Michael Jordan is playing in the NBA again at age 38, but battling knee tendinitis and looking more mortal than he ever did before his three-year absence from the court.
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| Suzie McConnell Serio had plenty of playing and coaching experience to rely on when she got a chance to play in the fledgling Women's National Basketball Association in her early 30s. (Peter Diana, Post-Gazette) |
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Mario Lemieux similarly came out of retirement at 35 last year, leading the Penguins to the NHL's Eastern Conference finals, but he's played little in the new season because of a hip injury and surgery.
Former Penn State basketball star Suzie McConnell Serio was out of competition even longer, taking six years off before joining the WNBA in 1998. She played three seasons before retiring last year at 35, after battling injuries and regretting the time apart from her four children.
Such are the perils and rigors of the life of an older professional athlete, especially one returning from years away from the game. It's hard enough to play against the top athletes in the world when you're at your physical peak. When the aging process starts taking its toll, Joe Superstar can't escape it any more than Joe Sixpack -- he can only hope to contain it.
"Regardless of who you are and what your training status is, inevitably you're going to lose some muscle mass and muscle strength," in addition to cardiovascular decline that reduces endurance and stamina, said Robert Mazzeo, a professor of exercise physiology at the University of Colorado.
"I'm sure [Michael Jordan] would be the first to admit he's not as fast or explosive" as he was in his 20s.
Most NBA analysts still expect Jordan to be a star, just not one who leaves jaws gaping with his high-flying dunks. There's no mandatory retirement age for athletes, and no shortage of examples of those who still dominate competitors a decade younger than themselves.
The roster of baseball's new World Series champions, the Arizona Diamondbacks, is full of veterans in their mid- to late 30s. The two fireballing pitchers who shared Most Valuable Player honors, Randy Johnson, 38, and Curt Schilling, 34, also were Nos. 1 and 2 in the National League in strikeouts.
They follow in the footsteps of immortals such as Nolan Ryan, who pitched in the major leagues for more than two decades and threw his record seventh no-hitter at age 44.
Ryan is a good example of someone whose genetics, conditioning and ability to avoid injury put him on the extreme end of a bell curve that covers the effects of aging on most athletes, as well as the general population, noted Michael Sachs, a Temple University sports psychologist.
"There's a few folks at the end, but for most, the 99.9999 percent or whatever it is, after they reach peak there's a certain number of years where they can perhaps maintain quality performance, but then they start inevitable decline," Sachs said.
Peak performance years vary according to the sport. For female gymnasts and skaters, where jumps and flexibility are essential, it can be in their teens. For sprinters, it might be early 20s. Top long-distance runners and power lifters may be in their 30s.
But generally, said UPMC Center for Sports Medicine physician Dr. David Stone, aerobic capacity and maximal athletic performance peak around 25. Depending on the sport, an athlete may maintain those peak levels into the early 30s.
"The drop off between 25 and 35 is much less than, say, between 45 and 55," Stone explained, with an athlete losing less than 0.5 of a percent of maximum physical potential annually in his 30s, compared to perhaps 1 percent a year in middle age.
In addition to aging's effects on their muscle mass and maximum heart rate, those in their 30s tend to put on fat because they can't burn calories as efficiently. Reaction time slows. Muscles and tendons become less flexible, meaning they might tear instead of stretch in response to pressure.
When Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer attempted a comeback at 45, after seven years in retirement, he lasted all of 38 pitches in a spring training outing before injuring a hamstring and putting his glove away for good.
Particular dangers for athletes coming out of retirement are a loss of conditioning and misunderstanding what their bodies now are capable of, compared to teammates who have played without interruption.
"They're much more susceptible to over-use injuries," Stone said. "They have a memory of what their body was like, but they don't have an understanding of what it's like at this point."
But part of what makes the best athletes so great is their mental aptitude as well as physical abilities, and for individuals such as Jordan and Lemieux, that aspect should only improve with maturity rather than decline.
"As the body starts to age, the demands on the mind become greater, and you have to be smarter, including smarter in the way you take care of yourself and try to recover from injury," said Stephen Russo, director of the sports psychology program of the UPMC sports medicine center.
Un-retirees like Jordan and Lemieux may benefit from participating in team sports, where part of their value is filling leadership roles, rather than attempting comebacks in individual sports where success rests on one's own performance.
A decade ago, former tennis star Bjorn Borg and former Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz both failed to impress observers with comeback attempts in their individual sports, in which anyone over 30 is usually over the hill.
Perhaps because top female athletes have so few team sport opportunities compared to men, there are fewer examples of them excelling into their 30s.
An exception was swimmer Dara Torres, who came back from a seven-year hiatus to compete successfully at last year's Sydney Olympics.
"We're showing people that you don't have to put an age limit on your dreams," Torres said after winning one of her five medals.
But women face some realities that men don't.
McConnell Serio found that caring for four children complicated her conditioning program, one already made more imposing by her age and childbirths.
"I found that as I got older and tried to train as hard as I did when I was younger, my body tended to break down from nagging injuries," said McConnell Serio, who endured tendinitis (inflammation of the tendons), muscle strains and stress fractures with the Cleveland Rockers.
She'd never experienced such difficulties when competing in two Olympics. Yet when the WNBA beckoned, she felt she had to train as hard as she once did to compete at the level she was accustomed to.
McConnell Serio said smarts that came with age and experience, assisted by years of coaching high school basketball, helped compensate for her lost quickness when she entered the Women's National Basketball Association against younger players. As a rookie in the league's second year, she won first-team All-WNBA honors.
Marjorie Snyder, associate executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation, said only recently have team sports for women presented them with income opportunities encouraging them to remain competitive as they age.
But in individual sports, the age of the top competitors has been declining, which Snyder said is due in part "to the shift toward athleticism and away from grace and artistry in sports like gymnastics, diving and figure skating."
Tara Lipinski captured the last Olympic gold medal in figure skating at age 15, and immediately retired. Most of today's top female tennis players are in their teens and early 20s, with Jennifer Capriati seemingly ancient by comparison at 25.
Some physiologists pointed out that the women's sports receiving the most attention are ones where the earliest effects of aging -- weight gain and loss of flexibility -- are the most costly.
Robert Wiswell, a former Atlanta Braves pitcher who is an exercise physiologist at the University of Southern California, noted that a female gymnast will never be more flexible than in her preteen years.
"By the time they get to be women, we see declines in the connective tissue. It becomes a little stiffer, and you lose your mobility and potential to do some of the gymnastics," Wiswell said. Strength is more important to male gymnasts than to the female competitors, and they don't face any drop-off of that in their 20s.
Wiswell said studies have suggested that loss of strength arrives earlier for women than for men. Other lifestyle priorities, such as McConnell Serio's emphasis on motherhood, may also deter women more than men from competing at a later age.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, considering some of the embarrassments created by men who cling to competition long past their prime. Boxers such as George Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran have earned more mockery than respect for their eagerness to keep collecting a paycheck in the ring into their 40s.
Few predict that Michael Jordan will make a fool of himself, even though he may not achieve his former level of accomplishment. Sports history is littered with other regretted comebacks, including one by the great Bob Cousy of the NBA's Boston Celtics, but sometimes the natural skills of the individual eclipse all other considerations.
That's what many expect will happen with Jordan, if he can avoid injury.
"And if someone like Michael or Mario can try to push back the clock, can say 'I'll still get myself in shape to play,' that's great, because maybe other 38-year-old people who have been sedentary can say, 'OK, I'll get out in my neighborhood league and play,'" said Sachs, the Temple psychologist.
