Just watched some basketball and parkour videos and I was wondering how their bodies can handle it
In: Biology
Many have the best training, nutrition, sports medicine docs, PEDs, and they’re still destroyed when they retire.
The average career length of professional athletes are shockingly short. Sure there are exemptions to the rule, but very few manage to stay on top for more than a couple of years and what nobody sees are the pain they have to endure the rest of their lives.
Few pro athletes stay in the game til their thirties. For most their career, they still have growing bodies. Furthermore, they take vitamins, medications and know how to train to keep their bodies in peak form but even then, it doesn’t last forever.
Our bodies adapt to how we use them. They are resilient and amazing.
Joints are made up of bone, cartilage, and muscle. As long as we get used to new activities slowly and build up over time, bones get stronger, cartilage gets more resilient to load, and muscles get stronger. All of these protect us.
Joints wear over time due to age; this is normal. Being strong protects us from the negative effects of this.
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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They don’t! There are entire professions built around rehabilitation from sports injuries, and pre/post game treatments for it.
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.
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 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
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