Are genetics/talent overrated?

As wikipedia says: "An aptitude is a component of a competence to do a certain kind of work at a certain level. Outstanding aptitude can be considered "talent". An aptitude may be physical or mental. Aptitude is inborn potential to do certain kinds of work whether developed or undeveloped. Ability is developed knowledge, understanding, learned or acquired abilities (skills) or attitude. The innate nature of aptitude is in contrast to skills and achievement, which represent knowledge or ability that is gained through learning. According to Gladwell (2008)[2] and Colvin (2008),[3] often it is difficult to set apart an outstanding performance due merely to talent or stemming from hard training. Talented people as a rule show high results immediately in few kinds of activity,[4] but often only in a single direction or genre.". So I hold this opinion!

In the end it all comes down to natural talent.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-07-world-champion-sprinter-muscle-profile.html

Clearly genetics/talent are key, but the most important thing is a strong will to succeed.

Somehow Norwegians all have the same running genes but they have no world elite for well over a decade and then one family with a particular training methodology gets three men among the best in the world at the 1500m in the past few years. For many years, I am sure they were saying that they didn't have the genes to compete with Africans at the distances and so didn't try. One father and his sons decided to try and look at the results. But you can't just say that any kind of training should work. Training partners and methods make an enormous difference even between two programs of 80 mpw and 2 workouts. Performances are far, far better when you have excellent training partners and well-structured workouts and warmups.

It takes talent to be an elite runner.

Apparently as shown here it takes little to no talent to be a troll.

we have nearly the same genetics.

it's more flexible than you think.

the gretzky family had the same genetics and the perfect coaching all.

only one is the great gretzky.

if you look at some super stars in any field, many come from families with out acclaim, and their kids did "nothing".

just go for it, and forget whatever limitations they're telling you have.

f..u.k em.

zxcvzcxv wrote:

Somehow Norwegians all have the same running genes but they have no world elite for well over a decade and then one family with a particular training methodology gets three men among the best in the world at the 1500m in the past few years. For many years, I am sure they were saying that they didn't have the genes to compete with Africans at the distances and so didn't try. One father and his sons decided to try and look at the results. But you can't just say that any kind of training should work. Training partners and methods make an enormous difference even between two programs of 80 mpw and 2 workouts. Performances are far, far better when you have excellent training partners and well-structured workouts and warmups.

good point, because of genetics, there is no way any european can run with the aftricans, especially at 1500m.

the evidence is that a country like sweden has no world class runners.

norway, we'll those guys must have african genetics.

this the only conclusion possible.

it's all about genetics.

If two people do identical workouts and mileage over a few years, genetics will win. But I think for example someone that's capable of a 13:30 5k with great training, 90 miles per week and someone with the same training but only musters 14:10 I think the better genetics will lose to the other person if they cut that training roughly in half and only run 45 mpw rarely doing quality workouts.

For example I ran in the 28's for 10k one year, then the next year I was done with college and mileage was cut in half and my workouts were crap. I ran one track 10k and struggled to a 30:15. The training matters more than any genetics, but if the training is same genetics obviously wins.

What you are missing is a father and his sons. Not a father his sons and a couple other people. If you are around long enough you will see this even at lower levels. Two fast runners have kids those kids are almost always way above average out of the gate with no training.

In triathlon have a look at the Brownlee brothers. The UK for a while was touting how it was all about the training and that these were just two ordinary athletes. That bs has quickly washed away as they are not exactly churning out athletes of this caliber left and right with the same training.

If Gjert Ingebrigtsen had some magic training method he would also be churning out great runners with last names not Ingebrigtsen.

I won't even go too far down the doping path as that muddies things up a lot. It does make it look like certain training groups have a training secret when often it is just easy access to peds.

zxcvzcxv wrote:

Somehow Norwegians all have the same running genes but they have no world elite for well over a decade and then one family with a particular training methodology gets three men among the best in the world at the 1500m in the past few years. For many years, I am sure they were saying that they didn't have the genes to compete with Africans at the distances and so didn't try. One father and his sons decided to try and look at the results. But you can't just say that any kind of training should work. Training partners and methods make an enormous difference even between two programs of 80 mpw and 2 workouts. Performances are far, far better when you have excellent training partners and well-structured workouts and warmups.

The Ingebrigtsen brothers are not world class because they decided to try to be fast. Like all successful runners at their level they are extremely talented. Having fast training partners doesn't make any difference as there are many great runners that didn't have someone to push them and intervals should not be at 100% effort, anyway. And there are no special training methods that would give them an edge over other runners.

geneticisit wrote:

If you want to be elite at sport, genetics is pretty much all that matters. You will not be at the top without the genetics, no matter how hard you work.

Glad no one told this to Tom Brady. Definitely not a genetic miracle. Was back up QB for his 0-8 JV football team in HS. Was a 6th round compulsatory pick in the NFL draft. Yet, because of his hard work, he's now the greatest football player to ever exist.

So: no. Genetics if not "pretty much all that matters."

theJeff wrote:

Even if genetics are way more important than you think, there is hope: according to Epstein, “improvability” or “response to training” are also genetic.

In other words, you won’t know until you try, and try for several years.

This is true. After a few years you will find what your talent is. For some it is durability, for some it is great speed, others something else. Long term training will expose your strengths and weaknesses and your upper limits.

aoxomoxoa wrote:

geneticisit wrote:

If you want to be elite at sport, genetics is pretty much all that matters. You will not be at the top without the genetics, no matter how hard you work.

Glad no one told this to Tom Brady. Definitely not a genetic miracle. Was back up QB for his 0-8 JV football team in HS. Was a 6th round compulsatory pick in the NFL draft. Yet, because of his hard work, he's now the greatest football player to ever exist.

So: no. Genetics if not "pretty much all that matters."

All NFL QBs take thousands of reps in practice. The reason Brady is more accurate is because of talent. He might also benefit from playing in a good system.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

All NFL QBs take thousands of reps in practice. The reason Brady is more accurate is because of talent.

The reps would be an argument for hard work rather than talent.

I would also argue that Brady isn't more talented than Jake Bortles when it comes down to it. Brady practices harder, smarter, and longer than any other QB as well as watching more film than Siskel and Ebert have in their lifetime.

His perceived "talent" is an end result of his incredibly hard work, not some genetic gift.

The genetic/born talent argument is an excuse for people to never try their hardest or to push themselves. They are convinced that great performance (in sport, in academics, or in any other arena in life) is because someone else was "gifted" with the ability or talent or intelligence. When you talk to people who are at the top of their game, they bring up hard work, dedication, passion, and hours and hours of dedicated, intentional practice.

Read "Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise" by Anders Ericsson (whose research formed the base of Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 hour rule").

zxcvzcxv wrote:

Somehow Norwegians all have the same running genes but they have no world elite for well over a decade and then one family with a particular training methodology gets three men among the best in the world at the 1500m in the past few years. For many years, I am sure they were saying that they didn't have the genes to compete with Africans at the distances and so didn't try. One father and his sons decided to try and look at the results. But you can't just say that any kind of training should work. Training partners and methods make an enormous difference even between two programs of 80 mpw and 2 workouts. Performances are far, far better when you have excellent training partners and well-structured workouts and warmups.

The fact that one *family* is succeeding is an argument for, not against, the importance of genetics.

Tell us about the field you are at the pinnacle of.

longjack wrote:

we have nearly the same genetics.

it's more flexible than you think.

the gretzky family had the same genetics and the perfect coaching all.

only one is the great gretzky.

if you look at some super stars in any field, many come from families with out acclaim, and their kids did "nothing".

just go for it, and forget whatever limitations they're telling you have.

f..u.k em.

. . . ??? . . . Interesting . . . ???¡???!???¡???

Exemple Gratia;

Alpha): HIIT™ Effects On Genetic Expression:

Beta):

1) High-intensity intermittent exercise training (HIIT) has been proposed as an effective approach for improving both, the aerobic and anaerobic exercise capacity.

However, the detailed molecular response of the skeletal muscle to HIIT remains unknown. It turns out that I decided to take a look at the effects of the HIIT on the global gene expression in . . . human skeletal muscle.

Eleven young healthy men participated in the study and completed a 6-week HIIT program involving exhaustive 6–7 sets of 20-s cycling periods with 10-s rests.

In addition to determining the maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), maximal accumulated oxygen deficit, and thigh muscle cross-sectional area (CSA), muscle biopsy samples were obtained from the vastus lateralis before and after the training to analyse the skeletal muscle transcriptome.

It turns out that he HIT program significantly increased the VO2max, maximal accumulated oxygen deficit, and thigh muscle CSA.

The expression of 79 genes was significantly elevated (fold-change >1.2), and that of 73 genes was significantly reduced (fold-change

preacher practice wrote:

Tell us about the field you are at the pinnacle of.

Not ending my sentences with prepositions in.