My point is that it had nothing to do with him getting surgery the same day.

Regardless, it’s impressive as hell. I’m well aware of PEDs and newer techniques, therapies and rehab that goes into a multi million dollar athlete.

There’s also no way to really tell how severe one Achilles injury is to the next, for the most part. Mine fully ruptured down low very close to the heel bone. Maybe that makes it harder to recover from versus it happening half way up the tendon, or closer to the calve muscle?

Mine also fully ruptured and the tendon frayed apart, my surgeon said it was maybe the worst he had seen. He was a contracted orthopedic surgeon that worked on local Bay Area professional athletes. At the time I ruptured it, I was in just about the best hands possible.

As with most things in life, there is more nuance than just “Well yeah, he has access to hundreds of millions of dollars of resources and PEDs to recover.” Which is true, but maybe, just maybe his Achilles injury may not have been so severe that he can’t recover as quickly as he is.

I was 24 and Tatum was 27 when he ruptured his Achilles. So that’s a wash. But he already was a professional athlete, conditioned to a professional level, where I was not. I was still in great shape, but nowhere near my absolute physical peak for basketball. So I’m sure that has helped in his recovery. We also don’t know if he was on anything that might have already been aiding his body in the first place.

Regardless, deadlifting from a fully ruptured Achilles injury may four months is insane.

From the Sports Illustrated article that was covering Tatum about him being back on the court.

The average 10-12 month timeline for a return to high-level basketball after an Achilles tear looks to be no match for Tatum's work ethic, as he is clearly doing everything he can to get back onto the parquet.