At the height of their respective careers, who worked harder?

[KamekaziKoala]

Today, my friend and I got into an argument as to who would have worked harder during their career. Michael Jordan (During his time at the Bulls), or Arnold Schwarzenegger (During his bodybuilding career)

I myself believe that Jordan would have had to work harder, due to the fact that he would have to constantly improve his game, ball-skills, and awareness of the court, whilst Arnie would have just been trying to get as big as possible.

I couldn’t quite grasp my friends idea as to why he believed Arnie would have worked harder, maybe just a general bias towards bodybuilders, or my own misunderstandings.

Note: Please don’t just pick Arnie because he is the ‘governator’, or Jordan, because he’s Air Jordan, I would thoroughly appreciate if your responses were thoughtful and of a valid opinion.

[Grail]

I like Jordan better, but all the body building and movie making was probably more time consuming and took more discipline across every moment of Arnold's life at that time.

[codsafish]

Body building imo.

99% of body builders are meat heads with no life (you think gamers have no life, bodybuilders are the same, if not worse)

[bigjenk]

Jordan seemed to be more competitive, but top bodybuilders are much more dedicated as they have to be especially for the months leading up to major competitions. I remember seeing one of the top body builders of todays interviews and he sleeps in 3 hour spurts and eats a diet that makes him literally shit oil leading up to a competition.

[lukz]

This is comparing apples to oranges. Both are good imo.

Basketball is a team sport, weightlifting is individual. There is no comparison, both have their own merits.

---------- Post added 2011-08-16 at 07:24 AM ----------

This is comparing apples to oranges. Both are good imo.

Basketball is a team sport, weightlifting is individual. There is no comparison, both have their own merits.

Edit: For the basketball player who put the most work into it: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102674/ Pistol Pete Maravich > Jordan in terms of "work" put into the game. Jordan was an absolute Natural, not saying he didn't practice hard, but others with less physical attributes 'worked' harder.

[Deleted]

Bodybuilding requires much more dedication. You have a strict diet, no parties, daily exercise etc.

Basket ball, is to a certain extent, down to natural talent. Body building is purely down to genes and self-discipline.

[Gilian]

So you are just asking what takes more work, professional bodybuilding or playing in the NBA at the highest level. It's hard to say. They both have to train nearly everyday I think and keep on a diet and shit like that. But I think Jordan is under more pressure with more matches and a huge audience and ofcourse the press. Bodybuilding is not even close to the popularity of the NBA.

If you only look at training I don't there is much difference.

---------- Post added 2011-08-16 at 07:31 AM ----------

Bodybuilding requires much more dedication. You have a strict diet, no parties, daily exercise etc.

Basket ball, is to a certain extent, down to natural talent. Body building is purely down to genes and self-discipline.

That doesn't mean NBA players don't have to stick to very strict training and diets. They have contracts of millions of dollars.

[codsafish]

Body building - No social life, No life, extreme long-term diets, extreme conditioning, extreme everything. Everything is about YOU only.

Basket ball - Extremely social, diets not anywhere near as important, conditioning not as extreme, requires a lot of effort but not to the point where you have no life because a lot of it is natural talent.

Body building is harder.

[Deleted]

Body building - No social life, No life, extreme long-term diets, extreme conditioning, extreme everything. Everything is about YOU only.

Basket ball - Extremely social, diets not anywhere near as important, conditioning not as extreme, requires a lot of effort but not to the point where you have no life because a lot of it is natural talent.

Body building is harder.

Tbh the friends I have that went pro in basketball (used to play myself for 10 years) didn't really have time to do anything but train. The people who became very good were imo the people that trained the hardest. It's just easy for every other kid that doesn't care about making a career out of it to blame it all on genes or talent or some other stuff. I guess you do kinda need to be tall enough tho.

My guess is that at the top level they're pretty equally time consuming and difficult.

[Twoflower]

Probably pretty much the same. Being on top of the world in any sport requires insane amounts of work. You are aruing ( that's ony my guess though ) about less than 1 % of workload difference.

[koodledrum]

I'll agree, both have their merits & individual nuances, for example Jordan was capable of predicting opponents movements and knowing exactly how to counter them - where Arnie probably knew which excersise optimally toned every muscle in his body.

[Butry]

Arnold was about perfection.

[Loag]

Arnold did. He had to overcome a language barrier. I think in one of his first movies, he didn't have any lines haha. Plus body building is just crazy how much dedication and hard work it takes to become Mr. Olympia.

[Fojos]

Bodybuilding. There's no competition. When you really bodybuild, you pretty much spend close to 100% of your waking time planning and doing what you need to do.

[Atelniar]

Anyone that seriously thinks becoming a world class athlete in a team sport requires way less than structuring a diet and tweaking your muscle-mass is a little silly. I'm sorry to say so, you can compare the two, but to say that the greatest stars that maintain their shape in a much more agile sport which require more than pure strength for several years is folly. Take Ryan Giggs as an example. Despite the recent scandals regarding his private life I doubt there that there are many in the world that worked as hard as him to maintain that level of performance on the pitch for so many years.

Comparing football and basketball would be easier, as both are teamsports and have similarities with eachother. Bodybuilding and basket though become quite different, as bodybuilding is much easier to compete within for a longer a time span. I am sorry, but it just is. It does require shitloads of effort, but it is easier than remaining in top shape as a footballer or basketballer for over 15 years. Why is that? Because team sports such as basketball and football certainly require different skills and effort. Such as the understanding of the game, a proper diet, strength, speed, agility, balance and a winning mentality the like of which only the best athletes have.

As a bodybuilder you won't be focusing so much on speed and agility, nor balance. A diet may be more important here than in the team sports, but in a professional team environment the difference is not that big. Strength is naturally a bodybuilders strength (yes, pun intended) and they also require the winning mentality. But what is it basketball and football have that bodybuilding does not? Team effort and understanding of the game. Making the right decision in the heat of the moment, the mental pressure from many thousands of people watching you and screaming that you are a whore's son if you fail.

If you consider all of this you soon realize that the effort put into the two different things can not be so easily comparable as one side require more balanced physical condition and the other require extreme tweaking of one particular niche and a nazi-diet. You also need to consider that bodybuilding is a sport that is much easier to maintain with age then basket or football. The work needed to remain a world class footballer at above 35 is sickening in terms of a strict diet and maintaining your shape. Restitution too is a major part of the game then, more so than ever.

Taking all this in consideration as well as Mr. Muscleman's movie endeavour I would say that Jordan also had press conferances and media deals which he had to deal with to make the most out of his career. Probably not less time consuming, knowing how many commercials he was involved in. And he also took part in a movie (or two?) such as Space Jam. To be fair, I am not quite sure. Jordan was on top for a long time though, with much harder competition.. Which is fairly impressive.

Speaking of the natural talent he had is redundant as you are not born as a pro. You may have been born with genes that would aid your cause and a certain height, etc, but the same can be said for bodybuilding at the end of the day. That's why those who deal with bodybuilding is so obsessed with the diets, but some can still be more lenient than others. However, I doubt that either of those two were at all lenient in their career.

Anyone see my logic here?

However, I might go with Mr. Muscleman at the end of the day. He did star in a fair bit of movies ontop of his bodybuilding (which only proves the point that he did not spend THAT much time on bodybuilding).

To make a final point: If you want to see the difficulty of each career, try it once. Play alongside and against a team of professional basketballers and keep up with them for the duration of a game and then run through one of the nazi-workouts of bodybuilding. Which would you master best? I think the basketball endeavour would give most people here a heart attack and a proper beating too. While the body-building would be just as hopeless, but the strain would be more on your muscles than your stamina.