The Birth Of A GOAT Not Once But Twice Vance Walker Has Won American Ninja Warrior

good morning how are you doing today Vance I am doing great how about you you know we were talking about that that cooler weather and things you guys fa that during those challenges when you're out there on that desert floor in the middle of the night how the hell are you staying warm that is a great question so you would think that Vegas would be hot but in the middle of the night it is very cold so we have actually in between stages three and four I had a hoodie on I had long pants on I had a blanket covering me and I had a mask on with sunglasses because not only is it freezing but it's windy and the dust yeah from the floor is flying all over the place and getting all in your face all in your nose all in your eyes so it is the Vegas conditions are very tough to work through well let me ask you this question because I come from the World of Martial Arts where we we put ourselves in conditions on purpose so that we that nothing gets in the way of doing what it is that we're supposed to do do you practice the same exact way yeah so I train with an elevation mask on because Vegas is also elevated about three ,000 FT elevation I'm pretty sure so I have an elevation mass that I set to 18,000 feet to where you can barely breathe through that thing at all and I run my courses in that leading up to Vegas and I also it's filmed overnight which a lot of people don't realize it's dark but that means we're that means that we're getting off of set after Sunrise most of the time and we're getting to our hotels when the sun is already out we have to try to sleep with the sun already out and then we're also waking up and have to be on set before the sun goes down so we're getting maybe three hours of sleep during during Vegas too so I also train going to sleep at around 6:00 in the morning right when the sun is about to rise waking up at 2 pm training multiple times throughout the day like I'm having the multiple course runs and it's a very hard training schedule to be able to that dude I you know doing morning radio that's one thing that we had to do is we had to be up at the crack of dawn but we also had to be in bed before the sun set I don't know what this is doing to your body clock and how you've got good control or great control of it how are you doing that yeah well I flipped that schedule probably a month and a half before filming Vegas and then the rest of the year I try to have it like half flipped so I don't fully flip it I usually go to bed during the normal time of the year around one and so it's like I don't have to fully flip it but yeah it definitely definitely messes with you and during actual filming it is horrible but it's it's something that we have to prepare for well I'm so glad that you live by one of the great uh profits quotes post Malone they said I wouldn't be nothing now they they say congratulations my God that is just something that needs to be branded with you at all times yeah well that's been one of my favorite songs for a very long time I actually heard that song for the first time the day that I won my first national championship and it stuck with me back then that was let me think six years ago yeah I think that was around six and a half years ago and yeah it's stuck with me ever since then and that's just been post milon's been my favorite artist for a very long time he's like the main one that I listen to but that that song specifically with they said I wouldn't be nothing now they always say congratulations that has stuck with me my entire life because when I was born I was diagnosed cerebral poy at 17 months old and I I was told that I would never be able to walk without braces on my legs and I went from that to taking the braces off when I was seven taking the responsibility into my own hands doing the stretching and just making sure that I had opportunities to do things my mom would be pushing me she would tighten the braces even tighter when we got home she would push me past the point where it hurt and she was always telling me whatever it takes we're gonna get you to walk with with whatever it takes we're going to do whatever it takes to get you to be able to try Sports and I just always have that mentality whatever it takes and I went from being told that I would never be able to walk without braces on my legs to eventually becoming a professional athlete and being the first person to win American inel warrior twice so they literally told me that I wouldn't be nothing and now they always say congratulations so I was able to live that out and it's it's been like the prophecy for my life so your personality and your empowerment just amazed me because you're the type of person that can look at a mountain and say I got this and you don't let excuses in this generation get in your way I got this we we're going to do it and I mean how do you convince that inner core of your soul to be so strong that's a really good question so I don't know the point where I fully believe that I would be able to walk I think that was definitely all my mom telling me that I would be able to but yeah when I when I started trying Sports I tried multiple different things I tried soccer and you have to hit the ball with the inside of your foot so you have to turn your leg out and part of three policy is it turns your hips and knees in and so I wasn't really able to kick the ball with the inside of my foot I wasn't able to turn my foot out like that so I couldn't do soccer and football is something that I always love my dad has always been a huge fan and he made us huge fans of football footb but I couldn't be on the field for the whole entire game because the longer I was out there the tighter my legs would get so I kept trying multiple Sports and when I found ninja that was something that you're only on the course for a couple minutes at a time you can train on your own schedule and it was something that I could work around and something that the first time I went to the gym I really enjoyed and I immediately the first time I was ever at the gym told my mom okay this is what I want to do signed me up for a membership and she was like I don't know you might want to try it a few more times before paying for a year-long membership and I was like no you'll see and she was like well you'll get bored of it it's the same obstacles every single day and I was like no you'll see wow so I started I started training for ninja and I think probably when I won that first national championship the day that I heard that song for the first time was when I realized I think I could win this thing and I set my mind right then that I was going to do it one day no matter what it took so how do you deal with pain and the reason why I bring that up is because this past summer I I ripped my my rotator cuff and the doctor wanted me to do the surgy thing and I said no and I went into my own Physical Therapy are you words I did it myself to give movement everything back to normal which freaked him out and he pissed he got a little pissed off but how do you deal with it when you when you injure something do you go to the doctor immediately or do you just know where to go that's a good question so I get injured a lot mostly in my lower body because of the cerebral pocy my hips get tweaked and my ankles and knees get tweaked very often it's usually my hips because that's the main movement but I've had a bunch of injuries in my shoulders and my legs and I have a great physical therapist his name is William and he has helped me a lot but also there's things with the cerebral bsy that he isn't really conditioned to because he's a physical therapist for for the normal person not the person with threey so I had I definitely have some challenges that I have to get figured out and there's actually one right now with my hip that I he he didn't know the answer to and we had to go get checked out and there's a lot of things where Physical Therapy there there's not really a specific thing to help that because it's a condition that not a lot of people are accustomed to especially training at this High a level yeah and a lot of people with those conditions they they don't keep pushing as hard as I have and it's it's very difficult to find what's wrong in a lot of those cases because I'm a very unique unique case so everything in martial arts is based on an animal now the way that you move and the way that you can fly through that air do you envision yourself as an animal I think the most accurate thing would probably be a monkey from swinging around on one arm but myself to an animal I I actually don't know what the best answer to that would be I know my favorite animal is probably a capy bar so I'll go with that I I don't really have a reasoning for it but the way that you're able to distribute your weight I mean that's the thing about it it's it's like all you go from you know from your legs to your hands I mean it's got to be moving through you so quickly with no time to think about it it's just you know what to do yeah well that's from hours of training a day it's it's very difficult to learn and it's very difficult to teach too it's something that definitely comes naturally and there are people that will train for 20 years yeah that will never be as good as somebody who's trained for two just because they understand how the body works and luckily my first coach Brett Sims taught me very early on how your body moves through off schools and didn't just teach me how to do off schools he taught me how to understand how your body works through them So eventually when he uh opened up his gym in Greenville and I was left alone I was able to teach myself how to do the new off schols so I would see something new and I would be able to figure out okay what does my body need to do on this off school and then replicate it so that's also something that having a great coach helps with but yeah learning how your body moves is probably the hardest thing in the sport because it's not just strength anymore which is what it used to be it's all these technical obstacles and you have to put your body in the perfect position you have to Time stuff perfectly if you miss a hand you can be out and it's it's become very technical like that and that's that's what separates the the normal people from the great is really understanding how the body works and what you need to do on those obstacles wow dude you got to come back to this show anytime in the future the door is always going to be open for you of course might have set you up on that all right man well you be brilliant today okay thank you you too