Footage of Canelo Alvarez's 'dangerous' neck exercise goes viral as champion's secret to never being dropped revealed

11/09/2024 12:59

Canelo Alvarez has never been dropped as a professional, and training exercises are the key to his success.

Alvarez has had a phenomenal career fighting 65 times with 61 wins and two defeats, but he has never once been dropped to the canvas during his time in the sport.

He will take on Edgar Berlanga in his latest title defence at super-middleweight this weekend, with once again the expectation of a dominant win on his shoulders.

Prior to the upcoming tilt, a video has resurfaced of Alvarez using a neck exercise to strengthen the muscles during training.

He has stated previously that it has helped him improve durability and the ability to take a punch, which speaks to his sensational defensive record.

The video shows Alvarez rolling his neck emulating the famous move often used by Mike Tyson during his heavyweight prime.

But he was changing up the stretch, performing it on a bosu ball which increased the difficulty of the task.

It is an incredible move which has clearly inspired his success, but it does carry a health risk.

On X, Brian Sutterer who claims to be a doctor of medicine and who has nearly one million subscribers on his YouTube channel discussing sports injuries wrote: “Don't do this. The cervical spine is not built to tolerate high and dangerous compressive loads like this.

“If you want to strengthen your neck, do it without putting load through the top of your head.”

A note from Harvard Medical School on the video reads: “Neck strengthening is best done using a variety of exercises to strengthen different muscles in the neck.

“Additionally, the exercise in the [Canelo] video may cause harm to those whose neck (and its muscles, vertebrae, or spinal cord) are weakened.

The Mexican has worked extremely hard in difficult camps to reach the pinnacle of the sport, having reigned as a world champion in four weight classes.

He has some impressive wins on his resume over the likes of Miguel Cotto and Gennady Golovkin, and has also duelled with Dmitry Bivol and Floyd Mayweather.

Regardless, it is something Alvarez continues to work on and has even used during his preparations for Berlanga.

Some big opportunities still lay in wait for the pound-for-pound rated star who has been called out by a number of big names.

Arguably the biggest of them all is Terence Crawford, with the pair regularly touted to compete in a weight-switch mega-fight.

But first Alvarez must progress beyond undefeated Berlanga who is coming to dethrone the champion.

And he has confidently insisted there is no chance of any knockdown or a potential upset being on the cards in his latest Las Vegas appearance.

He said: "I like them like that. I like to them to be confident and do a lot of talking.

“I like breaking their face when they play like that. I'm eagerly awaiting that day. It'll be the beatdown of his life.

"No, no chance. The experience I have, the intelligence, my boxing ability, I've already won, September 14th.”