"Who Has the Speed Gene, and Who Doesn't?"

Not mentioned is the ability to endure suffering as a key component of motivation. A matter of circumstance, temperament and culture; very important, imho.

Another longish excerpt:

"Family lineage is critical for humans as well. Since 1992 the HERITAGE Family Study has analyzed hundreds of families to find out how "heritable" exercise capacity is, or how much variation in a particular fitness trait is due to genetic inheritance. In one segment of the study, 98 families that had not been exercising were put on identical 20-week training programs on stationary bikes. Their aerobic capacity—a gauge of how much oxygen the body can use during exercise—was measured before the program and at the end. In terms of improvement, family members tended to be similar, while improvement varied widely among families. Even after five months of training, some people in families that benefited little on average did not improve their aerobic capacity one iota, while others in families that generally showed marked improvement increased it up to 50%. Statistical analysis showed that about half of a person's ability to improve with training was determined by his or her parents. The amount any person improved in the study had nothing to do with how good he was to begin with—his "baseline aerobic capacity"—but about half of that baseline, too, was attributable to family inheritance.

In work from the HERITAGE study that has not yet been published, the researchers have identified 20 genetic markers that can predict entirely the genetic component of an individual subject's aerobic capacity improvement after months of bicycle training. The point of the work is to be able to give people individualized advice regarding whether exercise is the key to improving their health, or whether they are among the low responders who might be better off resorting to medication. There are also implications for athletes: These 20 genetic markers can help predict whose strong work ethic will pay off in aerobic spades and who might be pedaling largely in vain.

The HERITAGE Family Study is controlled science, with all subjects on identical training plans. In reality, though, one of the most hallowed notions in sports is that we can each carve our athletic destiny by waking up earlier and working out harder than the guy or girl at the next locker—that is, by adopting different training plans. But researchers have found that even motivation to work out has an important genetic component. A 2006 Swedish study of more than 13,000 sets of fraternal and identical twins—fraternal twins share half their genes on average, while identical twins share all of them—found that the exercise tendencies of identical twins were twice as likely to be similar as those of fraternal twins.

Another 2006 study, of more than 37,000 pairs of adult fraternal and identical twins from six European countries and Australia, concluded that about half to three quarters of the variation in the amount of exercise people engaged in could be accounted for by their genetic makeup, while environmental factors, such as access to a gym, often had less influence. And studies of laboratory mice suggest that the difference could be in genes that regulate dopamine, a brain chemical involved in sensations of pleasure and reward.

For more than a decade Theodore Garland, a physiologist at UC Riverside, has been giving mice a wheel and allowing them to hop on or spurn it. Normal mice voluntarily run three to four miles each day, but Garland and his colleagues separated the mice that chose to run the farthest and bred them with each other. By generation 16 the high runners were pounding out more than seven miles a day. "The normal mice are out for a leisurely stroll," Garland says. "They putz around on the wheel, while the high runners are really running."

But one interesting difference was that the high runners' brains were larger. "Presumably, the centers of the brain that deal with motivation and reward have gotten larger," Garland says. His team plied mice with Ritalin, a stimulant that alters dopamine levels. Once doped, the normal mice, apparently gleaning a greater sensation of pleasure from activity, suddenly ran more. But the doped long runners did not. Whatever Ritalin does in the brains of normal mice is already happening in the brains of the high runners. They are running junkies.

Other studies have begun to identify the specific genes related to dopamine processing that differ between the marathon mice and their average counterparts. "Who says motivation isn't genetic?" Garland asks rhetorically. "In these mice it's absolutely the case that motivation has evolved." A 2003 study found an association in women between physical activity and a particular dopamine receptor gene, DRD2.

Wayne Gretzky famously said, "Maybe it wasn't talent the Lord gave me, maybe it was the passion." But what if the two are inextricable? What if passion is a talent? Might not, say, Floyd Mayweather Jr.—who has been known to jolt awake in the middle of the night salivating to get to the gym—get an innately outsized sense of reward from working out? This gets to the questions that genetics has brought us no closer to answering: Where does genetic motivation bleed into free will? How can we affect our athletic fate? Who's in charge here—is your body running you, or are you running it?

After Mayweather's win over Oscar De La Hoya in 2007, he told SI about an unhappy period in the past when he constantly worried about money. "But I'm happy now," he said giddily, mentioning the $25 million he had made from the fight. Certainly, rewards more obvious than dopamine—such as money—are huge motivators. And, as it does with so many human endeavors, money can counter athletic heritage. "How many of the top Kenyan runners have sons or daughters who are excelling at running?" asks Pitsiladis. "Almost none. Why? Because their father or mother becomes a world champion, has incredible resources, and the child never has to run to school again."

W. Mitty wrote:

"How many of the top Kenyan runners have sons or daughters who are excelling at running?" asks Pitsiladis. "Almost none. Why? Because their father or mother becomes a world champion, has incredible resources, and the child never has to run to school again."

I can think of Rudisha (world class) and Martin Keino (pretty damn good). Surely there are others.

But unlike MLB, with dozens of father-son legacies.

I don't get the Jew comment.

there's an interesting part of the article that talks about aerobic capacity. says that initial capacity is unrelated to ability to improve with training. might explain why some guys step on the track in shape, while others start the season in horrible shape but make up ground quickly

The argument of heritage over genetics doesn't hold up on some sides though. For example the 56 finals qualifiers in the last SEVEN Olympic 100m finals have all been of West African descent spanning nearly a dozen different countries.

And one study found that there is greater genetic variation in any single African population than in the rest of the world put together.

M.C. Confusing wrote:

The argument of heritage over genetics doesn't hold up on some sides though. For example the 56 finals qualifiers in the last SEVEN Olympic 100m finals have all been of West African descent spanning nearly a dozen different countries.

And one study found that there is greater genetic variation in any single African population than in the rest of the world put together.

Correct re: greater genetic variation within Africa.

Not sure what it necessarily entails your apparent conclusion.

Regardless, the fact is already covered in the article, which you should read in full.

there are lots of gaps, Grand Canyon size in some cases, in the arguments here. But one particularly bad assumption, I think, is that those who run a lot get particularly great pleasure/reward from doing so. I don't find that to be the case. While sometimes I enjoy running, many times I do not, but I do it in order to maximize my potential, not for the pleasure that sometimes comes from a run. The question is really whether someone runs a lot, not what immensely varying feelings they have about it. To consciously run for pleasure happens, but I'm not getting the sense that that is the case for most elite athletes. It seems more likely that some do it for the challenge or because it is hard (not pleasurable) or out of a compulsion, etc. Why do you all run? Do you get anything out of it?

bump

If you don't enjoy running for runnings sake then you are not going to last long or reach your potential

First, to answer your question. I run because I find PLEASURE in it. If it's cranking out 60 sec. 1/4's or 27 sec. 200's, it's great. If it's a slow run on the trails, it's great. If it's drills with a 20 min. warm up, it's great.

Now for you:

Great job laying YOUR blanket on the rest of us. Open your eyes grasshopper, you are not the only person in the world.

Pleasure comes in many forms for the entire world. Pain is pleasure. Challenge is pleasure. Easy running is pleasure. Views from the trail is pleasure. Winning is pleasure. Competing is pleasure. Getting caught in a rainstorm but still running up the mountain is pleasure. Being seen is pleasure. Getting away is pleasure. Feeling tired after a hard run is pleasure. Being able to put one foot in front of the other after a major car wreck is pleasure. Not being wheelchair bound is a pleasure.

If running were mandatory for every person that is doing it, I would say you are correct. But it's not mandatory, it's a voluntary action.

Are you getting it yet?

Do some people hate running but still do it? Surely. But, because YOU don't find the pleasure regularly, doesn't mean you speak for the majority.

I dont' know why I bother with this site anymore. Where's the reading comprehension?

anybody read that sidestory from the article on "epigenetics" ? apparently you can turn your genes on or off or maybe even your children's genes. i wonder if running now can make your kids better runners or healthier or something

W. Mitty: one of my favorite movies!

Can anyone explain how certain, small tribes produce greater genetic variation (~the extremes) than large, mixed populations (America)? It seems like a smaller gene pool would create less genetic variation (more in the middle).

Correction: it seems a smaller gene pool would create less genetic variation, leaning towards ONE extreme (and not both ends, as indicated in the article). Smaller population = generation after generation of passing on the "long distance gene" = a population made exclusively of world class distance runners.

A great article. Nice to see something like this in a mainstream outlet like Sports Illustrated.

genetics wrote:

Can anyone explain how certain, small tribes produce greater genetic variation (~the extremes) than large, mixed populations (America)? It seems like a smaller gene pool would create less genetic variation (more in the middle).

There was one population: in Africa. A very small sub-population (with therefore, as you say, a smaller range of variation) left Africa. They had lots of children, but their children still were only drawing from that (relatively smaller) pool of variation. So that group of children has a smaller range of variation than the children of the larger pool of variation in Africa.

The ancestors of that group of chidren (the one with the smaller range of variation) is everyone who isn't African.

Whether the current tribes in Africa are smaller or larger than the population of the rest of the world doesn't matter. The original variations built up over millions of years. The migration out of Africa and the population explosion of the ancestors of that small group are nearly instantaneous on the time scales over which the original genetic variations arose. So there hasn't been time for the (now much larger) population outside Africa to develop (through mutation) the degree of variation that existed in that original African population (and still does).

Ah, thank you. Good explanation.

I am not a geneticist but here is layperson's explanation...You can think of the genetic variation as a reflection of the age of the population. Older populations have had more time to rack up genetic mutations and thus have more genetic diversity. Africa was cradle of humanity and therefore has more genetic variation.

So, as almostageneticist said, key issue is not SIZE but AGE of population. Ancestors of modern humans have lived in Africa for millions of years. The ancestors of non-Africans were small group(s) who made exodus from Africa about 60,000 years ago--a blink in time relatively speaking. That means non-Africans have had less time to rack up genetic variations.

Thus this idea is often summed up with example that single African village contains more genetic diversity than whole rest of world.

Again, I'm not a geneticist and a real one could probably pick some nits in explanation above. But that should give you the general idea.

BUMP!