Arnold discusses Wilt's strength...

[bebopdeluxe]

The funny thing to me about people who say Wilt's strength (like bench press) is just a myth, as well as with his other accolades, just because it is too impressive to be believed, is that Wilt's mythical strength has been corroborated at multiple points in his life by his university, Arnold Schwarzenegger, people who went to the gym with him after his retirement, his NBA peers, reporters, and so on...

It's fine to be skeptical, but at some point you are simply subjectively deciding what not to believe because of your prejudices. These type of opinions are simply worthless. Saying it is impossible for someone to be that strong and ignoring 10+ documented references is a valueless contribution. It is necessary to ignore such opinions, because if that were valid reasoning we would have to dismiss everything we could not see with our own eyes, i.e., any particularly unique historical event. That is the foundation of ignorance.

It is common for people to believe that THEIR experiences and the world that THEY live in is the best of all time...and to discount or devalue what they did not experience. However, urban myths aside, the accomplishments (DOCUMENTED accomplishments) of Wilt Chamberlain over the course of his life - across MULTIPLE sports - cannot be thrown in the trash simply because people want to believe that the current reality is the only reality that matters.

JaVale McGee? Really?

[bebopdeluxe]

The older the player the more overrated he is. People will always say, that Wilt>>>Shaq,Dream, Whoever and that Cousy would probably dominate the hell out of today's NBA )) It's like this in every sport. I bet in 50 years time people will be saying that Dwight could lift 800 and dunk from 3 point line ))
And yeah, there's no way he could bench press 500, people who claim he could don't know a single thing about body building and human body.

Nobody will say Dwight could bench 500 pounds and dunk from the 3pt line because nobody has ever seen him do either of those things! When it comes to Wilt these are not Bible stories of 2000 years ago, people that are still alive and not insane are saying he did these things, they saw him do it. I 100% guarantee nobody 40 years from now is going to say Dwight was dunking from the 3pt line but the cameras were never rolling when he did it.

Remarkable freak athletes did exist on our planet in the 60's and 70's, we are not in a genetically exclusive period of time in which we have exclusivity to amazing transcending athletes. Bob Beamon held the long jump record by a wide margin for over 20 years. Alexander Karelin is still widely regarded as the hands down best wrestler that's ever lived. Nobody thinks Sidney Crosby is as good a hockey player as Gretzky, Lemieux or Orr even though he clearly has access to better nutrition and training methods.

We are not talking about men from ancient Greece being on par with the athletes we see today, we are talking about less than a half century ago which is totally reasonable to believe especially when corroborated by men that are still living.

It is USELESS to try to convince people like the person you quoted...their minds are made up, and NO rational discussion will be effective with them.

[bebopdeluxe]

Its crazy to me how people think Wilt or KAJ were overrated. a 7'2 stiff with a mediocre jumpshot like Hibbert is a max contract player in todays league, but Wilt and Kareem couldn't dominate?? LOL

Well played, sir.

[Prospect Dong]

wilt is the greatest athlete of all time, thorpe being second but that's by accomplishment. if we're talking flat out phyisicality, wilt makes everyone else look silly. btw, he also ran the 440 i believe.

In basically every athletic endeavour for which their are objective benchmarks the best ever athlete, hell, often the entire top 5 best ever athletes have been from this century.

At the top end of sports, and this is much more true of basketball than it is of athletics or swimming, there is much, much more money at stake. Players are scouted earlier, trained better, fed better, medicated better (sometimes much, much better, if you catch my meaning) analysed better and rewarded better. And, just as you would expect, where we actually measure performance they jump higher, run faster and lift heavier weights.

It's not impossible for the best athlete ever to have been born at a time when he would have to have been many, many more standard deviations above the mean for elite athletes back then, but it's astronomically unlikely, and no amount of anecdotal evidence is going to convince me that it's just a coincidence that the average age of an athletic world record is fraction of the time that has passed since Wilt's peak.

Here's a good article about how myths spread even in the modern, internet, pre-draft combine era - http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/4307/james-white-vs-a-jumping-myth
when I hear Wilt stories - and I'm not in any way denying he was a freak athlete and an incredible player - I think about those sorts of stories amplified through the mists of time.

[druggas]

Isn't it funny, that the posters who don't believe that Wilt accomplished the feats that he did, only have their opinion and no other facts to back it up.

Yet people who played with Wilt, knew Wilt, or wrote about Wilt, supply eye witness account over and over.

They'll probably say the same things about Jordan in 30 years too!

[bledredwine]

Isn't it funny, that the posters who don't believe that Wilt accomplished the feats that he did, only have their opinion and no other facts to back it up.

Yet people who played with Wilt, knew Wilt, or wrote about Wilt, supply eye witness account over and over.

They'll probably say the same things about Jordan in 30 years too!

Seriously.

My thoughts exactly.

They have so many credible witnesses, a lot of feats recorded and some even on video

[D.Brasco]

Nate M.F. Thurmond

[bebopdeluxe]

Nate M.F. Thurmond

Yeah...another old-timer that would get PWNED by JaVale McGee...

[Kabookalu]

I do agree to an extent that his stories may be exaggerated. And I have no proof of that, but over my years of living I've discovered that humans have a tendency to exaggerate stories when they see something very amazing happen in front of them. And that's just human nature; there are countless dunks I've seen live that I've always thought were "the BEST dunk ever" but when you replay it again it's deserving of a top 10 play of the day, but hardly a GOAT dunk.

However I believe in his strength and athleticism. There's a video demonstrating Wilt's speed where he gets up the court in 3 seconds. This is not what I'm talking about but it illustrates my point nonetheless:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFy1i7mv0-I[/youtube]

And he's one of few people to block the Skyhook. And he did that when his knees were already shot. And he did it twice, in the same game, in the same possession.

[ardee]

Speaking of which, you want to know how I got these scars?

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=98298

Since we're talking about Wilt's strength, this is the best thread ever

[mattg]

Isn't it funny, that the posters who don't believe that Wilt accomplished the feats that he did, only have their opinion and no other facts to back it up.

Yet people who played with Wilt, knew Wilt, or wrote about Wilt, supply eye witness account over and over.

They'll probably say the same things about Jordan in 30 years too!

Virtually all of wilt's track and field feats are myths, ask anyone who actually knows track or just check Kansas history. The exaggeration with regard to what wilt could do on the track was absurd.

[MacGill]

I do agree to an extent that his stories may be exaggerated. And I have no proof of that, but over my years of living I've discovered that humans have a tendency to exaggerate stories when they see something very amazing happen in front of them. And that's just human nature; there are countless dunks I've seen live that I've always thought were "the BEST dunk ever" but when you replay it again it's deserving of a top 10 play of the day, but hardly a GOAT dunk.

However I believe in his strength and athleticism. There's a video demonstrating Wilt's speed where he gets up the court in 3 seconds. This is not what I'm talking about but it illustrates my point nonetheless:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFy1i7mv0-I[/youtube]

And he's one of few people to block the Skyhook. And he did that when his knees were already shot. And he did it twice, in the same game, in the same possession.

Just with respect to the video posted. In case it is not obvious to all, it is sped up. It's not real time.

[Tave]

I do agree to an extent that his stories may be exaggerated. And I have no proof of that, but over my years of living I've discovered that humans have a tendency to exaggerate stories when they see something very amazing happen in front of them. And that's just human nature; there are countless dunks I've seen live that I've always thought were "the BEST dunk ever" but when you replay it again it's deserving of a top 10 play of the day, but hardly a GOAT dunk.

However I believe in his strength and athleticism. There's a video demonstrating Wilt's speed where he gets up the court in 3 seconds. This is not what I'm talking about but it illustrates my point nonetheless:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFy1i7mv0-I[/youtube]

And he's one of few people to block the Skyhook. And he did that when his knees were already shot. And he did it twice, in the same game, in the same possession.

Just with respect to the video posted. In case it is not obvious to all, it is sped up. It's not real time.

Yep, they sped Wilt up and left the other players at normal speed in order to perpetuate the vicious lie that Wilt was an amazing athlete.

Seriously though, I think it's just the frame rate.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Wilt Chamberlain documented achievements include:

- Dunked from top of the key (19.9") during a college game at Kansas. It was a reverse dunk.
- Beat legendary RB Jim Brown in a foot race. Three straight times. While wearing a suit. And without shoes. And, he cut his foot during the first race. Brown was wearing shorts and tennis shoes.
- Beat HOF guard Jerry West in long-range shooting contests every time they battled at practice. (Evidently, shooting 23 footers is easier than shooting 15 footers)

Each of these exploits are documented. In print. By none other than Wilt himself. Granted, each is a half-truth, exaggeration or flat-out lie. There are so many falsehoods out there about Wilt. And nobody championed those more than arguably the most selfish/mercurial player in NBA history... Wilt Chamberlain.


[Note: He was awesome and could compete in any era. But, the guy was a liar and failed to live up to his promise.]

[Sothron]

I always knew wilt was extremely strong but i had my doubts for andre due to the fact he had a disorder but i guess he really was a strong sob.

Uh...wha? I'm old enough to have seen Andre wrestle in person. He could literally pick up 300-400 pound men with one hand and just hold them in the air effortlessly and then fling them out of the ring with one hand. The man was insanely strong.

[SichtingLives]

A few things:

* someone, somewhere, has to be the strongest, toughest, meanest, etc. Naturally their stories will be taken with a grain of salt by some, while other stories will almost certainly be blown out of proportion. Doesn't mean the tales are necessarily false though, they are often deeply rooted in reality if not entirely accurate in some cases. And I have to say, there is plenty of tangible proof today of Wilt's enormous strength and physical ability.

* It's easier to disparage past generations than it is to talk them up, simply for the fact that time and numbers are on the side of the modern naysayer.


aside....

I just finished a book on the history of Tombstone, AZ, which was written in the early 1900's and is first hand accounts from residents (or I guess second hand as told to the author) of the every day going-on's of the town and many of it's habitants. What you see in the movie is a mish mash of these stories, but many are very rooted in reality. It was a way different time but these characters on the old frontier were ****ing absolute badasses......yet most of these stories told today would be laughed off as fables, puffed up pieces of fiction that no one could verify on youtube or through a Drake song, so obviously they can't be true....sorry to mock, but that's the mentality some people have when really, are some of these stories really so hard to believe?

.....

point is, this era is different than every other, but human beings in general and physical strength haven't advanced nearly to the point some people think. There have been many physical freaks of nature throughout history; even without modern weight training, they existed. Some people seem to think we've evolved as a species in the past 20 years.....well, our technologies certainly have, our bodies have benefitted to some extent (and to other extents, suffered) because of it, but we as a species are not stronger or more fit than we were 50 years ago. Professional athletes certainly have the leg up preparation-wise today (which isn't to say on a case by case basis each modern athlete is stronger, more talented/athletic than their predecessors). But on the whole as a society, it's actually quite opposite. I'll stop there, not trying to write my own book.

[tranjSAIC]

Yeah... there is a bunch of hyperbole with all the Wilt stories... It is too bad writerman got his ass banned for being an idiot on the boards. He would be all over this topic.

He got banned? Dang I need to come on here more often, that guy was funny. Some of the crap he would say had me SMH.

[Prospect Dong]

point is, this era is different than every other, but human beings in general and physical strength haven't advanced nearly to the point some people think.

As I said above, everywhere we can objectively measure them, they advanced by a lot. Take a look at documented world record bench press figures through time, just as an example.

Where we can measure, the top end of the spectrum has improved by a relatively large amount. My guess is that the same happens where we can't measure, but it's much harder to debunk exaggerated stories in those fields.

Take this for example, from a recent New Yorker article on body building:

it wasn’t until 1953 that the first five-hundred-pound bench press was done,” Rogers said. “Today, you have guys who are doing a thousand pounds."

So maximum bench press has more than doubled in the last 60 years.

[LLJ]

But people aren't being "born" stronger now than before--that makes no sense. It's obviously because we have better ways of maximizing strength through diet, training, etc,.

Chances are, if Wilt was one of the strongest guys in his era, then with modern training he would be one of the strongest guys in today's era. Obviously if we just put the 1960s version of him in a time machine and asked him to compete with modern athletes without the benefit of modern training and diets, he might be at a disadvantage.

It'd be like asking, what if we took the best athletes today and gave them 1960s training? Then obviously they would be great by 1960s standards, but probably not as good compared to the best athletes trained with modern methods.

A great athlete from a past era probably would be a great athlete in today's era with the benefit of modern training, though race exclusion in many athletic contests of the past would obviously throw doubt on past athletic achievements (still, even say the fastest running white guy in an all-white athletic contest would probably still be a pretty damned fast guy today with today's modern training).

However, the race issue doesn't apply to Wilt's case anyway.

[KembaWalker]

without modern training Wilt was a 7'1 behemoth who played over 48mpg and played heavy minutes when the league was at a dramatically faster pace. hes a ridiculous athlete for ANY era including this one where youre lucky to get 35mpg of much slower pace out of your 7 footers without injuring them