Well yeah, if you spend your life doing martial arts of combat sports your joints are probably absolutely fucked, and you’ve got no hope of getting meaningful exercise in without considerable pain. Hell, I’ve done BJJ for only ten years and my knees are a wreck. I know Seagal is into aikido and shit, but being rich I don’t blame him for being fat in his seventies. It’s really fucking hard to stay in shape when you get old.
Yeah no, if you actually spend your life doing sports and eating well you don’t look like that.
As a counter example, Jackie Chan is in his 70s and looks like this:
Another example, US Secretary of Defense who is still serving and only retired from the military in 2016 and has seen literal combat, and is 71:
If you’ve wrecked your knees with only 10 years of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu it’s likely because you started at a later age, and/or didn’t start off really fit but rather got fit through it.
Or have a predisposition to having weaker knees, such as being primarily of European ancestry (weaker joints + arthritis more likely in exchange for plague resistance).
Old people don’t magically become fat.
Only on Lemmy would someone with (likely) zero experience in combat sports tell someone that a sport known for rampant knee issues is “their fault”, and not due to the increased force on the knees from doing a ground-based sport.
Again, only on Lemmy would someone say “you can’t be fat in your seventies, these famous people aren’t”.
Can’t outrun the fork, fatty.
Caloric deficit > killing yourself on a treadmill
Weight loss is just math.
That ignores a huge psychological aspect of weight gain, alongside several questions that contribute:
- How does the body manage when someone goes from incredible, disciplined health - to no care
- How do you maintain a calorific deficit in ill health, or with limited mobility?
- How do you stop someone eating for fun when they’re in their twilight years and they want to enjoy themselves?
- How do you motivate someone that has gone from good mobility to bad mobility?
- How do you navigate a caloric deficit safely with both advanced age, retirement, AND diabetes?
I can say that for the latter points, it is incredibly hard to do so, looking at my parents and with people I’ve trained with. Furthermore, going from fighting fit to limited care can make you explode in both weight and joint issues. I’ve trained with a few army guys or people with pro sports experience, and it’s mad how even in your forties you can go from a sub-twenty minute 5k to throwing up on a mat during a 5 min spar.
That’s a surprisingly kind view of things, but yeah, my dad did mountaineering his whole life and fucked his knees proper, but also likes to enjoy good food, so now in his seventies and with diabetes creeping in, it’s a perfect combo for becoming fat.
I guess it’s a bit easier to mock Steven Seagal because he’s been so fit in his movies throughout most of his career, and now it turns out he was an asshole all along, on top of looking like an asshat even when I loved his movies. But mocking him for being an older human still feels rather cheap.
