Larry Bird

[kidcolin]

Larry Bird also said he spent an offseason eating just popcorn and mountain dew because he wanted to come into the season "hungry".

Athletes, even legends like The Legend, don't tend to be the brightest bulbs.

[Paddy Murphy]

The Hick from French Lick was never the brightest bulb, he drank too much, smoked cigarettes and yes, probably never deadlifted, but he's still on Boston's Mt. Rushmore with Russell, Orr & Ted Williams.

Brady still has work to do to make up for the 2 Giants Super Bowls so he's stuck with Yaz, Big Papi & Ray Bourque on Little Rushmore

[Sinai]

All things being equal, like height, experience, and age, what is the difference between a grown man and a boy?

I don't think you'll find many grown men and boys with the same level of experience, unless they are complete novices. But it is pretty funny to watch grown men with no experience try to shoot hoops at the Y. Their adult strength doesn't get the basketball into the hoop any better than the 3rd graders.

I think the big thing, is that as an athlete training for a specific sport, you have limited time and energy. Would being stronger help certain aspects of his game? Sure. Would the time and energy invested in strength training cut into his time shooting hoops? Yes. Would the conditioning and practice for basketball cut into his recovery time? Yes. On a balance, would it have improved his game? Maybe, you don't know for certain what the balance would be.

And it's not like proper weight training makes you impervious to injury. I seem to recall reading in a book somewhere that injuries where a fact of life when training for strength...

[Mark Rippetoe]

Sinai, did you mean to post this shit on Facebook? Because this is a FB-level post, completely missing the not-especially-subtle point that strength helps any athlete. No one is suggesting that ... oh, fuck this. I have other shit to do.

[nykid]

Sinai, did you mean to post this shit on Facebook? Because this is a FB-level post, completely missing the not-especially-subtle point that strength helps any athlete. No one is suggesting that ... oh, fuck this. I have other shit to do.

Hahaha. I love you Rip.

[Bill Been]

I suspect almost everybody understands that the point of using an adolescent vs adult comparison is to conjure familiar imagery of the extremes in order to clarify the middle. Sometimes it's effective in helping people see the "all else being equal" value of increased strength. Sometimes it's not.

I'll state flatly that we wouldn't have had to watch Bird heart-breakingly laying prone in front of the bench in order to get enough relief to play a few more minutes for Team USA had he known of the benefits of trading some of that excessive time spent cardio in for a base of strength. The underlying assumption that this would've somehow diminished all the intangibles that made him so unique is without basis.

[Steve Hill]

Sinai, did you mean to post this shit on Facebook? Because this is a FB-level post, completely missing the not-especially-subtle point that strength helps any athlete. No one is suggesting that ... oh, fuck this. I have other shit to do.

You can't fix stupid.

[E_Miller]

I suspect almost everybody understands that the point of using an adolescent vs adult comparison is to conjure familiar imagery of the extremes in order to clarify the middle. Sometimes it's effective in helping people see the "all else being equal" value of increased strength. Sometimes it's not.

I'll state flatly that we wouldn't have had to watch Bird heart-breakingly laying prone in front of the bench in order to get enough relief to play a few more minutes for Team USA had he known of the benefits of trading some of that excessive time spent cardio in for a base of strength. The underlying assumption that this would've somehow diminished all the intangibles that made him so unique is without basis.

Excellent imagery: a small weak child vs a full grown man. I wonder who is better at shooting a basketball? This is a far cry from than the imagery of taking one of the greatest basketball players to walk the earth and suggesting he could have been EVEN BETTER if he were introduced to a barbell. The arrogance.

And you can flat out say anything you want. But you know with 0% certainty that injury would have been avoided with "base strength" (whatever that broad sweeping term means). Besides that fact that I have already stated a good strength program MAY have prolonged Bird's career.

[shabu]

Larry Bird pretty much spent the last few years of his career with debilitating back pain. at a guess, squats and deadlifts and "core strength" would have alleviated that, making him a better player and able to prolong his career.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Excellent imagery: a small weak child vs a full grown man. I wonder who is better at shooting a basketball? This is a far cry from than the imagery of taking one of the greatest basketball players to walk the earth and suggesting he could have been EVEN BETTER if he were introduced to a barbell. The arrogance.

Where do these fools come from? Facebook is cross-posting to our board suddenly???