*Photo by Esther Lin for MMAFighting.com.
Some of you may know the name Mike Dolce, but another Strength & Conditioning extraordinaire is Mr. Eric Wong. He has coached UFC fighters Claude Patrick, Mark Bocek and many more. Below is his famous BIOMECH Breakdown, which is one of my favourite pieces he writes. This time around he has broken down the Miguel Torres vs. Michael McDonald fight.
Study this for a moment then we’ll continue:
After looking at it what do you note?
Other than the age difference, the 6″ reach advantage that Torres has over McDonald is a big deal, especially since they’re the same height.
Now, check out this still image from their fight:
What do you notice?
OK, here’s what I see…
Miguel has an extremely exaggerated kyphotic (rounded) thoracic spine and forward head. It’s almost as if he doesn’t have a neck.
I call this the turtle posture for obvious reasons…
Compare this to McDonald, who many might say stands pretty straight up.
The turtle posture has a few benefits – such as making your body a smaller target and it helps you keep your chin tucked down.
But it also has some major drawbacks, such as moving your head and chin a bit closer towards your opponent. This totally negates Torres’ significant 6″ reach advantage in this fight. His chin is 2-3″ closer to McDonald compared to if he didn’t have forward head posture. This probably contributed to McDonald landing the big uppercut punch that lead to the KO.
His breakdown continues for quite a bit longer over at EricWongMMA.com.
