This is what 41 year old Joe Johnson looks like today.

[Kblaze8855]

While the 7,000-year-old foragers had vastly stronger bones than the 700-year-old farmers, Shaw says that neither competes with even earlier hominids from around 150,000 years ago. “Something is going on in the distant past to create bone strength that outguns anything in the last 10,000 years.”

Bunch of indestructible Muggsy Bogues running around back then. I’d wanna back one down but I know he wouldn’t move an inch. I need a Durant on the squad to just shoot over those little bitches.

[FultzNationRISE]

While the 7,000-year-old foragers had vastly stronger bones than the 700-year-old farmers, Shaw says that neither competes with even earlier hominids from around 150,000 years ago. “Something is going on in the distant past to create bone strength that outguns anything in the last 10,000 years.”

The next step for Shaw and colleagues will be to provide insight into the kind of mobility that gave our ancient ancestors such powerful physical strength.

I got Shaw's answer.


Here.

[ArbitraryWater]

Extremely interesting thread.

Always nice when ISB brings some of his off-ISH knowledge into ISH.

[Full Court]

What exactly is the chick doing in the picture on the right?

[Loco 50]

16.jpeg[/IMG]

Is there a simple explanation for what it is we lose that makes us so much worse with time even when our body doesn’t show it?

The simplest explanation is the 2nd law of thermodynamics relating to entropy. In short, a closed system i.e. a body/environment must trend towards increased disorder/breaking if no outside forces are applied to maintain order/repair the system.

I assume it’s because you can’t see joints and tendons…how bones feel when you land. You can maintain the muscle but the total bodily support isn’t there so even guys like Joe who were never great athletes can’t maintain.

Right, stem cells that produce connective tissue, like fibroblasts or chondrocytes eventually turn themselves off with time. There are folks working on manipulating the cell factors that can turn the desired stem cells back on resulting in production of whatever the desired tissue may be, be tendon/cartilage, whatever.

This paper is from over ten years ago so there has been much advancement since then. We'd be much further along in this field had Dubya not pandered to the nutballs during his presidency, but it is what it is, and that's why Kobe went to Germany for his knee treatments decades ago.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3773876/

What I’m thinking about is…someone has to be working on this right?

Lots. Lots of money in this field and so many ways to approach the problems. You've got folks looking at outright replacing organs with machines which means upgrades will be available further into the future. We're already seeing that in cardiology and ophthalmology with pacemakers and lens replacements. Currently, in cards there is a mechanism that can be implanted called the total artificial heart that serves as a stop gap until an organ donor (in today's medicine) or an organ can be grown (potential future medicine).

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/healt...tificial-heart

Similarly, an artificial kidney is being developed

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...ers-180978721/

The drawback to foreign bodies/machines is of course autoimmune rejection so we've got other folks looking at revitalizing the body's natural machinery like the stem cells mentioned above along with other labs working on developing replacement organs to bypass the body's natural inclination to reject a foreign body. Meaning, a new heart, lung, kidney could be grown up using the patient's manipulated stem cell tissue. Since the tissue is derived from the patient the very serious problem concerning organ rejection is removed.

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtec...ing-a-road-map

Meanwhile, other areas are developing nanobots to clear out cholesterol from arteries. With that achievement in mind, what's to stop surgeons from employing these machines to clean up scar tissue post surgery or hell provide an even more precise surgery to begin with?

I’ve read from people I assume just googled it themselves that fast twitch fibers reduce with time and can’t be replaced but as I said I don’t trust the source.

This is true, for now so that opens up another field focusing on maintaining these muscle twitch fibers. This is not my field of expertise, but most cell death is signaled by either damage or the shortening of a dna structure called a telomere. Think of it as a wick. When that wick burns down, the cell signals that it's time to initiate cell death. The work here involves prolonging the existence of that telomere to keep in our case, muscle cell from a muscle fiber from deleting itself.

So long story short, it's been discovered that a cocktail of hGH, metformin and if I recall correctly, testosterone can help keep those telomeres in good shape, thereby staving off cell death. All that being said, when you stave off cell death the eventual outcome is inevitably cancer, so there is still a shit ton of work to be done here. You solve the cancer problem though and aging is essentially solved when telomeric lifespan is solved.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7990352/

https://www.spectracell.com/blog/pos...ones-and-aging

You go look at the old guys they mostly look like they used to or better. Melo looks better today than he did 20 years ago. Rondo and Dwight look about the same. Guys get old and realize they used to eat like shit and not stretch or sleep enough. They get in better shape…often get more skilled….and still get worse. Even the ones who weren’t explosive to begin with.

With technology and research we have lessened the long term impact of injuries…helped muscles work better for longer…

The training medical advances and technology are a huge part of why every five years for the last 40 people keep coming out and saying players are more athletic than they’ve ever been.

All of this advancement is boiled down to reducing inflammation, which reduces damage to cells, which reduces aforementioned cell death.

My question is this….

Assuming a super soldier serum is a pipe dream we will never defeat time and make a well tuned athlete of means with similar muscle stay at peak athleticism until he decides to stop maintaining it…


So are the advances just about done with? In 20 years are we still going to be saying how much more athletic the players are compared to what we see today? Will the standard for longevity be playing in the NBA in your 50s?

Change is incremental, sometimes so much so you don't even notice it. The advances are far from meeting there full potential. I believe in 50-60 years aging will have been solved for those that can afford the solution.

We don’t have THAT much More to do to our bodies do we? What could possibly happen from here? Is someone going to figure out that you can cross a peach with an avocado and create some monstrous purple fruit with a pit that makes you immortal?

Records will continue to be broken incrementally no doubt but we’re about done with shocking jumps aren’t we?

All that’s left is for us is to combine being able to look the same forever with maintaining the function of all the shit that makes us move…right?

So if that’s a pipe dream…is serious advancement of athletic potential and longevity over?

What can you imagine happening that will justify people in 2055 saying how much more athletic everyone in the nba/nfl is than they were in 2022?

Will everyone be Wilt who could have played at 50 but just got bored and did other things?

Optimization is only limited by our imagination, tbh.

We have laser corrective surgery that can give a patient better vision than they were born with. Extend that thinking to any organ/structure in the body.

Tinker with the muscle fiber making it more efficient in it's release of Ca++ causing a quicker than natural contraction. Tinker with a person's collagen mix to determine what exactly is the optimal density/strength/flexibility for optimum performance in your preferred sport.

The possibilities are limitless given time and resources.

Nice topic to ponder.

[FireDavidKahn]

I'll be quite honest...Is this really a shock to anyone?

41 isn't old at all if you've spent your entire life working out and if you continue to work out.

Obviously world class body but since he continued to workout out it shouldn't come as a surprise.

[AlternativeAcc.]

Bro he has low body fat% and ab genetics...

That's never been a sign for anything relating to basketball ability at the NBA level

[Kblaze8855]

Bro he has low body fat% and ab genetics...

That's never been a sign for anything relating to basketball ability at the NBA level

When it’s a guy who never played basketball. This is an unusually skilled basketball player with the body of an unusually fit person. But he is worse at it than he used to be. Worse even than less fit people who are also less skilled…but are younger. The issue is what inside your body takes your ability to play when you have similar skill and a similar or better set of the basic things that allows one to be athletic and if whatever hard to define aspect of performance that is can be maintained.

Nobody is saying body builders should be in the nba and I feel that’s pretty obvious. The question is about nba players who can’t stay in the nba while maintaining skill and the outward appearance of the same or better body. Whatever they lose is internal and I’d like to know the specifics.

And it seems I have a lot of reading on the subject to do above so I’ll do that….

[FilmyCogTurner]

Bunch of indestructible Muggsy Bogues running around back then. I’d wanna back one down but I know he wouldn’t move an inch. I need a Durant on the squad to just shoot over those little bitches.

Bro good luck with that post hook when it's closer to the logo at center court than it is is the basket. A bunch of N64 007 Oddjobs running around

[Wally450]

I'll be quite honest...Is this really a shock to anyone?

41 isn't old at all if you've spent your entire life working out and if you continue to work out.

Obviously world class body but since he continued to workout out it shouldn't come as a surprise.

Pretty much. Take care of your body and it will yield great results.

[iamgine]

When it’s a guy who never played basketball. This is an unusually skilled basketball player with the body of an unusually fit person. But he is worse at it than he used to be. Worse even than less fit people who are also less skilled…but are younger. The issue is what inside your body takes your ability to play when you have similar skill and a similar or better set of the basic things that allows one to be athletic and if whatever hard to define aspect of performance that is can be maintained.

Nobody is saying body builders should be in the nba and I feel that’s pretty obvious. The question is about nba players who can’t stay in the nba while maintaining skill and the outward appearance of the same or better body. Whatever they lose is internal and I’d like to know the specifics.

And it seems I have a lot of reading on the subject to do above so I’ll do that….

Other than the ligaments/tendons wear and tear (these parts doesn't/very slow to heal), one's VO2 Max also decreases with age. There's also a loss of flexibility which affect all areas of performance.

[PP34Deuce]

TO is 49 and running 4.5 consistently. Vince Carter is 44 and can still 360 and has stayed lean.

I imagine with the elite genetics and access to care, most guys are not going to be "fat" until they are older. I'm curious with guys like Lebron because I think Lebron at 50 could look like Karl Malone or he could go like Jordan and be pudgy but still athletic and whoop ass.

[imdaman99]

I saw a Westbrook video a couple weeks back, dude looks ripped as ever. But he's washed on the court. I dunno what the hell he practices during the offseason, it prob ain't ball-related.

[plowking]

Listening to some of the best strength and conditioning coaches in the world, they always preach that the best athletes are the ones that can best reproduce power output over time - aka repeatedly. So - the guy that benches 400lbs, might not be as good as the guy who benches 300lbs. It is more so determined on which one can produce the same force/power repeatedly for something like a 225lbs. Basically guys that can keep their power/strength over the course of a match/game.

We lose this as we age. As your T levels go down. Not only that you start losing elasticity in your muscles, and your skin. Ever wondered why 40 year old men look like they have huge forearms? They lose collagen.
When you start losing testosterone (on average 30 years old) you lose a lot of things with it. Ability to recover as well, ability to maintain muscle, to repair muscle, energy, etc. I'm sure there are a lot of other factors aside from just T levels.

[GrayGoat]

I really believe it’s plastic. All the microplastic in our bodies and blood. It’s been shown to mess up hormone levels.

I’ve been off jerking for over a week and it’s just insane the difference I feel. Looking at women is like, a high. I don’t feel anxiety at all. I don’t feel low energy. Im more creative, more social. The testosterone boost is invaluable. I can’t go back. First it was quitting porn then I finally built up the strength for nofap.

It perfectly explains why guys who lift a lot and juice go on about these confidence differences. It’s not their ego from a visual standpoint, it’s pure testosterone.

It’s really sad men are missing out on an entire experience of masculinity like this.


As far as the OP, the answer is anti-aging. A general rule in science is it is way, way, way harder to undo something than it is to prevent it. Look up David Sinclair’s Harvard Lab studies. He’s gotten elderly mice to beat young mice on treadmills just sustaining the natural biological processes that sustain athleticism and health - through certain drugs and compounds.

It does how ever take some god level foresight for a young guy to be in peak condition and decide to take something that simply sustains him, knowing that’s the goal. That’s not an exciting goal.

I was reading up on how micro plastics have been slowly shrinking men’s taints which somehow directly corresponds with fielding offspring. Basically micro plastics are the reason miscarriages are a lot higher and that mens semen are a lot weaker. Testosterone replacement therapy is the real answer