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Eugenios, also known as Slidis is an internationally known and gifted Calisthenics top athlete who has won many awards and competitions. His probably greatest achievements is the gold medal at FIBO 2018 at the Weighted Calisthenics Championship or winning the WSWCF/ISF Street Lifting (Weighted Calisthenics) Nationals four times. In his home country Greece, the 28-year-old is well known for performing and reaching the finals at the TV show "Greece got Talent". And he has also made a name for himself on the Internet with his breathtaking tricks by combining sports exercises with a lot of extra weight or hoops. However, one would never guess which long and dark road this extraordinary person had to take to succeed.
No perspective, monotony and family issues led Slidis to severe depressions, which he had to struggle with for over 2 years. He not only lost his job and his girlfriend, but also lost control over his alcohol consumption. His first thought after getting up was to finally have an alcoholic drink again in order to be able to smile. In combination with up to 2 packs of cigarettes a day and excessive eating habits, this unhealthy lifestyle caused him obesity and a catastrophic fitness. For the resulting pent-up frustration and anger, Slidis started playing rugby, which is a very aggressive and dangerous sport where injuries often occur.
One day he realized what he was doing to his body and his life. He decided to stop his self-destructive behaviour and to stop all three of his addictions at once. Eugenios started doing sports and Freeletics workouts at home in front of the computer. In this way, he wanted to distract himself from his desires, or even replace them.
At that time he found a video of performing calisthenics athletes, which excited him so much that eventually he gave up on the other sports to practice this one. In the beginning he worked out with Youtube tutorials and his own body weight, whereupon he later added additional weight to the trainings.
Watch the full 60min Interview:
Looking back he says today that he was in bad shape and that especially the first year was a very difficult time. It demanded not only physical but also mental strength from him. Nevertheless, it was the beginning of the journey away from the dark path of life, away from drug abuse, away from a dark future and away from depression.
SPORT SAVED HIS LIFE.
From this formative time the today top athlete has learned and taken a lot with him, such as high self-discipline, strong ambition and the will to give everyone the motivation he needed back then. He considers it the greatest success of his career to see how many people he inspires with his story and performances.
On the other hand, the contact to his online community encourages him and motivates him to keep going. Besides role models like David Goggings, Slidis has found a special way to motivate himself.
The most effective method for him is the 5-seconds rule. With this rule you loudly count down from five to one, so that you subconsciously give your own brain a command and reprimand it. This would give him the motivation to go into any training session. Of course you can apply this rule in every situation in life.
The idea behind it is that he does not want to disappoint himself and does not want to give in to a mental weakness. So he says:
"You're not mentally weak. You can do it and you will do it!"
A week in the life of the athlete probably looks different from all other calisthenics professionals. Compared to them, who mostly finance their living with social media or at least earn well to it, Eugenios works full-time with day and night shifts. Therefore, he has to adjust the times of his training sessions as well as his sleep rhythm.
In one week he does at least one basic weighted push training and one leg training. The rest of the time he spends practicing the elements or learning one of his crazy stunts. But he warns especially beginners not to venture on difficult elements. You should start with basics like pull-ups, dips, push-ups, squats and handstands, so that you start with building up basic strength and core strength. As soon as you master the perfect execution of ten pull-ups, 15 dips, 20 push-ups, 25 squats and eight to ten knee raises can try out more difficult elements. Also starting off too early with working out with additional weights and not just with your own body weight should be avoided. One of the most important things is a proper warm-up before every training session and practicing mobility.
Slidis wants to hand down these tips, as he did not have the possibility to access such information back then, and this had a huge impact on his training progress.
Currently the 1.81 m tall man (5'93 feet) is about to lose a few kilos and wants to go down from 92 kg (202.8lbs) 2 months ago to 87 kg (191.8lbs). Firstly, he minimizes carbohydrates and secondly, he counts his protein intake. The number of his intake in grams is limited to twice his current body weight. The HIIT workout (High Intensity Interval Training), which he uses as a warm-up for the actual training sessions, helps him with shredding. In that time the top athlete eats only a banana or something sugary.
