Just watched some basketball and parkour videos and I was wondering how their bodies can handle it
In: Biology
A lot of these things. They definitely suffer deterioration and injury. And whereas you or I might tweak a knee and lay up for a week or three, they play through the pain or are given a ton of pain medication to play. (In addition to top-of-the line therapies, no doubt. Sports medicine has some miracles when it comes to a million-dollar athlete that simply aren’t considered when Regular Joe tears a meniscus. But pushing your body through pain might still a part of it, whether it’s accelerating through rehab or putting off the surgery to finish the season.)
I know the Paleo guy Mark Sisson, who used to do a lot of marathons and triathlons, has said that many of his former co – competitors have had hip and knee replacement surgeries. He advocates exercise that causes much less repetitive stress for that reason.
They cant!
Thats why you dont see people in thier 60s.
Somewhere around year 30-40 the worsening health overlapse the experience and expertize and the young overtakes em.
They don’t. And they often suffer later in life. That’s the toll of professional sports.
Gymnasts and ballet dancers often end up with severe problems, sometimes crippled, because of it. They can literally give themselves joint hypermobility syndrome (which is usually genetic but can also occur through deterioration of the joints from, mostly, professional sports). That can put you in a wheelchair. You might still be able to put your leg behind your head, but your knee won’t support your weight without extreme chronic pain. My ex- suffered with it (3rd Dan karate black-belt, registered disabled).
Athletes rarely are athletes later in life for a reason, not just that they can’t compete on the same level but they often have severe repercussions of their professional careers. Footballers with knees that never work properly again, ballet dancers unable to walk, rugby players with severe head trauma, weightlifters with terrible back problems, etc. Youth soccer (football) players have just had laws introduced to stop them heading balls as a lifetime of doing that can give you severe brain damage, same as American footballers have suffered similar problems with body impacts.
Even just runners are destroying their knees. At the top levels they are choosing to sacrifice their long term health for short term extreme gain, and they know that. The successes will make enough money to pay for expensive treatments, and many will do it for the love of their sport, but it’s often at a cost in their later years. Health insurance is almost compulsory in those careers and is seen as a huge necessity.
They can’t stop it, they can only manage it, and they won’t become professional without knowing the risk of their future lives, even if they never suffer a direct debilitating injury in an incident (which is also far more likely for an athlete, e.g. a runner to break an ankle, etc.).
There will come a time where they will probably wish they hadn’t done it, and their consolation will be the money and lifestyle that it’s given them, but for every professional athlete living a celebrity life, there are thousands of “ex-professional” sports people who can never play the sport again and suffer in their daily lives for their earlier career.
They do a metric ton of preventative care as well as rehab. But even that doesn’t stop it, just slows it down.
For example as a baseball player (specifically pitcher) we would do rotator cuff work at minimum 4x a week since I was 11 all the way up to my final collegiate year at something 22
Earl Campbell needed a cane/walker by his early 40’s- wiki “at age 46, he could barely close his fist due to [arthritis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthritis) in his hands.[[87]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Campbell#cite_note-SI-88) He developed [foot drop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_drop) due to nerve damage in his legs, and has difficulty bending his back and knees.[[87]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Campbell#cite_note-SI-88)[[88]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Campbell#cite_note-89) He was diagnosed with [spinal stenosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_stenosis) in 2009.[[89]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Campbell#cite_note-Campbell-90) Because of his difficulty walking he uses a cane or a walker, and for longer distances a wheelchair.[[5]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Campbell#cite_note-Garber-6)[[90]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Campbell#cite_note-price-91) Campbell at first maintained the ailments were genetic,[[90]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Campbell#cite_note-price-91)[[91]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Campbell#cite_note-92) but said in 2012, “I think some of it came from playing football, playing the way I did.”[[85]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Campbell#cite_note-Fox-86)[[92]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Campbell#cite_note-Strauss-93)
Ronnie Coleman is in a similar boat. Drugs/roids and all that aside… top level athlete not able to walk on his own by before 50.
Also remember “old” and “veteran” athletes in many sports are in their 30s….not 50’s or 60s. Most are burnt out and used up by then.
They don’t. In fact they often suffer joint degradation at an earlier age than people who are moderately active and have a healthy body mass. They spend an inordinate amount of time with sports therapists, physiotherapists, hydrotherapy etc, in order to prevent joint strain or minimise permanent damage from a current injury, but wear and tear is just degradation from use, and they are very rough on their bodies.
They don’t! There are entire professions built around rehabilitation from sports injuries, and pre/post game treatments for it.
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They really can’t, that’s why people stop being top athletes by their 30s because the older you get the longer it takes for your body to heal especially joints tendons and what not
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