic. I don't have other words. So thank you Phil for the interview because I never imagined that a brand like your's would contact me and do an interview. Becasue i think you're like it is difficult for you to understanding that you influence a lot of people,athletes. there are a lot of people that are thinking wauw who is this Carlo. for me the reason why we do this podcast is really to show that your are a normal person that is not meant to be mean or something. but for all the people that watch your video's your like this superhuman, you are like the one who is the alien. as daniel Flefil calls people like you. but like really your skills are so crazy and so insane. I want to show with the podcast that you are a normal person and that you have struggles in life as well. this is also happy that you are talking about the phase in your life where you had problems with your friends. and that you were in a state where you were down. but the sport and the hard work pulled you out of this. exactly, another answer in fact i usually answer Italian questions. when I get some english questions I don't know how to answer it. This is why I am extremely grateful that you take this. because its like a really big thing a lot of athletes say that they don't want to do an interview when their english isnt that great. but i think that people will still apreciate that you do this interview. so uhm yeah lets go into the workout related questions. uhm, who are the athletes that inspired you in the beginning in 2015. who were the top athletes that you looked up to. my idol was andrea larosa, matteo deo, viktor kamenov. wauw. for me this were my idols. because of their statics? you were always interested in static moves right? they motivate me a lot with doing maltese, diamond planche, press, 2 finger planche, maltese on pinky's. great i can imagine. did you start with basics in the beginning in 2015. did you do push ups and pull-ups or how did you start? I started Calisthenics with 2 years of basics. so pull-ups, dips pushups, l-sits, pike pushups. and these skills i trained not as the basics i trained most basics are some pushups, pull-ups, muscle-ups dips. After 2 years i started with the skills. Okay, and thats interesting and thats important for everybody watching because you did a lot of basics in the beginning. because your skills that you have today ine xtreme strength do you still do basics todya? yeah 1 time per week. then only bodyweight or weighted? both. I started pullups with 5 series of 20 reps. and then i do 10 series of 10 reps with some weights. for example 20 kilo's 15 kilo's .okay cool. People have one question. How long did it take for your full planche since your first workout. so first workout ever to your first full planche hold. I started training planche at 16/17 years old. and I unlocked the first full planche after 2 years. but after 6 months I took 1 or 2 second on full planche. the second day I take fever and tendonitis and i lost everything. so I restarted to train planche tuck, planche advance straddle and after other 7 months i had the full planche, so after 1 year and six months about 2 years. okay, cool that good. how long for the first iron cross? I started iron cross since 2018 and after 2 weeks of workout I had the iron cross. okay, and because of your strength from basics planching. at that time I had maltese straddle, full planche 2 second 3 hefesto yeah I had a bit of strength to start the iron cross. so after 2 weeks i got them. wauw interesting, and uhm why do you train in rings so much? is it the most fun for you or most efficient? it is a fantastic question i started the rings because i wanted to bring the van gelder and zanetti to calisthenics. in short number 1 at the i said to myself why not me. why do i have to wait for someone to bring it when i can learn it. so i trained a lot and got the van gelder after 1 year and 2 months. another advise for training on rings, in rings you get a lot of strength in other sport equiment as paralettes floor, p-bars. you gain so much muscles. okay so the strength that you built with the rings is also transferring to the floor and paralettes. otheway around as well?and otherway around as well if your really strong on floor on paralettes and floor are you aslo strong on rings? not, if you not strong on paralettes or floor it is hard to train on rings. so usually an advice is gain a lot of strength on paralettes like 10 sec full planche, 2/3 sec maltese on paralettes and then go rings. okay cool, so yea, you're combining everything so your training on the floor on paralettes and on rings? yeah it depends, 4 or 3 times a week on rings, and 2 times a week on the bars and paralettes and floor but my very very strength is on rings. okay thats why i am happy that we already could send our rings that will come in march. when you sent me the rings i closed my first butterfly + 15 KG wow thats great. I think it wasnt only of the rings but also your training. but its still really nice. they will be coming on 1st of march. so like we already had a lot of questions and a lot of italiens looking in our shop, anelli,anelli,anelli haha. a lot of fans and followers asked me Carlo but the rings of Gornation guys, the rings are coming out soon on the first of march, oww great. so yeah another question from the community is how to built such a finger strength. you have like really strong fingers, strong pinky's but also strong fingers. how did you train it? it is very complicated to explain. I never trained for the first time on pinky's one day i tried to hold on front on pinky's and full. and I unlocked the skill. uhm after a long time I said myself carlo. it is time to become strong on pinky's. so I trained front level on pinky's australian pull up on pinky, first finger maltese i trained 2 finger pushup on knees. hold planche lean on knee on fingers and uhm 2 fingers planche lean and then the progression of planche to finger tucked, adv tucked, straddle, and then full. and this makes totally sense like when you built strength in general you follow also the progression. you say its the same with fingers you just do 1 progression after the other and built more and more strength. I unlocked 2 fingers full planche after 6 months of training on fingers. okay thats an interesting thing. yeah another question was what do you do when you lose motivation. like you train a lot like people are sometimes losing motivation. When i lose my motivation i remember all the times i suffered. and why i am now here. i remember the voice of my friends, family of those who support me. who say carlo don't give up and stand up and continue for your goals. don't give up so i motivated a lot and i was reborn. what do you thing is more important, motivation of discipline? the motivation is the basic of all my life. so helps me a lot because when i was 15/14 years i was very very depressed. and i dont know how to be reborn. and now with practicing calisthenics i am very strong physically and mentally. wauw thats great. thats the transofrmation and the power that calisthenics has and why it has to be a big sport. thats nice and a great story. how do you eat? what does your nutrition look like how does your diet look like? and dont say pasta all day. my nutrition is fast food or very simple in the night i eat a lot of chips and candy's and for lunch i eat pasta and in the night i eat a lot of chicken steak and some protein. okay and do you think nutrition is important for the performance? yes absolutely nutriotion is important so guys don't follow my nutrition. and is it your goal to make it cleaner? yes absolutely i do this for take the master of nutrition. i study to become a very complete athlete in skills and nutrition. so if you're my nutrition coach you tell me to eat more chips then? hahaha. okay cool and do you take supplements as protein powder and creatine? protein creatine not, but i take magnesium potassium and a lot of vitamines like orange juice. so vitamine c i guess. yeah okay. what are your goals this year? for 2021. what do you want to do? my goals for this year are to become a very complete athletes. unlock victorian on rings. participate in competitions as burninggate. and this year in june i have a competition in russia. thats crazy! so yeah we're closely coming to the end of the interview. i still have some quick question with quick answers. i feel bad for asking this question to a italian person. what do your prefer pizza or burger? pizza or? pizza haha i love it. are you a dog or a cat person? I love cats. okay cool. do you have a favorite location for holidays? nah nothing special. I like to hang out with my friends. location is not important.so only friends are important? great. what do you prefer if you have to decide for the rest of your life? rings or bar? rings! all my life. great. do you have athletes that you look up to like idols or who are some athletes that you admire? I have 3 idols, majeli. because he is a very complete athlete with caruso and jordan tsjansef and matteo deo. great. so matteo deo will be the interview after you. so after your interview the interview with matteo will go online. so your story deo. so that good 2 italian beasts after eachother. do you have a favorite book? i don't read a lot but my favorite book is when i'm awake. its a book that speaks the bottle of the light that intervenes with the darkness. i will put it in the description if somebody is interested in the book. and do you have a favorite movie? difficult question, in italian prima di domani. before after tomorrow. we will also put it in the description. what was the best calisthenics event you've been at? what was the best competition. I do competition only in sardinia. my favorite competition was in 2018 in caliari where i've taken my first place. wauw. it is nice to see all the throphy's behind you. uhmm wait. this was my first cup of the first place. my first competition was in 2015 and i took the last place. haha wuaw. and after 2 years i didnt lose my motivation so i kept going. i took he second place and then a lot of cups with first place. what i like a lot about italy is that the trophy's are really big. when the most competitions here in germany the prices are really small but in italy. great, and the last question. do you have any message to the calisthenics community? don't give up and follow your dreams. and guys never give up keep going. great, so for the people that want to get in touch with you. where do they find you? on instagram? on youtube? on instagram. but you also have youtube channel right? yeah but i dont upload video's . the only video in my chanel was my 5 years transformation. okay, great, yes and for the people who are interested in your coaching you're also offering coaching in italian. because i take a diploma of personal trainer for only italian athletes. only in the national theretory. okay cool. everybody aiming to get strong as you they can elarn from you. we will put all your contact details in the description and carlo we're coming to an end. i want to say thank you that you took the time and effort to do this interview. i hope the next interview we can have it in italien. it should be easier then. but big big thank you that you made it possible.thank you that you believed in me and listen to my very bad english and waiting for me to be emberassed. and thank you a lot. you're welcome and thank you to everybody listening. if you want to support this episode give it a thumb up, share it, comment it. do whatever you want. and also leave a follow to carlo to his youtube and his instagram. and thanks everyone for watching and see you soon.