Daniels Laizans is one of the greatest legends in calisthenics history—an athlete who defined an era, created his own style that influenced countless athletes, and won numerous championships at all levels, including multiple world titles.

But in recent years, he has been surprising us not for his competitive achievements, but for his incredible physical transformation.

How is it possible that Daniels has undergone such a change? What has he done to achieve it? Could it have happened naturally, or is there a chance he took shortcuts?

His Training Method

To clear up these questions, we can look at some clues, and the first one is analyzing his training.

Luckily, Daniels has been frequently uploading workout vlogs to his YouTube channel, allowing us to examine his routines and training approach.

When we've talked about hypertrophy in our articles and social media content—analyzing scientific evidence and the experience of top coaches—one thing has always been clear, something we've repeated more than once:

To gain muscle mass, you need to give your muscles a stimulus close to muscle failure, with a set volume that ensures that stimulus reaches all muscle fibers.

This is probably the biggest mistake people make when trying to build muscle and failing—they don't push their sets hard enough and don’t come close to muscle failure.

So, what about Daniels? If we analyze his training over the last few years, we see that he consistently uses basic calisthenics exercises, often adding extra weight, and, without a doubt, he ALWAYS pushes close to failure.

In his videos, we can see how he struggles at the end of each set. It's evident that he's reaching his limit. There’s always that element of effort—the fight that pushes each muscle to its maximum capacity and provides the hypertrophy stimulus it needs.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that, as a verified calisthenics athlete, he maintains very strict and clean technique, using a full range of motion and sometimes even extending it beyond the standard range.

A Crucial Factor in His Transformation

One key aspect of his physical transformation—something that many people commenting on it might not consider—is that Daniels does not train legs. Ever.

He has never been seen doing leg exercises, nor has he shown his leg musculature. This means that all of his training effort is focused on improving his upper body.

Whereas someone who trains their whole body typically dedicates at least one or two days a week to leg training—usually with a high set volume—Laizans can use that time to focus exclusively on his upper body. This allows him to space out his workouts more effectively, give his muscles better recovery, add extra sets, or train with greater specificity.

His Progress Over Time

If we look at his progress over time, we see a very gradual increase in muscle mass during his early years when he focused primarily on freestyle—from 2015 to 2019.

A crucial detail to consider is that in 2015, Laizans was only 15 years old. So, this transformation is not just about muscle development—we've seen him transition from a teenager into a grown man.

The most striking physical transformations often use "before" pictures from adolescence, making the change look much more dramatic.

It’s also important to note that during his competitive years, from ages 15 to 19, even as a teenager, Laizans was already taller and more muscular than most of his competitors. By 2017, at just 17 years old, he was 1.80 meters tall and weighed 80 kg, even though his physique was not yet fully developed.

This shows that his starting point and genetics were strong advantages.

Between 2020 and 2021, we had little information about his condition due to the lockdowns. However, in 2022, he started showcasing a training style that combined freestyle with hypertrophy-focused exercises using basic and weighted calisthenics.

That’s when the most dramatic transformation occurred. By 2023, he had shifted his focus more towards hypertrophy training, gaining a significant amount of muscle mass while maintaining an extremely low body fat percentage.

Since then, his body fat has increased slightly, but he has continued gaining muscle mass. This suggests that he has been following what we call a "calisthenic bulking" approach—meaning a bulk where excessive fat gain is avoided to ensure performance in bodyweight exercises is not hindered.

The only missing piece of information is his current weight, which would give us a more objective measure of his progress. Unfortunately, I haven’t found this information anywhere, so we can only speculate on that aspect.

Has He Used Performance-Enhancing Substances?

Based on this analysis, we can now have a more informed perspective on whether he has used performance-enhancing substances or not.

Arguments in favor of his natural status:

• He started his journey as a 15-year-old teenager, and he had excellent genetics from the beginning—being tall, broad-shouldered, with a narrow waist and a massive back.
• The most drastic change occurred precisely when he started training specifically for hypertrophy. As we’ve seen, his training approach is optimal for this goal. He had already built a strong foundation, and at that point, he maximized it.
• He doesn’t train legs—so all his energy is dedicated to achieving extraordinary results in his upper body.

The most suspicious aspect against his natural status:

• The transformation from 2022 to 2023 was quite dramatic, showing a significant muscle increase along with an incredibly low body fat percentage.

If I had to take a stance, I’d say he is natural. He’s simply someone with exceptional genetics, who built a solid foundation from ages 15 to 22, and then started training for hypertrophy with weighted calisthenics at an optimal intensity using well-structured workouts.

As we’ve mentioned before, statistically, there must be individuals who are outliers—just like there are people who are 2.20 meters tall. And if anyone in the calisthenics world had those genetics working in their favor, it was Daniels.

When I met him in person in 2017, I remember that even back then, he stood out as a broad, muscular guy. Everyone in Tenerife would comment on how big and strong he looked. At that time, he was only 17, and his training was based on freestyle, statics, dynamics, and some basics. So, it doesn’t seem surprising to me that when he decided to focus on hypertrophy, he achieved such a striking transformation.

If you also want to train for hypertrophy in the most effective way, I recommend checking out the EVO training programs and routines available in Calisteniapp.

By Yerai Alonso