Are Africans Only Advantage Geography not Physiology?

"What I am saying is that I don't believe that you need special physical atributes to be a world class distance runner."

A geneticist would laugh you out of this forum for that statement. That whole post was crazy. We differ GREATLY in physical endowment. Look at bodybuilding. Do you honestly think Kenyans could excel at this - that htey have the basic genetics to do so? WHy can we admit that in bodybuilding, genetics is HUGELY important but not in running. Very few people have the genes to excel in anything. East Africans would probably be horrible at loading hay because it takes a combination of endurance but also physical strength.

We overblow the importance of hard work because it suits our moral imperatives.

You really need to meet some Kenyan roadwhores who run 30:00 for 10k on minimal training and McDonalds. People who pontificate on Kenyans don't know many.

papa burgundy wrote:

i read an article in a scholarly journal in which a study of danish elite runners and kenyan elite runners was conducted. the legs were determined to be about 400g lighter than the danish boys and that this alone translated to an 8% more efficient running economy PER KILOMETER!

Running economy is not dependent upon distance. If you are 8% more efficient over 1 kilomer you will generally be 8% more efficient over 10 kilometers as well.

Hall is fast wrote:

There is a higher concentration of people with the physiological make-up to be world class in E. Africa. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't individuals with these talents elsewhere. If you had decent percentages of the populations in Europe, the US, Central America etc actually giving running a decent shot or running being truly popular in these areas, you'd see a lot more top level athletes from these regions. But the Africans would still have the highest concentration of top level runners.

Nice post. I agree with this. I do believe that East Africans generally have physiological advantages. It's interesting to me, not being a physiologist, just how complex the human body is. Obviously, genetics, altitude, environment, lifestyle, lack of other sports, etc. play a huge role in making East Africans dominant. So many many factors!

One thought I had, which I believe was mentioned early in this thread, is that people from the Himalayas might make good runners. Sherpas have great endurance and grow up at extremely high altitude. Aside from their proclivity to put on more layers of fat than Africans (due to the freezing temperatures) it seems like that population could produce some good runners. Have any tests been done on sherpas? I initially got this thought while reading Into Thin Air. I am just wondering if anyone knows of physiological tests done on sherpas that might indicate better than average running potential for the Himalayan population as a whole.

"Is Africans' Only Advantage Geography, not Physiology?"

The Africans only advantage is their mentality.

Hall is fast wrote:

There is a higher concentration of people with the physiological make-up to be world class in E. Africa. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't individuals with these talents elsewhere. If you had decent percentages of the populations in Europe, the US, Central America etc actually giving running a decent shot or running being truly popular in these areas, you'd see a lot more top level athletes from these regions. But the Africans would still have the highest concentration of top level runners.

Good post...I agree. As long as East African countries have both:

a) the highest concertration of talent

and

b) the most serious and widespread running culture

they will continue to dominate distance running.

I agree that you can't discount the role genetics plays in East African dominance, but I think people don't realize how important culture is. Why else would there be so many elite Ethiopians, but relatively few Eritreans? Why else would almost all elite Kenyans be Kalenjin? While those could potentially (but falsely, in my opinion) be attributed in part to very localized genetic variation, I think this final example is pretty much irrefutable: why else would the East African men so much more dominant than the East African women (for whom there is much less of a running culture)?

People also forget that it's a long way from "Kenyans are on average much more likely to have elite running genes" to "every Kenyan (or even Kalenjin) is a gifted distance runner." Like every country, Kenya has some of the world's fastest people and some of its slowest. It just happens that they have more fast people than average.

Finally, it's important to remember that the East Africans can still be beaten. Even if elite running genes are rarer in America than in Kenya, they exist. There should be SOME people in America with the potential to outrun even some of the fastest of the elite Africans. What's more with its larger population (more than 3x those of Kenya and Ethiopia combined) America doesn't even need as high a frequency of elite running genes to have just as many truly elite runners as the Kenyans and Ethiopians. It's just a matter of developing a running culture that rivals that of the Kenyans and Ethiopians. That, of course, is easier said than done.

with all this being said, I still think the smarter runner can out run the better runner nearly half the time in the marathon.

Whoa there Brian, forget about what the letsrun pseudoscientists say about genetics, a true geneticist who had a lot of knowledge about running would give me an intelligent debate. Of course genetics is important in bodybuilding, and distance running. Like I said, a sub 10 sprinter can't run a sub 2.10 marathon and vice versa, please try and keep up.

Do you really think that east africans farming kids would be useless at loading hay? come on now Brian they are farmers for goodness sake, that's why they are so fit when they are so young, in sub 14 shape for 5000m by the time they are 14-15.

A freind of mine asked Richard Chelimo about his background. Chelimo explained that he worked as a goat herder, and would walk and jog up to 30 miles a day from a very young age.

What we need to do to even things out a bit is to open a chain of fast food restauraunts and internet cafes in Eldoret and Addis Ababa.

mr obvious wrote:

What we need to do to even things out a bit is to open a chain of fast food restauraunts and internet cafes in Eldoret and Addis Ababa.

Good news!

I don't think you can pin it down to one thing. It's probably a combo of everything that you see in this thread:

1) Genetically, east africans are small and they.....

2) Lead a lifestyle that is very active and look up to people like....

3) Kip Keino and other Kenyan stars of the past who are treated like rock stars while USA runners are less famous than Dean K (had to take the shot), not to mention that......

4) Winning 10,000$ on the roads is a financial boon to a Kenyan where USA runners will start looking for a "real job".

Add in the potential benefits of altitude and duking out in daily runs with other Kenyan studs and there you have a nice constant supply of kick-butt distance runners.

I went to an interesting symposium on this topic at the 2005 ACSM meeting that included Tim Noakes. Some genetic testing has been done on the east african runners and nobody has been able to identify a higher frequency of any candidate polymorphism or haplotype in the east africans vs. usa/european caucasian runners. Only identifiable differences to date are smaller size and less increase in core temp during exercise in the heat for the east africans. Noakes did talk a little about possible differences in motor unit recruitment patterns in the east africans, but to my memory it was still a little early to draw conclusions.

snap