At the time Myers was 42 and in his fifth year as the general manager of the Warriors. He loved his job—but what he really loved was playing the game. He’d starred in high school, walked on at UCLA and basically never stopped. Rec leagues, the YMCA, some dude’s driveway. Myers loved playing ball the way that some people love running or cooking or painting—with a deep, consuming passion that rushes up from the core. And in it he found not just joy but also identity and the escape that comes from a flow state, when the stress of life is muted and all that remains is the next possession or corner jumper.
Now that was threatened. When the ache spread to his hip, Myers chose the time-tested approach of athletes everywhere: He ignored the pain and kept going. And 10 years earlier that might have worked. The aging body, however, has a long memory. It didn’t matter that Myers was in ridiculously good health—he exercised daily, ate well and had the body fat of a greyhound. The invoice on all those years of sprinting and leaping had come due.
“It felt like my leg was exploding,” he says.
Myers underwent a series of surgeries, but none fixed the issue. Finally a doctor gave him the bad news: He needed a hip replacement. And this freaked him out. Partly because he saw himself as far too young for a replacement, and partly because of the recovery time, but mainly because of what it all might mean. He began inquiring about plastic versus metal, about the best surgeons and hospitals. But what he really wanted to know—the question so many of us ask at some point, whether we’re professional or weekend athletes—was: Will I still be able to play?
He was not yet ready to entertain the next question. What will I do if the answer is no?
Last February a giddily inebriated 43-year-old man staggered off a boat in Tampa. The world had a good laugh about it: Tom Brady looks hammered! That it was funny, even endearing, was on account of the context, because of course Brady never gets drunk (that we know of). He supposedly monitors everything that enters his body, much as a trader monitors the tiniest fluctuations in the market, surviving on a diet void of sugars, starches, dairy or anything else that tastes good or is fun to eat.
Brady is among a cadre of athletes redefining what it means to be old, at least by the standards of pro sports. Oksana Chusovitina, a gymnast from Uzbekistan, just competed in her eighth Olympics, at 46, while Sue Bird won her fifth gold medal in basketball, at 40. In May, Phil Mickelson became the oldest golfer to win a major, at 50. The list goes on. Diana Nyad swam from Cuba to Florida at 64. Hélio Castroneves won the Indy 500 at 46. Vince Carter kept dunking in the NBA right up until he was 43.
Still, for decades we’ve been warned about the ravages of time. Starting around age 35 we begin to lose roughly 1% of our muscle mass every year. Simultaneously, we become more prone to injury, as our ligaments and tendons stiffen and our cartilage thins, like an eraser wearing down to the nub.
Meanwhile, our average VO2 max—the amount of oxygen our body can use during exercise—drops by roughly 10% in our 40s, 15% in our 50s and 20% in our 60s, accompanied by a steady decline in reaction time and bone density. Like our smartphones, our bodies are designed for obsolescence.
And yet: Today’s sports heroes play longer and better than ever before. They benefit not only from the inherent genetic advantage of all great athletes, but also from decades of elite training, cutting-edge treatments and the time and money to enact them. LeBron James, who played MVP-caliber ball last year at 36, reportedly spends more than $1 million of his own money on his body annually. He employs a personal biomechanist (former Navy SEAL Donnie Raimon), receives liquid nitrogen treatments to reduce inflammation and enjoys the benefits of expensive hot and cold tubs in his home. Steph Curry (still relatively young at 33) swears by float spas and cryotherapy. Roger Federer (40) owns a hyperbaric chamber and sleeps 10 to 12 hours a night in absolute darkness.
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