LAST EDITED ON 05-19-15 AT 09:17 AM (EST)Michel,
I really didn't mean to challenge your comparison. Rodney, like Crystal, is falling apart physically. However, I don't know anything, really, about what changes to the body occur - or how quickly whatever those changes may be do occur - when steroids are withheld from a person who has used them regularly and/or for an extended period of time. I would imagine, though, that the physical impact of withdrawal might well be immediate and acute.
And I was, primarily, thinking about the behavioral side-effects that prolonged steroid use purportedly imposes upon athletes and, via my own comparisons, I did mean to suggest that, in Rodney's case, milder manifestations of some of those same behaviors may just come ... naturally.
As for his physical performances in the Game:
I think Rodney is much more a 'Boutique Body' than an 'Accomplished Athlete'. He played some High School Football and Basketball (and his CBS biography says that he continues to play the latter). And in the Hobbies category of the biography he also mentions " Going to the gym, working out, video games, poppin’ bottles at the club and going to sporting events and concerts."
But there is no mention of running, walking, hiking, swimming, skiing, skating, riding, dancing, martial arts, mobility disciplines, a regular exercise program, etc.
So, even if we are to believe Rodney, casual Basketball (the biography doesn't suggest that he plays the sport in a competitive environment) is his only truly 'athletic' activity.
In other words, post Secondary School, it would seem that the Bostonian has been more dedicated to looking good at what he does (he is very proud of his legs ... ) than to actually being good at whatever that might be.
And I think that rapidly becoming neither while knowing that a not-inconsiderable number of Americans will eventually have front-row seats as that happens was probably a great kick in the ego for Rodney.
Honestly? I feel rather sorry for him. He so set himself up for a truly nasty fall.
G
Too, isn't there a theory that, in the absence of fat to burn, the body will consume muscle at a far more rapid rate than it otherwise would?