If Ali had been born in the early 80's and in his full prime today, would he still be as fast as he was in 66-67 or would he be slower through having been bulked up with today's greater emphasis on weight-lifting? Or would he be just as fast, only bigger and stronger? Your thoughts?
I don't understand why you think weight lifting makes you slower? more muscle tissue will make you faster unless done to a ridiculous extreme (Think the buff and incredibly fast early Mike Tyson). Ali's body type was fairly lean and it would have been difficult for him to reach levels of bulk that would have been a problem.
i dont think his speed would have been effected but if he was born in 1980's and was in his prime today maybe his stle of boxing would be completely different. boxers try to model their styles against there hero's so maybe he would have tried to be a brawler like prime tyson who knows.
I'm not saying that more muscles would have slowed him down. It's merely a scenario I would like to have your views on. But with Holyfield I would say that he slowed down during the later half of the 90's due in part to putting on even more muscle. He looked faster say 91-93 than he did in his fights with Tyson for example. And if Ali had retained his speed, would he have retained his amazing stamina as well? What do you think?
That's some thing to picture! What a waste of Ali's talent that would have been! By the way, Tyson himself picked Ali as the greatest ever, but thankfully didn't try to imitate him.
Weight lifting doesn't have to make you slower or decrease your stamina, it depends on how you do it. If you're gonna do short sets lifting very heavy weights, you'll bulk up a lot but it doesn't help a boxer much. You need to train the endurance of your muscles, which means lighter weights and longer sets. That will make your body hard and toned, but not really heavier and slower.
So much wrong with this advice. Long sets and reps with higher weights burns out your nervous system and does not make you stronger nor faster. What adds bulk is extra calories and not heavy lifting. I lift heavy and explosive with the built of a 152lb sprinter because i train like one. And no, my speed and flexibility have not diminished in boxing and submission grappling, they have increased.
If Ali was born in the 1980's he would probably be a couple inches taller, stronger, and just as fast. People on average have been getting taller/larger over time. Forgot which country, Holland or The Netherlands, men are on average something like 5" taller than they were in the 1940's. It's such an issue that building codes have been revised so that doorways are now required to be much higher to accomodate all of the tall people.
If Ali were born in the 1980s he would be 3" taller, 11 lbs heavier with one extra limb. And also... he'd be a white woman.