What I am hearing is you need juice to gain 20+ pounds of muscle, and doesn't the stuff put you in a foul mood. Sounds like just what we need for Eddie. j/k, or at least 1/2k
Yeah.... when he was all of 19 years freaking old! Give him until he hits 21 before you start making fun of his muscle. Do you remember what Karl Malone looked like as a 20 year old Rookie?
I remember, he looked like someone carved his body out of granite. Karl Malone has always been a physical specimen with a incredible work ethic. Some of the guy who tried to work out with malone in the summers couldn't push themselves to his limit because of what he used to do. Legendary are the track sessions with a known sprinter along with the run through the mountains that would almost kill the avg man. Not to mention the weight work he has always put in. If Barkley had put in the same offseason work as Malone and its known that Barkley was the better athlete, who knows how much better he would have been. Barkley was known for coming into camp out of shape, but Malone always came into camp just like he left the last day of the season whcih is a testament to him and his workout.
10-15 pounds is the most muscle you can add in one year without steroids? Nope, not true. I have added 20 lbs of muscle in less than a year. Also have friends gain more. Smackpeddler, It is highly unlikely that you added 20 pounds of muscle in less than 1 year. There is a top nutritionist from New Zealand named Michael Colgan. He has trained many world class and professional athletes, and the most muscle weight gain he has seen in a year period was 18.8 pounds. This athelte is question was taking every supplement even thought to build muscle in a very controlled enviornment, with strict guidlelines on his general nutrition as well. I am not talking about weight gain in general, but muscle weight only. (the aforementioned example is from Opitmum Sports Nutrition) If you did not have your body fat tested by trained professional before your time period and again afterwards to enusre that your wieght gain was indeed all muscle and not a combination of muscle and bodyfat then your results are not valid. 15 pounds is considered the most muscle an average person can gain in a year. I am sure that there are some exceptions to this, but I can assure you that most will fall with the "average". The crap you read in muscle and fiction, and various other muscle rags is written to sell you supplements.
So the questions becomes the following. Should I draft the physically gifted player (Amare Stoudamire) or the Skilled player (like a 6'10 Yao Ming). Given that muscle mass is so hard to put on. It would seem logical that I would draft the physically gifted player and try to teach them how to play basketball. Because teaching a skill is much easier than putting on muscle. Who falls on which side of the model. Have Muscle - teach skills K. Malone .... Have Skill - Teach Muscle Olajuwon ....
Muscle mass shouldn't be the focus when training B-ball players. Functional strength is the goal. I played against a guy that was about 300, and he tried to post me up and couldn't move me. I am only 235 pounds, but I have squatted over 500. Strength should always be the goal when training athletes. Adding mass in B-ball isn't productive. Barkely wasn't the biggest guy on the court, but the dude could back ANYONE under the basket- why? because he is as strong as an ox. B-ball is a relative strength sport, meaning how strong a guy is relative to his bodyweight. B-ball involves alot of change of direction, stopping and starting, and jumping. How well you do at these physical skills is determined by your relative strength. EG (and Yao for that matter) simply needs to get stronger, not necessarily bigger. Another great example is KG. That is a skinny but strong guy, and that is what I would like to see from EG physically. Look at Shaq, here is an example of mass being a hinderance. Yea, he can push everyone around, but the guy has had alot of injury problems over the past several years. I believe this is directly due to the fact that his weight is getting out of control. I laugh because I have read all these articles discussing his off season training and how he is "bigger and stronger than ever". I can't understand why a guy who is already the biggest and probably the strongest would spend any time improving an area where he is already superior. Imagine how dominant he would be if he dropped to about 310, and kept his strength but added more quickness and better movement abilities around the basket. Scary thought!
Karl Malone at age 23 in NBA: 14.9 points per game 8.9 rebounds per game .496 from field 225lbs. At age 24 21.7 points per game 10.4 rebounds per game 240lbs. At age 25 27.7 points per game 12.0 rebounds per game 245lbs. Not to say that EG will be KM but that true body development for a big man will occur between the ages of 23 and 25. Look at Garnett and Kobe.
We hear the same crap from management every year. They never give honest answers, just a bunch of rosey crap. (Although it may be true that Eddie added muscle). How many times have you heard this? Hakeem has come into camp in the best shape of his life. If that's true why was he huffing and puffing so bad those last 2 years? Every year they say the same thing about Glen Rice and Maurice Taylor too. It's a completely meaningless statement. It's just something that comes out of their mouths automatically. If anything that management says comes true, it will be pure coincidence.
Stevel, Are you taking into account that these aren't average people? I personally wouldn't expect that Eddie could put more than 15 lbs in a year, but I'm pretty sure a person with endomorphic tendencies could put on as much as 30 lbs of muscle in a year. I bet I could give you 20. I understand that there are studies to back up what you're saying, but when I was in athletics I saw plenty of people gain more than that in a year. I just think it's a little irresponsible to just assume someones juicing. There's just too much variance from one person to the next.
PLEASE DO NOT COMPARE EDDIE WITH YAO AGAIN.. That is simply absurd. Yao shoots better, smarter and understands how to play basketball.
Nice post. Anyone who had doubts about how strong Charles was "in his declining years" (right!) should have had them laid to rest when Barkley picked Shaq up and body-slammed him, in one of my favorite moments of the last years of the previous era. That was sweet.
I worked out with the trainers at the university of houston. My waist size was 33 both before and after the weight gained. I was not the only person they worked with that gained over 15 lbs in one year. They did measure us for body fat before and after. I have seen people increase their weight alot in a single year. Unless the trainers didnt know how to measure body fat, and the waist being the same or close to it.
Endomorphs are people with high levels of bodyfat, I think you mean mesomorphs as someone that can easily gain muscle. For the record 90% of B-ball players are ectomporphs, and these somatotypes have a hard time gaining muslce. Add that to the fact that they play B-ball EVERYDAY, and the fact that they are burning a ton of calories. Where is there muscle mass supposed to come from. You have to eat an additional 2500 calories beyond your daily requirement to gain 1lb of muscle. These guys have a tremendously high daily requirement just to maintain body weight. B-ball players probably have the toughest time of all athletes, save for soccer players and marathon runners, of gaining muscle. Can you gain more then 15 pounds in a year - YES, all muscle - NOT LIKELY! I guess the experts could be wrong but I will take my 17 years of training experience and the findings of PHDs over lay people anyday. Do I think that it is irresponsible to say that people that gain more than 15 pounds of muscles in a year are taking juice - NO! Truth is they probably are, and I personally don't see anything wrong with that as long as it is against the rules of the sport that you play. Fact is there are more athletes than you realize taking performance enhancing substances.
A few questions- Did you have your bodyfat tested hydrostatically (underwater)? There is a +\- 3% range of accuracy with calipers. Also, did the same person do your test pre and post test? This can also influence results. For example a 200 pound person with 15 % body fat has 30 pounds of fat. If you tested the same person again and got 18% (this is highly possible) they would have 36 pounds of fat. Thus is the person gained 13 pounds of muscle in a time period, the variation in bodyfat would show an actual weight gain of 19 pounds. When you say trainers, who are you talking about - strength coaches, and if so who? I would like to speak with them. What did your program consist of? Was this part of a scientifically valid study, or was this part of a class?
