I had no idea Oliver Sacks was a lifter. Via Alex Kawas
"I sometimes wonder why I pushed myself so relentlessly in weightlifting. My motive, I think, was not an uncommon one; I was not the 98 lb weakling of bodybuilding advertisements, but I was timid, diffident, insecure, submissive. I became strong - very strong- with all my weightlifting but I found this did nothing for my character, which remained exactly the same. And, like many excesses, weightlifting exacted a price. I had pushed my quadriceps, in squatting, far beyond their natural limits, and this predisposed them to injury, and it was surely not unrelated to my mad squatting that I ruptured one quadriceps tendon in 1974 and the other in 1984. While I was in hospital in 1984, feeling sorry for myself, with a long cast on my leg, I had a visit from Dave Sheppard, mighty Dave, from Muscle Beach days. He hobbled in to my room slowly and painfully; he had very bad arthritis in both hips and was awaiting total hip replacements. We looked at each other, our bodies half-destroyed by lifting. "What fools we were," Dave said. I nodded and agreed. "
- Oliver Sacks, On the Move: A Life.
"I sometimes wonder why I pushed myself so relentlessly in weightlifting. My motive, I think, was not an uncommon one; I was not the 98 lb weakling of bodybuilding advertisements, but I was timid, diffident, insecure, submissive. I became strong - very strong- with all my weightlifting but I found this did nothing for my character, which remained exactly the same. And, like many excesses, weightlifting exacted a price. I had pushed my quadriceps, in squatting, far beyond their natural limits, and this predisposed them to injury, and it was surely not unrelated to my mad squatting that I ruptured one quadriceps tendon in 1974 and the other in 1984. While I was in hospital in 1984, feeling sorry for myself, with a long cast on my leg, I had a visit from Dave Sheppard, mighty Dave, from Muscle Beach days. He hobbled in to my room slowly and painfully; he had very bad arthritis in both hips and was awaiting total hip replacements. We looked at each other, our bodies half-destroyed by lifting. "What fools we were," Dave said. I nodded and agreed. "
- Oliver Sacks, On the Move: A Life.