30 used to be regarded as getting over the hill in many sports. still is in league. boxers now are pushing to 40. are boxing athletes better conditioned, better nutrition? or is the competition now not as good, through less numbers, too many titles, and less quality fighters round to 'retire' fighters? .
I think advances in training and nutrition as well as longer time between fights and safer rules ( like no more 15 rounders) have all contributed to sports longevity. NRL players recieve accumulative damage from getting hammered every week on the field, a boxer has time to recover from his injuries. By the time an NRL player reaches 30 he has had a pretty hard run
agree with the league summary. tough sport for injuries. boxing is much better in that regard. with boxing, i think its just lack of talent world wide. where are the legends? is there one? there once was 3 or 4 in some categories. now we are lucky to see one in any. where are the haglers, leonards, hearns, duran. ali, frazier, norton, foreman......etc etc through all the divisions? nutrition has nothing to do with it. they all starve.....and always have ..(excpt the heavies). there is just a general lack of quality fighters. perhaps the worst in history.
Nutrition might have something to do with it. Availability of many legal nutritional supplements that have been shown to help maintain muscle conditioning, health of heart and lungs that simply weren't available back in the day. Thinking creatine, glutamine, carnitine etc Combating muscle deterioration with heavy weights which used to be a no no in many many gyms. But probably number one is the mental....most 'physical' limitations are actually mental. Sports psychology is a huge industry these days. But seeing a Hopkins do what he does shows another aging boxer that it is possible. The long recuperation periods definitely help In league it's starting to happen....a lot of the stuff is again just in peoples minds. I wouldn't object to having Steve Price or Beaver Menzies playing for my team at 35 years of age. BUt still 30 is regarded as a magic number. Boxing is also much more personal.....remember some guys are shot at 27 or 28 when they should be at their peak..........
got to agree with your suppliments. but work was harder, people were harder, the food was organic, air cleaner etc. there are trade offs. yeah well.......to each his own. i actually prefer women.
I still think an elite boxer is basically finished at about 35ish. Apart for Hopkins who else has been P4P after about 35/36/37 etc etc. Roy Jones has been totally finished for the last 3 or 4 yrs compared to his days as a top P4P fighter. Larry Holmes and George Foreman in their 2nd careers in their early 40's were just shadows of their former selves even though they were still competitive in the top 5 or 6 in the heavyweight division at the time. It doesn't look good for Mundine as he is about to turn 34.
I've always found the guys that rely on speed are the ones whos careers always end earliest. The wily crafty guys like Hopkins seem to have the best chance to have longer careers.
Boxers don't fight any where near as much any more which means they can fight on for many years longer then fighters of past generations have. Back in the 30s, 40s and 50s you had fighters having 80-100 fights before they were 30 in some cases, guys today don't have half as many fights in their career.