Here’s a video of Tony Ferguson, a professional athlete and UFC champion, doing a deadlift last year:
Snap-city… pic.twitter.com/6Te6otsaUC
— Wim Demeere (@wimdemeere) October 16, 2017
There is a reason why I write my books and articles the way I do and this is a part of it:
Martial arts is one of the fields in which even the best have some of the worst training practices.
This video illustrates that clearly.Tony is an excellent fighter, there is no doubt about that. But I see only two explanations for this horrible deadlift:
- He is trained by an incompetent conditioning coach. There is zero reason to let any client perform a deadlift in this manner, let alone with this much weight. Zeroat all.
I teach all my clients how to properly hip-hinge without weight or with a broomstick. No exceptions. Technique comes first, weight second. If they don’t like it, they can find another trainer, because I won’t be responsible when they go to snap city and end up hospitalized. - He thinks he knows how to deadlift, but never really learned proper technique. Which would mean he is his own conditioning coach. As a professional athlete looking for every edge you can get, that’s just stupid.
I’ve rarely encountered a field other than martial arts where the most counterproductive or antiquainted training exercises and protocols are used by professionals. When I write in-depth about topics, it is precisely to avoid giving you incomplete information that can lead to injuries or worse. I’ve often been criticized for being too wordy, but it doesn’t bother me. Those who think TL;DR is the way to excellence will eventually find out that they missed their shot. Those who keep on studying and try to learn and improve, those are the practitioners who get to the top and stay there.
There is a corrolary to this: I rarely talk about topics I don’t have experience with or knowledge of. I try to avoid adding bullshit to the already massive amounts of information that are shared all over the internet. So I usually either stay quiet on those topics or refer to others who are more knowledgeable.
I would dare say that if he hasn’t already, Tony could do worse than find a good coach to teach him the basics of the deadlift…
