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title: "Timeline photos I had no idea Oliver Sacks was a lifter.  Via…"
date: 2015-09-01
source: facebook
type: Archer T. Ships added a new photo.
---

# Timeline photos I had no idea Oliver Sacks was a lifter.  Via…

*September 1, 2015 · Facebook*

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![](img/2015-09-01-fb-001-img01.webp){style="max-width:100%; margin:1em 0"}
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I had no idea Oliver Sacks was a lifter. Via Alex Kawas\
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\"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. \"\
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- Oliver Sacks, On the Move: A Life.
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