Could you become a professional/Olympic level athlete (making the Olympics finals of an event) through average genetics?

Ok. But Daws was one of the best marathon runners in the US from maybe 1967 to 1971. He made two national teams. I'm not sure that Laris made any, despite being able to beat Daws at two miles running backwards.

My point is that Daws consistently was able to beat many guys who, based on their performances in high school and college, appeared to have better genes. So does that show that he had better genes than those guys? Then where were they in high school? Or does it show that Daws someone overcame the genetic advantage that many people he was beating must have had?

I honestly don't know. I'm not denying that talent exists and matters. But is "talent" simply another word for "genetics" or does it cover other factors? And if so, what are they?

I did a few runs with Chris Stewart, a 4:00.4, sub 13:30, 2:13 guy. Mostly we just ran easily but now and again he'd announce that he was going to pick it up a bit and I'll tell you, the only other guy I ever ran with who could just be gone before you even knew they were leaving was Ken Misner. Yes, these guys had something going for them that I never asw in other people I ran with. But does that prove that they could do that because they had some sort of genes that most of us don't? I don't see conclusive proof either way.

A student wanting to be class valedictorian needs to ahve a decent IQ. You don't find valedictorians with IQ scores that read borderline retarded or even low normal. But you also will almost never find that students with the highest IQ scores also have the higest GPAs correlated perfectly.

You seem to need a certain level of intelligence to ahve really good grades, but obviously a myriad of other factors determine how successful a student you'll be.

that is the attitude of a quitter. no matter what your genetics are, the only thing you have to do to become world class is to keep improving. you probably will never make it. but if you keep trying and working harder and smarter you just might become world class. not saying a person with average genetics could become olympic champ, but they might be able to make the olympics. also depends on what you mean by average genetics. i think the basic idea that people have is if you are not a national caliber runner coming out of college(which would show good running genes) you can never make the olympics. that is wrong, the only time you can never make the olympics is after you've given it everything you have up to your prime and past it and you didn't make it.

Never is only true in hindsight. While in the future anything is possible as long as you can keep improving. Running ability based off of genetics is purely based on performance. The better someone runs, the better people are gonna say their genes are. As long as you keep improving what people call "running related genes" keeps improving too.

That's a big part of what I'm trying to say and maybe just rambling around without making the concise point.

When Brian Sell and Ron Daws are getting beaten in high school by lots of guys who aren't outstanding runners people will look at them and think they have little talent or poor genetics. Later, when they're Olympians, people who train hard but can't beat them will attribute that inability to a Sell or a Daws having superior talent or genes.

Thanks.

OK, so what you're saying is that natural ability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success. I think everyone can agree with that. To be the best, you need natural ability plus focus and insight. Daws had tremendous focus on and insight into the marathon, but he had only modest talent. That's why he never ran under 2:20. Still, he was able to beat guys who weren't as focused on the marathon as he was.

Daws was a top marathoner only because more talented runners failed to take it seriously at the time. For guys like Tom Laris and George Young, the 1968 marathon trials were simply an opportunity to qualify for an Olympic race. The marathon was more of an afterthought for guys like that. But Daws took the event very seriously, so he did well. If Laris had taken the marathon as seriously as Daws, he would have run 2:12.

Chris Stewart had an amazing range. But he was nowhere close to the top Brits from the 1970s. Brendan Foster, Ian Stewart, Dave Bedford, Ian McCafferty...These guys were simply on another level. It's not that they trained any smarter than Chris Stewart (Bedford's training was pretty barbaric). They were just more naturally talented, which manifested itself when they were schoolboys.

I'm actually hoping to get away from this thread and you're making it hard by putting up interesting responses.

But let's ask why people succeed at things in general? we'd probably agree that some just don't have the basic talent, whatever that may mean. Some may have adequate talent but will only succeed if they do a lot of hard work of the proper type. Some may work really hard but not in a way that's most beneficial.

It's tempting to think that if Chris had trained like Bedford he'd have been better than he was. Knowing Chris though, I can't imagine that he'd have succeeded doing what Bedford did. Nor can I imagine Bedford succeeding as he did doing what Chris did. I'm inclined to think that on top of having "enough" talent, each was lucky enough, for lack of a better term, to find a way to train that maybe was pretty optimal for each of them and each was smart enough to resist the temptation to do what the other was doing.

I am more persuaded by what you call the mental aspect of successful running than you might be.

I remember reaading comments that Gerry Lindgren made after winning the NCAA 5,000 meters in 1968 (I think.) He'd had a bad season, I think with ulcer troubles and something with maybe his Achilles. He hadn't been able to train much for weeks and weeks and had been beaten by Arne Kvalheim at two miles recently. He said that he knew he wasn't the fittest athlete in the race but that the others in the race, Kvalheim included, seemed as if they expected him to win. So he made some sort of surge and everyone dropped away.

I'm not sure what you meant when you mentioned Henry Rono except that he never seemed to be the most mentally disciplined athlete who ever lived. But that doesn't necessarily mean that when he raced he, like Lindgren in the 1968 5,000, didn't expect to win.

I recall an interview with Chris Evert where she talked about being in the third set of matches where she was down 0-4 and KNEW she was going to win, which she generally did. There's no gene for that and there's no simple way to quantify the effect of a belief system. But if you try to understand success and failure without paying attention to that sort of thing you're missing a big part of success.

I agree that a runner with Lindgren's reputation can use that as an edge when he's not in top form. If the other guys in the race expect a guy like that to win, then sometimes they let him. I think the fittest athlete generally wins the race, though.

As for the importance of training in a way to make the most of one's natural ability, I couldn't agree more. It is unfortunate that so many talented high school runners are subjected to a one-size-fits-all program that's not right for them. Sometimes it takes awhile to find the right training before reaching a world class level. Mark Nenow made a major breakthrough when he started doing more distance runs and hill work and less anaerobic work on the track.

My point about Rono is that he was so talented that he didn't have to squeeze every ounce of potential from his body the way Daws had to. The same could be said of Mickey Mantle in comparison to Ted Williams, who studied the art of batting but who lacked Mantle's physical potential. Mantle wasn't as dedicated as some hitters. One can only imagine what he would have accomplished had he been more serious.

I think we agree on the importance of the mental aspect. But we perhaps disagree on the importance of natural ability. There were runners in high school who trained less than I did and were better. One guy didn't even run track because he played golf, but he could beat me in cross country. Whenever I had to run the mile in high school against a guy capable of 4:10, like Paul Geis or Mike Novelli, it was obvious that no amount of training would put me ahead of them.

Back in 1986, there was a 14-year-old kid in the Dallas area who competed in what was a major triathlon at the time ("the President's Triathlon") against guys like Scott Tinley and Mark Allen. I think he finished fourth overall. His name was Lance Armstrong, and it was pretty obvious that the guy was a major talent.

I'm competing in a bike time trial on Saturday. Lance Armstrong is going to be in that race. And while I fully expect him to beat me and everyone else, maybe, just maybe, if I focused more on my mental game....(Nah!)

HRE -- I completely share your frustration over the fact that so many people want to attribute their own differences/failings/etc. to genetic causes ("I'm fat because of my genes, I'm gay because of my genes, I can't concentrate because of my genes," etc.), when there is no basis for doing so.

On the other hand, I think you are discounting the world of difference between (x) one's performance in school, weight, and other things that can be dramatically affected by environmental factors, and (y) reaction time, turnover rate, and other factors that make up one's running ability, which is less "trainable".

Also, I'm curious: Is your opinion limited to distance running, or would you also argue that we can't measure the genetic influence on an individual's 50m dash time? I think too many people make the mistake of thinking that "sprinters get there on ability, while distance runners get there on guts", when the reality is that even a hard-worker like Brian Sell has genetic gifts that 99% of the population do not have.

yo wrote:

that is the attitude of a quitter. no matter what your genetics are, the only thing you have to do to become world class is to keep improving.

Dude you watched too many Rocky movies. That's not true at all. No matter how much some people train they will never ever be world class. Just like no matter how many weights I lift or sprint drills I do, or passes I throw- I would have never made it to be an NFL.

Why does this upset people so much? Does everyone on here think they were going to the Olympics if they just trained harder?

LVD wrote:

Also, I'm curious: Is your opinion limited to distance running, or would you also argue that we can't measure the genetic influence on an individual's 50m dash time? I think too many people make the mistake of thinking that "sprinters get there on ability, while distance runners get there on guts", when the reality is that even a hard-worker like Brian Sell has genetic gifts that 99% of the population do not have.

I think that sprinting ability is more obviously apparent at a much earlier stage in an athlete's life because essentially there is no conditioning required to get through a race of 50-100 meters. Many people, including kids, can't run non-stop for a mile without some preparation but anyone can run as fast as they can for 50 meters, though obviously some will do it more quickly than others.

Some distance runners, on the other hand, do get there on guts. Others need far less guts because they seem to have more "natural ability." Many people here seem to think I'm saying that natural ability plays no major role in distance running success and that anyone can be a national class runner if they do enough hard work of the proper kind. I'm not saying anything remotely like that.

What I'm saying is that how well or poorly a person does something, whether it's running, cycling, baseball, or brain surgery, is dependent on the interplay of numerous complex factors and that trying to attribute performance to any single variable, genes, hard work, performance enhancing drugs, whatever is really simple minded and more likely to hamper real understanding of what's going on than to promote it.

So back to the successful sprinter and his genes. What do we really know about that sprinter's genes? Have we taken tissue samples from him, his parents, grandparents, exhumed other of his ancestors and found that many of them carry a gene or genes that make people run fast?

If we've done all of this and found that the sprinter does in fact carry the same "fast" gene as his ancestors, then we have a good, scientific explanation as to why this person can run faster for fifty meters than most everyone else can.

But we likely haven't done any of this. In fact, we don't even know what gene makes people run fast. We might have some theories about where we'd find it, but we haven't found it so we can't test this guy and his ancestors to see if it's there.

What we've done simply is watch this guy do something,i.e. run fast for a short distance, and created an explanation for ourselves as to why he is able to do that. That's pseudo science at its best, or worst.

HRE wrote:

In fact, we don't even know what gene makes people run fast. We might have some theories about where we'd find it, but we haven't found it so we can't test this guy and his ancestors to see if it's there.

What we've done simply is watch this guy do something,i.e. run fast for a short distance, and created an explanation for ourselves as to why he is able to do that. That's pseudo science at its best, or worst.

I guess this is where we disagree. It would be pseudoscience if we watched a guy run fast, and then conclude that he is being carried by angels. But we are not "creating an explanation" in the case of genetics. Hundreds of years after the Enlightenment, we know now that everything about us is the manifestation of a genetic code, as modified by our environment.

The fact that we haven't identified a "speed gene(s)" is completely irrelevant. Maybe we haven't identified the "how long is your foot" gene, but we know that the length of one's foot is almost 100% determined by genes (understanding that pre-natal care, pollution, etc. could play a marginal role).

Based on your posts, you seem to be saying (1) the interrelation of genes and environment is very complicated and uncertain, and (2) because of this uncertainty, we're just guessing as to the nature of one's footspeed. I agree with the first point -- this is a very complicated issue, and at the margins, "guts" or other non-genetic factors could push one runner over the other.

But the rest of us would disagree with point #2. One's top-end speed potential is certainly determined genetically, and because the gene pool in running competitions represents almost the entire world (as opposed to, say, women's javelin or bowling), the only way to be in the mix at the top level is to be in the top genetic percentage points.

I'm only going to believe that when someone shows me WHICH specific gene or genes govern a particular ability or behavior. We can find genes that transfer red hair or six toes so I can accept that the sixth toe is not an Act of God as the phrase would be understood. There's a good body of research showing that introversion and extroversion are inborn characteristics rather than learned behaviors so I can accept that.

On the other hand, I worked for many years in mental health centers with people diagnosed with schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder. I read many, many articles attributing these behaviors to genetics and many articles claiming that some researchers had "almost" identified the specific gene or genes involved. But we've never gotten past "almost" and even if we do get past "almost" and find the specific genes that "cause" these conditions it will be easy to find numerous people carrying those particular defective genes who do not manifest the attributed behaviors.

Ultimately, these discussions are sort of fun but pointless if the point is changing someone's opinion so I find myself hoping that no one puts up an interesting response to this because I'd like to be done with the thread but can't seem to stop myself from reading it. I must have some sort of self-torture gene.

yeah body composition and genes have nothing to do with one's ability run fast. That's why there are some many white guys running the Men's 100m final in the Oly Games.

EZ10Miler wrote:

yeah body composition and genes have nothing to do with one's ability run fast. That's why there are some many white guys running the Men's 100m final in the Oly Games.

Are you saying that yourself or attributing that statement to me? If you're claiming that I'm saying that, could you tell me specifically where I've done so, because I haven't as far as I know.

If you want to argue with me, fine. But argue with what I'm saying and not with something you've made up and attributed to me.

Once more, body composition is certainly going to play a role in how fast or slowly a person can run and body composition is significantly determined by genetics. But it's not an absolute determinant. No single factor is a complete determinant. Ugandans and Kenyans as groups, are genetically similar. Kenyans run faster as a group than Ugandans do.

Optimum racing distance is largely controlled by genetics. Pure sprinters have fast glycolytic muscle fibers, only 2-3% but that's enough to make them potentially very fast. They also have more fast intermediate fibers so called fast oxidative and less slow twitch.

Distance runners don't have fast glycolytic fibers at all.

Personality traits surely make a huge difference also and these are surely largely genetic characteristics.

The rest (99%) comes down to training and environment.

Just saying "it's genetics" glosses over as many relevant details as saying "it's angels". Having a certain gene isn't as import as to how/if that gene is expressed. Additionally, it's much more complicated than having a single running gene. Maybe you have a mechanical advantage (limb length and tendon attachment points). Maybe you are supremely responsive to a certain type of training. Maybe your body produces more of certain proteins than the norm. Some have all these advantages (and more) and still won't succeed.

I bet if you ask any elite (in any field) if they know people more gifted than themselves who never "made it," they will say "sure." So it's not always the most gifted (genetically) who win.

"Genetics" is overused and overrated. Genes don't guarantee success or failure, just like the best training and environments don't guarantee success. There are no guarantees. So again, the only thing that makes sense, is to work hard at something you love and see what happens.

The people who are playing up the "natural talent" and "genetics" cards as limiting factors are probably the same people that never put in the work to find out how fast they could be.

Clearly everyone has different starting points.

I ran a 23 5k my first race in high school. My friend ran 18 something. Neither of us had done any running to speak of except the normal games active kids play growing up.

He's more talented right? He has better genes right? He has waaay more lifetime potential right?

By senior year in high school, he was still better although I had closed the gap a lot.

We both ran at the same college. By senior year, I had a 5k PR a minute faster than him.

We did the same training for 8 years. I ended up better. Did I have better genes?

My point is, who gives a shit. Get out there and find out for yourself what your potential is.

In my opinion, discussions regarding "lack of talent" and "bad genes" accomplish absolutely nothing except limiting yourself.

If you're starting from day 1 thinking, "I don't have good enough genes to become elite", you're a complete moron. Maybe you do, maybe you don't - the ONLY way to find out is try.

Surprise! wrote:

The people who are playing up the "natural talent" and "genetics" cards as limiting factors are probably the same people that never put in the work to find out how fast they could be.

I'll admit that I tell myself "I'll never be any good anyway" when making excuses for not watching my nutrition.

The simple problem is no one will get as good as they could be without the advantages of having everything handed to them.

If you work 40 hours a week on a 5 day work week how do you expect to cram in training at least 2-4 hours a day?

There is 168 hours in a 7 day week, if you sleep a healthy 8 hours a day that leaves you with 112 hours. Work 40 hours and you're left with 72. We will say it takes about an hour to get to work and back each day of the 5 leaving you with 62 hours. You have to shop weekly because you constantly need to get the items that fit your running diet, that takes at least 2 more hours a week(unless you horde large amounts once a month).

That leaves you with 60 hours to train, socialize, eat, manage your finances, spend time with the family etc etc.

Here are the questions that run through my head when I think about this topic:

How many genes are there in the human genome, and which ones can contribute to success in an Olympic Event?

How many decisions and which decisions do we make on a daily basis affect the development or expression of those genes? (start running at age 5, start running at age 16, start drinking at age 14, eat McDonalds since age 3)

And how many external factors in the environment will limit or enhance those expressions? (Altitude, smog, concrete, shoes, television)

I think that if some one attributes their success, like winning a gold medal, simply to having the right genes, then they equally have to attribute their success to luck. There seems to be a 'myriad of factors' that contribute to some one being the fatest or the best.

And here's one last scenario: Some one may have the genes to run faster than me, but they may also have the genes predispose them to a mental illness or a mental state that prohibits their full physical development in a certain discipline.