Is Shaq doomed to die young?

[Folly]

@SpacemanSpiff_II

(fell apart for some reason).

Probably when he realized he’d be boxing Mohammed Ali.

[running_coach]

@pjd

You do not want to blow out your whatnot. -

Yeah. Those tend to snap.

[Telemark]

@Velocity

I’d always wondered how Shaq’s knees managed to hold up under the stress of a 300+ pound body constantly jumping up and down to grab rebounds or do dunks.

When the thread was started, 19 years ago, Shaq weighed in at 395 lbs by his own admission. That is up from the 294 he weighed when first drafted by the Magic in 1992. The 395 was his peak weight, dropping down to 325 for the 2005 Heat championship season.

[Asimovian]

Shaq is not doomed to die young. Gold Bond and efforts to make The General look like a reputable insurance company are doing wonders for him.

[SpacemanSpiff_II]

@Folly

Probably when he realized he’d be boxing Mohammed Ali.

Possible. But the point stands that he wasn’t just a tall thin guy.

Here’s an article about the proposed fight which specifically compares him to Shaq: What If Muhammad Ali Had Fought Wilt Chamberlain?

You want strength? Hill said Wilt was demonstrably stronger than two burly guys with whom you might be familiar – Shaquille O’Neal and the Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Hill said a long-retired Wilt went head-to-head with the young Shaq in a pickup game and still was able to do whatever he pleased.

“Wilt moved Shaq around like he was a rag doll,” Hill said.

And Schwarzenegger?

“Arnold, who was a world-class weightlifter and bodybuilder, was making the movie “Conan the Barbarian” with Wilt,” Hill continued. “When he wasn’t shooting his scenes, Arnold would work out with weights, and I mean really heavy weights. One day he was straining with the bar and Wilt walked over, almost casually lifted it three or four times, and set it down. Arnold did not work out with weights again the entire time Wilt was around. Wilt had ungodly strength.”

[md-2000]

@Velocity

I’d always wondered how Shaq’s knees managed to hold up under the stress of a 300+ pound body constantly jumping up and down to grab rebounds or do dunks. You’d have thought he’d blow out his ligaments or meniscus or whatnot.

I assume that there is also the correlation that if some part starts to go, this affects quality of life and therefore future prospects? Do people who are not as mobile, or wheelchair bound, arthritic, or whatever, tend to have shorter life expectancy? Certainly it would affect their ability to stay in shape which is good for longevity.

(And do really tall athletes who overuse or abuse their knees, ankles, or hips tend to have more problems with them later in life than the average sedentary guy?)

[snowthx]

@Asimovian

Shaq is not doomed to die young. Gold Bond and efforts to make The General look like a reputable insurance company are doing wonders for him.

Yeah, but the Papa John’s is cancelling-out that stuff.

[Kropotkin]

For those reading the whole thread, John Kenneth Galbraith died in 2006, age 97. His son, James K. (Kenneth, in both cases; père was “Ken” to friends) is also a pretty good economist, but I do not know how tall he is.

[Sage_Rat]

@Velocity

I’d always wondered how Shaq’s knees managed to hold up under the stress of a 300+ pound body constantly jumping up and down to grab rebounds or do dunks. You’d have thought he’d blow out his ligaments or meniscus or whatnot.

Heavy weights are actually good for joint health:

How Does Lifting Impact Your Joints? - Mufaddal Gombera, MD

That said, when it comes to things like squatting 500kg, I suspect that you’ve gone past the point of “giving your joints a good rub” and are simply applying more force than the materials can recover from.

I’m not sure that we know where the threshold is.