Alexander Emelianenko, a Russian MMA fighter, and the Head of Russia's Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov have recently pitted their strength against each other in an unusual challenge, which involves a plank exercise with weights.
Emelianenko, who currently trains at the Chechnya-based "Akhmat" fight club, posted a video to his Instagram account, showing him holding a plank with another Akhmat fighter on his back — Rakhman Dudaev, whose weight is 75 kilograms.
Kadyrov, who is known for his passionate love of sports, decided to take on this challenge and repeated the exercise but with two men on his back.
The 36-year-old MMA fighter didn't give up and increased the weights too — this time, Emelianenko managed to keep three people on his back. "Ramzan Akhmatovich, you motivate us! Thank you for what you do for the fighters of the Akhmat club!" the athlete wrote under the video of his new attempt.
The 41-year-old head of Chechnya then repeated the same stunt with four men weighing a total of 291 kilograms. "Sports are life, joy, strength and health! This is also an incentive to strive for new heights, achievements, success, for which it is necessary to work a lot and a lot," Kadyrov captioned his video.
Admitting his defeat, Emelianenko recorded a video, saying: "Ramzan Akhmatovich, hats off to you! I won't be able to lift more than you did!"
Alexander Emelianenko, the younger brother of Russian heavyweight legend Fedor Emelianenko, is a three-time Russian national Combat Sambo champion and three-time world Combat Sambo champion in the absolute division. After an enforced three-year hiatus due to a sexual assault conviction which landed him in prison, Emelianenko made a comeback in professional MMA taking on Brazilian veteran Geronimo Dos Santos in a heavyweight bout in September 2017. In October, Emelianenko signed a contract with the "Akhmat" fight club based in Grozny.
