Natural Bodybuilder Meets Wheelchair Bodybuilding (eng sub)

Good morning subscribers! Nice to see you again. Today we are at XXXL-Schmiede in Berlin. I'm meeting Tom Losch. Tom is a disabled bodybuilder and Tom is going to show me how he trains. So I'd say: Just come along. Tom, old boy! Hi, I've been waiting for you. How's it looking? How are you? -Everything’s easy, and you too? Are you well? -Yes, great. You found your way here OK? We didn't have any problems finding the way. Great... I'm looking forward to seeing the hardcore gym! You can help me in a moment, I have to ask a favour of you. What have you got planned? I'm going to put you in a wheelchair too, so that you can see how it is during a training session. I thought I'd come here to the forge and things would start off easily and I'd accompany Tom in his training session. But then, he produced a wheelchair and then I was bound to the wheelchair. So I had to put myself in Tom's position. I simply wanted to see how somebody reacts when they didn't expect it, but instead just wanted to do a bit of training with me and have some fun. But now he's sitting in the wheelchair and is in the same position as me! That wheelchair is for everyday use and the other one is for sports. OK, but both have a carbon look! Really cool! OK let's see how far you get. Just sitting down in it feels unusual. Remember if you roll backwards quickly and then go forwards, it will lift. Right, today we will simulate being a wheelchair user and make everything authentic by using the steel bar to break his legs. Please leave my legs in one piece. Now you can see the first problem. Try to move the grip upwards while seated. You see that's where things start. If it gets really difficult later on, then you just move behind me and support me from behind. You'll tell me then right? - Yes, of course! OK guys to go full throttle today, we'll do the exercise with one arm. Otherwise you would end up lifting yourself with both arms. That's why we have switched to a single-arm grip so that we can train a bit more intensively. Let's go, I'll have go too then. One Two Come on, come on, come on, come on! One more! Nice! We work hard here, come on! One more! Nice! ...push! Well, my personal feeling in the wheelchair was of course anything but familiar. You realise that you have a very difficult training session ahead of you and you have to improvise to a great extent. I was constantly thinking will it fit here, will it fit there, I could topple over here and I need to keep my balance there. It really was very difficult and demanding. If you have any questions for me, go ahead. What I personally would like to ask, if you don't mind, is how did you end up in a wheelchair? Only if you want to tell me and the viewers. ... and perhaps how long you have been in a wheelchair? - Yes, I don't mind telling you and it isn't a problem for me at all! I've been wheelchair-bound for thirty-two years now. I had a motorbike accident when I was 20, on my way home from the army. In the accident I broke my spine in three places, the ninth, tenth and eleventh vertebrae. My shoulder in six places! Plus all of my ribs... ...more or less everything was broken. After the accident, I went to the gym for the first time weighing 51 kg. I didn't intend to do bodybuilding... instead I just wanted to build up some strength! I think it worked because I'm now 50 kg heavier than back then. Have you got any more questions or any special questions? If you hadn't had the accident, do you think you would have still got into bodybuilding? -Yes, I was more of an endurance athlete before and I liked running, swimming, ... Like the guys who do ironman today, I swam a canal or I ran up hills with weights. A bit like crossfit today. Because I ended up in a wheelchair, I realised of course that it is not easy to find a sport where you can train all muscles that still work. The muscles are still there, but you cannot move them any more... In bodybuilding you can train specific groups of muscles so it was therefore a sport option for me. My doctors advised me not to do this sport because they reckoned it wasn't good and too dangerous for my back and spine. But I think I'm a good example that shows exactly the opposite is the case. Next we'll do flies. You'll do them standing or kneeling you said, right? - Yes, I'll try to do them kneeling. First we'll do a light set with 30 kg. Could you just pass me the grips? - Yes, of course! Can you support me on the trapezius a little please? - Sure! And go! One Two Three Four While training, Gregor noticed, and that's why we did it, that it's great as a wheelchair user to have a good training partner. Who can pass you something or stabilise you or hold you. So nothing unexpected happens. You just saw in the last set that when I train with both arms, I need help at a certain stage because the wheelchair gets pushed back. If I train on my own, I do the exercise with one arm. Then you hold onto one side of the cable cross and position yourself at knee level next to the stand. I hope I can get the weight over to you. Give me your hand please. I've got you... OK. Have you got the grip? - Yes. Now you'll really notice it... That's exactly where you have to go with the movement! Oh, I don't think I put the brake on!? - Yes, you have, you really have to hold on tight. You see some things aren't that easy! Just like that! Yes, like that. Yes, that's it! OK, I've got it! And... Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Keep going! Ten... nice! ... oh, that was good! The next exercise that Tom will show us is the cable pulldown. I'd say let's not waste any time and go for it. I'm a fan of one-armed exercises... To start with, we have a light weight, which is ideal for explaining things. The bench is here so that I can hold myself and will not fall out of the wheelchair and I also have a firm hold to pull against. Another advantage is that I can stretch very far in this way. With fully stretched or extended latissimus, as far as it will go. And then I pull really low down to my waist. Eight Nine Ten Three... nice! Four Five...Great! Six Seven Eight Nine Ten I'm there, come on, one more! Got it? - Yes, I've got it. Then we'll put another disc on! There were of course some situations where you really have to improvise, for example, you achieve the desired intensity by doing the exercise particularly slowly. Because the risk of being lifted out or falling over would otherwise be simply too great. And that danger was also very unusual and difficult to overcome. Go on man, pull! It's always nice when you've finished the set and can torture your training partner. Come on, you can do one more! One more! ...Nice! Great! OK guys that's it for today! My first trip to the gym in a wheelchair. It was definitely an unusual and extraordinary experience. Tom, you have my greatest respect! Thank you for the insight. I really enjoyed training with you! Some final words from me too at this point. If you are interested in wheelchair training, subscribe to this channel. Then there will definitely be more! You heard it guys, like us, add comments and subscribe! Thank you for watching! Take it easy! Good pumping! Go for it! Stay strong!