By Chris Williams: While it seems to some that Manny Pacquiao’s recent case of chronic leg cramps re a sign of Pacquiao showing his age, Balco founder Victor Conte differs on that opinion. He sees it as a case of Pacquiao having depleted some of his valuable minerals in his body from hi strenuous workouts he’s been going through with his strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza.

It may be that Ariza is driving the Filipino star too hard draining his bodily fluids and leaving him weak in the legs when fight time comes. The weird thing is I can’t recall Pacquiao ever having a case of leg cramps before Ariza started working with him. Could be that Ariza is working Pacquiao too hard and leaving him drained and weak in the legs when it comes to his fights?

I don’t know but when you consistently have things going wrong, you have to eliminate things to find the culprit. Maybe Pacquiao should back off on his Ariza training and just focus on working out with trainer Freddie Roach for a one-fight experiment. If the leg cramps disappear, then lose Ariza but if they’re still there then Pacquiao may be getting old after all.

Conte said this to the examiner.com “It’s about having the proper balance of all these nutrients and making sure you consume those in the right ratios, and that you monitor and test them to make sure you are balanced.”

I wish I knew what the nutrients were because Pacquiao seems to need to them in a big way, because he’s getting diminishing returns for whatever exercises or nutrients he’s getting. It could be time to go back to the basics for Pacquiao and just go with what got him to this point without the help of a special trainer that seems to be depleting his energy and bodily fluids with his exercises.