I'm not a physiologist nor kinesiologist but these are my thoughts.
Thanks for your detailed/insightful post.
I never said I was either. I did say it was based on my experience in having transformed my body to compete at a higher level athletically (collegiately in my case) and studying training as well; from your comment, i infer that you haven’t had the same experience with
your own body.
Compared to many other sports, baseball is a relatively passive sport unless you are a pitcher or catcher. Jog out to SS or RF for 3-4 innings, maybe catch a routine fly ball or ground ball and then spend time between innings sitting in the dugout. Then an at bat which could be relatively easy on the body or require a sudden burst of physical energy. Then boom, something happens. Compare that to basketball, football, tennis, golf or even hockey which requires almost constant motion and activity.
If you reread my post, I agreed in essence with your comment.
Guys like Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Jim Kaat, Pee Wee Reese, etc probably didn't spend the off season in the gym getting ripped.
Ahh, the good old days argument, you must have spent your formative years watching those guys play
Interesting how you focused on
getting ripped, when I already explained that was the result of adding weight to one’s frame; it is a colloquial term for working out, like getting jacked or shredded: if you do it religiously and with the proper amount of zeal, it will happen. It’s ahin yo a Jedi mindset, to enable one to keep training/transforming when everything is telling you to stop, cause it sux on many days.
The most weights they lifted were likely a case of beer, a couple bags of groceries or their kids.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention how the game has evolved: much more travel due to the expansion of baseball outside of the East coast and Midwest. Ball players, on average, are bigger, stronger.so they throw and hit, on average, much harder than their counterparts from the 50s-60s.
You also failed to mention greenies and how being hopped on speed was common place in baseball from after WW Ii, until it was banned, for obvious reasons in 2006.
Here’s some info on it from an article discussing its history/prevalence in MLB, in case you weren’t aware of its existence -
https://nypost.com/2007/01/12/greenies-at-a-glance/
Yet most of them were seldom injured.
This sounds like a recollection, so no data, correct?
I’m curious, was there any mechanism for reporting injuries then to the public?
Now the emphasis seems to be building muscle and body mass to become bigger, stronger, faster and often, as a result, more prone to injury.
Is there anything other than your opinion to support your argument?
Today the IR lists for baseball far outweighs that of any other sport.
I wonder how the length of the season in baseball, twice as long as any other major sport, impacts said injuries.
It seems to me that guys like Lewis and Buxton should focus more on flexibility, increased range of motion and stretching the muscles and tendons. I remember this from my college kinesiology course back in the mid-60's:
Strength builds stability while flexibility builds mobility. Strength and flexibility need to be in balance and I wonder if the scale often tips towards strength.
To clarify, if you are training Correctly, you
are spending time on stretching and mobility: I could almost do the splits when I played (I was a first sacker) @ 6’0” 210lbs.
I shouldn’t have assumed that
others would understand that -my error.
I was fortunate as my HS S&C coach/defensive coordinator had a mandatory stretching/warm up and cool down program after lifting; this was in the mid 80s, so he was ahead of his time. Stretching isn’t sexy, I was occasionally mocked for it, but it sure is effective.
If I was Lewis, with his access to resources he has, I’d spend ~half my time on yoga/pilates and the other half on adding strength/weight to his frame. At his age, it very easy to add muscle with a good off season program and then have maintenance during the season.
Another important factor which may impede todays athletes is the Standard American Diet. The vast majority of us are far less healthy then the previous generations and a lot of it has to do with the decrease in the quality of food we consume.
Based on what specific data (regarding their health)? I spent the majority of my business career in providing data to pharma companies, so I always ask why, when someone posits abl. opinion like this.
We certainly know more about nutrition now, than the players of yesteryear, but there is now, I’m guessing, far more pre- packaged processed food and of course, fast food has increased exponentially since it was introduced.
, but was only batting.214.
www.cbssports.com
. It certainly won’t hurt him.
www.mlb.com
