Want to know about a workout move that is weird but effective? Mike Tyson has a little tip for you. Tyson is famous or infamous for a bunch of things, one of those being his gruelling bodyweight exercise routine. The Mike Tyson bodyweight workout got him shredded when he was young and laid down the foundations so he could become one of the strongest heavyweight boxers to ever exist, but definitely of his era. One of Iron Mike’s calisthenic exercises was a little less conventional than the others, albeit equally as impressive.
I would like to point out that the bodyweight exercise we are going to discuss here is by no means a beginner move. On the contrary. I would not recommend anyone even trying to perform it without having been training like Tyson for a fair while. Not only is it rather dangerous for beginners, but this calisthenics exercise also requires strong muscles. TL;DR: kids, don’t try this at home.
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The exercise in question is called ‘wrestler neck bridge’ and Iron Mike used to do it as part of his neck strengthening training. It makes sense for him trying to strengthen his neck this way. Boxers will get punched in the face quite a lot and should they have a strong neck, it might help reduce whiplash and keep them off the floor for longer.
That said, the wrestler neck bridge is a tough and dangerous bodyweight exercise, even for pro boxers. Tyson didn’t ‘just’ do the neck roll to get a strong neck but had a neck muscle training regimen in place too. Without other strengthening exercises, you can literally break your neck at home trying to replicate this exercise. To reiterate, don’t try this at home.
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Other pro boxers such as Anthony Joshua did the infamous wrestler neck bridge exercise after it was performed by Tyson in the 90s, as seen in the video above, but even his attempt is no match to the intensity of the original move. All those shrugs and other types of neck and back strengthening exercises paid off for Mike but he was basically exercising all day long for years.
Read More: We bet you can’t do this insane Mike Tyson bodyweight exercise
