Right, imagine this for a second. Albert Pujols,
you know, maybe the greatest hitter of his generation.
Absolutely dominant, yes, a real force. Steps
up to the plate, everyone's bracing for a home
run, but then the pitcher, Jenny Finch, she's
throwing underhand softball style. Ah, completely
different discipline, different mechanics, different
visual cues. And Pujols just, well he swings
and misses, strikes out, it actually happened.
It did. It's a brilliant example, isn't it? Really
highlights how specific skills are. Or here's
another thought, elite athletes, right? We hear
about the 10 ,000 hours. But what if some reach
the top with, say, only 600 hours of practice?
That's another key piece of the puzzle, definitely.
It challenges that whole narrative. Welcome to
the deep dive. This is where we take stacks of
sources, research papers, articles, expert insights,
and really get stuck in pulling out the surprising
facts and hopefully some genuinely valuable understanding
for you. Giving you that shortcut to being really
well informed on complex topics. Exactly, and
today we are diving into one of the biggest questions
in sport, aren't we? What actually makes an extraordinary
athlete? Is it sheer hard graft? Hours and hours
on the training ground? Or is it more about winning
the genetic lottery? Having the right body from
the start? Or maybe it's some complicated mix
of both? That's what we're aiming to unpack today.
Peeling back those layers. And joining me to
guide us through this really fascinating, sometimes
confusing world of sports science is Professor
Mo Imam. He's brilliant at pulling together information
from different fields and helping us see the
connections. Thank you. It's great to be here.
This topic is just full of assumptions, isn't
it? And I think some of the research we'll look
at today might, well, it might surprise a few
people. It certainly challenges some common ideas.
I'm already intrigued. OK, let's set the stage.
We've got three big questions we want to tackle
to frame this deep dive. First up, that 10 ,000
hour rule. It feels like it's become gospel,
hasn't it? In music, business, everywhere. It
really has, yes. But is it truly the universal
blueprint for becoming an elite athlete? Or are
we perhaps missing something crucial? Are there
other factors just as important, maybe more so?
That's the first big one. OK, second. Beyond
just the hours you put in, how much does your
actual body, the hardware you're born with, your
biology, how much does that set your athletic
ceiling? Do sports genes really exist in the
way people often talk about them? And how big
a role do they play? Exactly. How significant
are they really? And third, we often see certain
groups, maybe from specific countries or regions,
dominating particular sports, sprinters from
one place, marathon runners from another. Yes,
those clusters of talent. Is that purely down
to opportunity, better coaching, facilities,
maybe just cultural emphasis? Or is there a deeper
story there, something linked to, well, ancestry
and maybe even evolution? These are absolutely
the core questions. And you're right, the simple
nature versus nurture framing just doesn't cut
it. It's far more intricate. So we'll be looking
at how practice really shapes perception, how
the physical gifts matter. Definitely. And how
environment and genetics weave together in these
really interesting ways across the globe. Sounds
brilliant. Right. Let's start by taking apart
this practice principle and specifically that
10 ,000 hour rule. It's everywhere. It feels
like a guarantee sometimes. Where did it actually
originate? Well, the idea really gained traction
from the work of a Swedish psychologist, K Anders
Ericsson, back in the early 90s. He did this
now famous study on violinists at a top music
academy in Berlin. Ah, yes, the violinist study.
Exactly. He found that the very best violinists,
the ones considered elite, had averaged about,
oh, 7 ,410 hours of solitary practice by the
time they were 18. Right. And by age 20, that
number was typically hitting or passing 10 ,000
hours. So the conclusion drawn was, well, it
looked like a straight line. More hours equals
better performance. Practice seemed to be the
direct cause of what people often called innate
talent. Okay, so it looked pretty clear -cut
in that study. Practice makes perfect. Literally.
Erickson then sort of extrapolated from that,
suggesting this wasn't just about violins, but
applied across loads of fields. Chess, music,
even sports, citing some early work on how experts
see things differently. It's a very compelling,
almost democratic idea, isn't it? Just put in
the hours and you can get there. But you mentioned
there were critiques of how that research was
done. What was the issue? Yes, and it's a really
important critique. The main problem is that
these were mostly cross -sectional and retrospective
studies. Meaning? Meaning they looked at people
after they'd already become successful, after
they got into the top music academy. Okay, so
they only studied the winners. Effectively precisely
by only looking at the elite group the method
couldn't really account for all the people who
might have practiced just as hard Maybe even
harder but never made it to that top level or
those who got there much faster with fewer hours
Exactly. It's a bit like studying lottery winners
and concluding that buying tickets is the only
thing that matters for getting rich You're ignoring
everyone who bought tickets and didn't win It
showed a correlation in a select group not necessarily
a universal rule of cause and effect That makes
a lot of sense. You're looking backwards at a
pre -selected group. So what about tracking people
forwards, longitudinal studies? That sounds like
the way to really test it. It absolutely would
be the gold standard. You're right. But it's
incredibly difficult to do properly. Think about
someone like Dan McLaughlin. The guy who quit
his job to play golf, aiming for 10 ,000 hours.
That's the one. His story is fascinating, shows
incredible dedication. But imagine trying to
recruit hundreds of people. Get them to commit
years to practicing something new. Track every
single hour accurately. Logistically, it sounds
like a nightmare. And ethically tricky, too,
maybe. It is. So most research still ends up
relying on people remembering how much they practiced,
which, you know, can be a bit unreliable. Biases
creep in. OK, so given those challenges, what
does other evidence tell us? Does the 10 ,000
-hour rule actually hold up when you look across
different sports or more closely at the data?
Well, not really, no. Not as a universal law.
The evidence against it being a magic number
is pretty strong. Take chess, for instance. OK.
There's documented evidence of one player reaching
master level in only 3 ,000 hours. But another
player needed 23 ,000 hours to get to the exact
same level. Wow, that's nearly an eightfold difference.
Exactly. And perhaps even more telling, some
players put in over 25 ,000 hours and never reached
master level. So hours alone clearly aren't the
whole story. Right. It's not just quantity. And
in other sports. Yeah. Research suggests elite
status in things like basketball, field hockey,
wrestling. It often averages closer to 4 ,000
to 6 ,000 hours. Much less than 10 ,000. Considerably
less. And then you have cases like Vicki Wilson,
the Australian netball star. Truly exceptional
player. She made the national team with only
about 600 hours of formal practice. 600? That's
astonishing. It is. It really drives home the
point that 10 ,000 hours isn't always necessary,
nor is it always enough. Practice is vital, absolutely,
but how effective that practice is seems to vary
hugely between individuals. OK, so it's not just
the sheer volume of hours. What about those moments
in sport that feel like pure instinct? You know,
lightning reflexes, incredible anticipation.
Is that learned through practice too, or is that
something innate? Ah, that's a great question.
And it leads us to this idea of learned perceptual
expertise. It's crucial. What looks like raw
speed or instinct is often actually a highly
developmental library. A library of patterns.
Exactly. Built up through thousands of hours
of practice. Think back to Jenny Finch striking
out Albert Pujols and Barry Bonds. Right. Two
of the best ever. They weren't baffled because
she threw incredibly fast like a baseball pitcher.
They were baffled because their brains had no
database for underhand softball pitches. The
spin, the trajectory, the pitcher's movements.
It was all alien. So they couldn't predict it.
They were just reacting at the last second. Precisely.
Their fundamental reaction speed, you know, hitting
a button when a light flashes, is probably no
different to yours or mine. Around 200 milliseconds?
That's pretty standard for humans. So it's not
about physically reacting faster in that basic
sense. It's about seeing more. processing faster,
seeing the future almost. That's a brilliant
way to put it. Researchers like Janet Starks
did some fascinating work on this. She showed
that elite athletes don't have faster simple
reaction times. OK. But if you flash them a picture
of a game situation for just 16 milliseconds,
literally a blink and you miss it flash that
a novice wouldn't register properly. 16 milliseconds.
That's incredibly brief. It is. Yet top volleyball
players, for instance. could look at that flash
and extract crucial information. They could understand
the play, figure out roughly when and where the
photo was taken. A novice just sees, well, nothing
meaningful. It's like a chess grandmaster seeing
a position for five seconds and understanding
vastly more than a decent club player does in
15 minutes. It's all down to that learned database
of patterns and situations. This sophisticated
software is built by deliberate practice. That
chess analogy really clicks. Practice isn't just
repetition. It's building this incredibly complex
internal library. But you can have the best software,
can't you? But if the computer itself, the hardware,
isn't up to the job. Exactly. The software won't
run properly, or maybe not at all. Which brings
us neatly to the other side of the coin. The
unavoidable reality of our innate physical hardware.
our biology. How much does that dictate what's
possible for us athletically, our ceiling? This
is where we have to move beyond just talking
about practice. That learned skill operates on
a physical foundation. And some foundations are
just better suited for certain tasks. Vision,
for example, hugely important, often underestimated.
Really? Vision specifically? Absolutely. Louis
Rosenbaum did a meticulous study on the LA Dodgers
baseball team. He found their average visual
acuity was about 2013. that's significantly sharper
than standard 2020 vision. Better than perfect
vision, in a sense. Yes, and even more revealing,
the major league players consistently tested
better than the minor league players. Okay, suggesting
a link to performance level. Definitely. The
most famous story is probably Mike Piazza, the
Hall of Fame catcher. He was drafted incredibly
late, something like... the 13th, 390th pick.
Wow. Why so late if he was that good? Well, he
was apparently picked almost entirely based on
Rosenbaum's vision data. Someone saw those exceptional
visual scores and took a massive gamble and it
paid off spectacularly. So it's not just about
seeing clearly in general, it's about specific
visual skills needed for a sport. Exactly that.
Yeah. The U .S. Olympic softball team, for example,
they tested with an average acuity of 2011, even
sharper, plus outstanding depth perception and
contrast sensitivity. all vital for tracking
a small fastball. But archers, they need amazing
static visual acuity for hitting a still target,
but maybe not the same level of depth perception.
Fensers, on the other hand, need brilliant depth
perception for those quick, close -range judgments.
Different demands, different visual strengths.
Precisely. Even picking up the spin on a ball,
like seeing the red scenes on a baseball that
relies on sharp vision. Your amazing mental software
needs top -notch hardware, like clear vision,
to get the information it needs early enough
to work effectively. Makes sense. Beyond vision,
what other physical hardware traits are really
significant things we might not think about immediately?
Well, subtle biomechanics can make a huge difference.
Take the Achilles tendon. The one connecting
the calf to the heel. That's the one. Stefan
Holm, the Swedish Olympic high jumper, quite
short for a high jumper, actually was incredibly
successful. Partly because his intense training
had made his Achilles tendon unbelievably stiff.
In this context, yes. It meant it acted like
an incredibly powerful spring. Took enormous
force to stretch it even slightly. Now contrast
him with Donald Thomas, another high jumper from
the Bahamas. Thomas had a naturally very long
Achilles tendon. over 10 inches. That length
inherently gave him a massive capacity for storing
and releasing elastic energy when he jumped.
So one trained for stiffness, one had natural
length, but both got a powerful spring effect.
Exactly. It's called the stretch shortening cycle.
Think of a kangaroo bouncing exhaust. They use
their long elastic tendons to store and release
energy very efficiently. A longer or stiffer
tendon can store more energy and release it more
explosively. It's a critical mechanical advantage
whether you build it through training like home
or you're born with it like Thomas. built in
or built up. Fascinating. What about muscle fibers?
Fast twitch, slow twitch, we hear those terms
a lot. How much is that down to genetics? Muscle
fiber type is a really fundamental piece of innate
hardware. It heavily influences whether you're
built more for power or endurance. You basically
got fast twitch fibers, type two. Explosive ones.
Yes. Powerful, but they tire relatively quickly.
They grow well with weight training. Then you
have slow twitch, type I. Their endurance fibers
generate less force, but keep going for ages.
And most people have a mix. Most people have
a mix, yes. But elite athletes often have a distribution
heavily skewed towards what their sport demands.
Elite sprinters might have 75 % or more fast
twitch fibers and key muscles. For that explosive
start. Exactly. Whereas top marathon runners,
like Frank Shorter was found to have, might have
80 % slow twitch fibers. Perfect for endurance.
Okay, so you're born with a certain distribution.
Can training change your fiber type? Can you
turn slow twitch into fast twitch if you train
for power? Ah, well this is what some people
find a bit disappointing actually. The research
overwhelmingly says no, not really. Except in
very extreme unusual circumstances like after
a major spinal cord injury, you can't fundamentally
change a slow twitch fiber into a fast twitch
one or vice versa. So you're largely stuck with
the ratio you've got. Pretty much. Training can
definitely make your fast twitch fibers more
resistant to fatigue or make your slow twitch
fibers stronger. You can optimize what you have,
but you can't change their basic type. And that
has real implications for training, presumably.
Huge implications. There was a Danish physiologist,
Jesper Andersen. He noticed that many of Denmark's
naturally fastest young football players were
actually dropping out due to chronic injuries.
Why was that? Because, paradoxically, The standard
intensive training programs weren't suited to
their fast twitch physiology. They were getting
injured. So coaches ended up, perhaps unintentionally,
favoring the slightly slower players who were
less injury prone on those programs. A real mismatch
between innate ability and training approach.
Wow. So you need to train the athlete you have,
not the athlete you wish you had. What about
muscle growth itself? Are some people just genetically
programmed to build muscle more easily? Absolutely.
There's strong evidence for that. The most extreme
example, though rare, is the German superbaby
case. I think I've heard of this. A boy born
with visibly double the normal muscle mass. Turned
out he had mutations on both copies of his myostatin
gene. Myostatin, that's the gene that limits
muscle growth. Exactly, it acts like a break.
He basically had no break, so his muscles just
kept growing. Interestingly, his mother was a
professional sprinter, and she had one copy of
the mutant gene. Suggests a genetic link to enhanced
muscle. And we see this in animals too. We do.
Belgian blue and Piedmontese cattle are famous
for this double -muscling due to natural myostatin
mutations. Certain whippets have a mutation that
makes them much more muscular and faster racers.
Right, faster dogs. Even in racehorses. Thoroughbreds
with a specific version of the myostatin gene,
the C version, tend to be better sprinters and
earn more money. Less myostatin, more muscle,
more speed. So genetics clearly plays a role
in baseline muscle potential. But what about
how people respond to training? If two people
do the exact same workout, do they get the same
results? Not even close, usually. And this is
another really crucial point that challenges
the simple effort equals outcome idea. The Heritage
Family study was massive for showing this. What
did they do? They took thousands of people who
didn't exercise much, put them all in the exact
same standardized aerobic exercise program. And
the results? All over the place. Some people
saw virtually zero improvement in their aerobic
capacity. Others improved by over 50 % from the
same training. 50 % difference. That's huge.
It's massive. Clearly, some people were high
responders to that training and others were low
responders. It strongly suggests that how much
benefit you get from exercise your trainability
has a significant genetic component. And does
this apply to strength training, too? It does.
A study at the University of Alabama Birmingham
put people on identical weightlifting programs.
Again, huge variation. Some saw basically no
muscle fiber growth. Others saw a 25 % increase.
And then there were extreme responders who saw
a 50 % increase in muscle fiber size. Wow. What
made them extreme responders? They found these
individuals had significantly more satellite
cells. These are cells crucial for muscle repair
and growth. So again, an underlying biological
difference dictating the response to the same
training stimulus. So effort is essential, but
your biology dictates how much return you get
on that effort. Exactly. Think of someone like
Jim Reid -Jone, the American runner. He apparently
started high school running as, quote, the sorriest
member of the team. Really struggled initially.
OK. But his body responded incredibly well to
the training. He improved dramatically very quickly,
becoming a state champion, then world class.
His baseline might have been low, like some of
those heritage low responders, but his trainability
was extraordinary. Not everyone, even with the
same dedication, would see that kind of transformation.
That's a really powerful illustration. The same
input doesn't guarantee the same output. Our
biology sets the parameters. Okay, let's shift
gears slightly. Let's look at how the ideal athlete's
body has changed over time and then dive into
those geographic hotspots of talent. We hear
about this big bang of body types in sports.
What does that refer to? It refers to this really
dramatic divergence in the physical shapes and
sizes of elite athletes over the last century
or so. Back in the early 20th century, maybe
around the 1920s, the thinking was that a fairly
average all -around build was best for most sports.
One size fits all, kind of? Sort of, yes. You
might look at photos from, say, 1925. An elite
volleyball player, an elite discus thrower, could
look remarkably similar in size and shape. OK.
But as sports got more professional, more competitive,
more scientific, well, you started seeing what
you could call artificial selection at play.
Bodies started becoming hyper specialized for
the specific demands of each sport. So that average
build just wasn't competitive anymore in most
elite sports. Can you give some examples of this
specialization? Oh, absolutely. The differences
now are often huge. Compare an average elite
male shot putter today to an average elite male
high jumper. The shot putter is likely about
2 .5 inches taller, but a massive 130 pounds
heavier. Oh, polar opposites almost. Pretty much.
Or look at female gymnasts. Over about 30 years,
their average height dropped from around 5 foot
3 to 4 foot 9. A smaller, lighter frame is simply
more advantageous for the incredibly complex
rotations and flips they perform. That makes
sense. Any other examples? Water polo players.
A study in Croatia found that elite players'
arm lengths were increasing five times faster
than the arm lengths in the general Croatian
population over a couple of decades. Longer arms
give a clear advantage for reaching and throwing
in the pool. The successful body types are literally
pulling away from each other. The NBA must be
a prime example of selecting for a very specific,
unusual body type. Absolutely striking. The height
difference alone is amazing. You take American
men age 20, 40 who are genuinely seven feet tall
or more. A staggering 17 % of them are currently
playing in the NBA. 17%. That's incredible. One
in six, basically. Roughly, yes. If you found
six random seven -foot American men, odds are
one plays pro basketball. But it's not just height.
It's proportions. The ideal Vitruvian man is
depicted in a square, right? Height equals arm
span. Right. Leonardo da Vinci. Well, the average
NBA player is more like a rectangle. Their average
arm span to height ratio is about 1 .063. So
their arms are over 6 % longer than they are
tall. That's a huge difference from the average
1 .1 ratio. It is. It actually approaches the
criteria for Marfan syndrome, a condition that
causes long limbs. Think of players like John
Wall listed at maybe 6 foot 3, but with a reach
over 6 foot 9. Or Chuck Hayes, 6 foot 5, but
with a 6 foot 10 wingspan. That extra length,
that innate trait, competes massively. It's like
they're built for the job. And this specialization
goes right down to the skeleton, doesn't it?
How much muscle you can carry. It does. There's
fascinating work by an exercise scientist. Kevin
Hallway, suggesting a general biological rule.
For every kilogram of bone mass, the body can
typically support a maximum of about five kilograms
of muscle. Oh, one to five ratio. Roughly. So
if an Olympic thrower has a skeleton that's just,
say, 6 .5 pounds heavier than an average man's
skeleton, that denser frame can naturally support
over 30 pounds of additional muscle mass compared
to the average person. Their skeleton dictates
their muscle potential to a large extent. And
that affects training, too. Definitely. A javelin
thrower needs explosive power, but also speed,
so they wouldn't want to carry much excess weight
beyond that optimal muscle ratio. It would slow
them down. A sumo wrestler, though, extra mass
is an advantage, so they might benefit from exceeding
that ratio. It shows, again, training has to
be tailored to the underlying structure. This
idea of matching body type to sport sounds like
talent transfer. Finding people with the right
build and putting them into a sport they might
not have considered. Does that actually work?
It works remarkably well sometimes. It really
shows how the right hardware can shortcut the
learning curve. The Australian Institute of Sport
did this brilliantly. What did they do? They
recruited athletes from surf life -saving people
with incredible power, balance, nerve, often
called beach babes, and they put them onto skeleton
sleds. Skeleton? The head -first ice track thing,
having never done it before. Exactly. Novices.
And apparently within just three runs down the
track, some of them were breaking Australian
national records. Wow. That's incredible. Shows
the power of the right physical foundation. Absolutely.
Another great example is Elisa Kaplan. She was
a top gymnast and sailor. Never even seen snow
before she switched to aerial skiing. Aerial
skiing? That looks terrifyingly complex. It is.
Requires huge spatial awareness, power, precision.
Yet she won Olympic gold. and she did it just
six weeks after breaking both her ankles. That's
just unbelievable resilience and aptitude. It
shows that if you have the right fundamental
physical attributes, the hardware gaze, you can
sometimes learn the specific skills of a new
sport astonishingly quickly and reach an elite
level. It's about getting the best all -round
athletes with the right predispositions into
the sports that suit their biology. Which kind
of pushes back against the idea that you must
specialize super early in one sport, doesn't
it? It really does. And there's growing evidence
that early specialization might not always be
the best path. In fact, it can sometimes be detrimental.
How so? It can lead to burnout, overuse injuries,
and sometimes what coaches call speed plateaus.
Athletes hit a ceiling because their early training
was too narrow. Didn't build a broad enough athletic
base. Interesting. So maybe starting broader
is better. It seems that way for many sports.
A big Danish study in 2011 found that athletes
who were near elite by age 15 had actually done
more specialized practice hours than the ones
who eventually became truly elite. Really? The
ones who made it practice less early on? In their
specific sport, yes. It was only after 15 that
the future elites really ramped up their sport
-specific training. It suggested building general
athleticism. Trying different things when younger,
what you might call late specialization, could
actually be better for long -term development
and reaching the highest level in many disciplines.
You build a more robust, adaptable athlete first.
That makes a lot of sense. OK, this brings us
nicely to that intersection of geography, ancestry,
and these talent hotspots. Like Jamaican sprinters,
their dominance is undeniable. What's the story
there? Is it genetics, environment, culture?
Ah, Jamaica. It's a classic and complex example.
There's often debate, isn't there? You have researchers
like Yanis Pitsiladis, who really emphasize the
environmental and cultural factors, and others
like Errol Morrison, who give more weight to
potential genetic predispositions. And there's
that warrior -slave theory you sometimes hear
mentioned. Yes, that theory suggests that maybe
the strongest, fittest enslaved people from West
Africa were brought to particularly harsh areas
like Jamaica's cockpit country, and perhaps their
descendants inherited genes suited for explosive
power. It's a popular idea, but well, it's quite
speculative. And genetically, Jamaicans are actually
very diverse, reflecting many different West
African origins. It's not one single genetic
group. OK, so it's likely not that simple genetically.
What are the stronger arguments then? What really
drives that conveyor belt of sprint talent? Well,
Pizzalotta's having spent a lot of time there
working with coaches points very strongly to
the environment and culture. Jamaica has this
incredible champs culture, national high school
track and field championships. I've heard it's
huge over there. It's a national obsession, like
the FA Cup final here, maybe even bigger relative
to the population size. This creates this amazing
island wide talent identification system. Almost
every kid, especially in rural areas, tries sprinting.
The coaches are incredibly knowledgeable and
spot talent early. So kids with natural speed
get noticed and channeled into track. Exactly.
Usain Bolt wanted to be a cricketer, but a sharp
coach saw his raw speed at 14 and pushed him
towards track. In other countries, a kid that
big and fast might easily end up playing rugby
or American football. In Jamaica, the system
keeps them in sprinting. So the culture acts
like a giant sieve, catching all the fast kids.
Precisely. And it ties into this idea, you know
the saying, you can't teach speed. Well, you
can definitely improve technique and conditioning
to make someone faster. It's also generally true
that kids who are naturally slow don't suddenly
become world -class sprinters as adults. Jamaica
system is just incredibly effective at finding
those naturally fast kids very young and keeping
them in the sport. OK, that makes a lot of sense.
A powerful cultural and structural advantage.
Now let's switch continents. East Africa, especially
Kenyan runners, the Kalenjin people, their dominance
in distance running feels almost mythical sometimes.
Is there a similar story there? Genetics? Environment?
Again, it looks very much like a combination
of factors working together. The statistics are
quite staggering. The Kalenjin make up only about
12 % of Kenya's population, but they account
for something like three quarters of the country's
top -distance runners. 75 % from just 12 % of
the people. Exactly. And you see similar patterns
with the Oromo in Ethiopia, the Sebi in Uganda.
There are countless stories of people who seemed,
you know, comfortably sedentary, like a runner
called Paul Rodich, who start training relatively
late and just rabidly transform into elite competitors.
An incredible natural aptitude. So is there a
specific physical advantage they possess? There
seems to be. Studies comparing Kalenjin boys
to say Danish boys, found the kalenjin on average
have significantly thinner lower legs. Maybe
15 -17 % thinner? Thinner lower legs. Why does
that matter? Think of your legs swinging like
a pendulum when you run. Less weight at the end
of the pendulum means it takes less energy to
swing it forward with every stride. It improves
running economy, how efficiently you use oxygen
at a given speed. Ah, I see. Less effort required.
Precisely. And this difference seems to exist
even in Kalanjin boys who aren't particularly
active, suggesting it might be a more inherent
morphological trait, possibly genetic. And what
about the environment? Running to school? Altitude?
Both likely play a role. Many elite East African
runners did run or walk long distances to school
as children. People like Dere Dutulu, Moses Kiptenui.
That's thousands of hours of low -intensity aerobic
work during development. But it's not universal.
Paul Turgot, Wilson Kipkitter, they mostly walked,
so it's not the only factor. Now, altitude is
fascinating and complex, too. Many train at moderate
to high altitudes. But different populations
adapt differently. Tibetans have that EPAS1 gene
variant for better blood flow without extra red
blood cells. Amhara Ethiopians seem to transfer
oxygen very rapidly at the tissue level. And
Amguns increase their hemoglobin significantly.
So different strategies for coping with thin
air. Exactly. And Oromo Ethiopians are often
altitude responders. Their hemoglobin increases
even at moderate altitudes. Plus, being born
and raised at altitude... generally leads to
larger lung volumes, which is a permanent advantage
for oxygen intake. It really sounds like a perfect
storm of potential genetic predispositions, specific
body types, environmental conditioning like altitude
and maybe childhood activity. It does seem to
be a confluence of many factors. And there was
that interesting case of the American Canyon,
wasn't there? Yes. Tell us about that. Anthony
Sandoval. He grew up at high altitude, 8000 feet
in New Mexico, walked and ran miles as a kid,
similar to some East African runners' childhoods.
A top exercise physiologist, David Martin, tested
him, was just blown away. What did he find? Described
as a physiological specimen. Long legs, big heart,
big lungs, small torso, incredibly efficient
oxygen transport. And Martin's conclusion was
famously, you know what he is, he's a Kenyan,
an American Kenyan. Wow. So similar environmental
pressures plus maybe the right innate physiology
created a similar athletic profile, despite the
different ancestry. It really suggests how powerful
that interplay between biology and environment
can be in shaping athletic potential for endurance.
This has been absolutely illuminating. It's so
clear that it's never just nature or nurture,
is it? It's this incredibly complex dance between
them. OK, let's wrap up with a few quickfire
questions to nail down some key takeaways. First
one, a parent's listening. They want to know
if their kid has potential to be fast. What's
the best, most practical genetic test they can
use right now? A stopwatch, honestly. Take them
out, let them race their friends. Direct measurement
of the actual skill or attribute is always, always
better than trying to guess from indirect genetic
information. Simple direct makes perfect sense.
OK, next. Can anyone, anyone become truly elite
if they just put in enough hours, show enough
dedication, or is there a biological limit? Realistically,
no. Not everyone can become elite. As we've seen,
tradeability varies massively. Someone might
need eight times the practice to reach the same
level as someone else. And some people, however
hard they work, their biology just might not
respond enough to get them to that absolute top
tier. Effort is crucial, but it doesn't guarantee
an elite outcome for everyone. Right, biology
sets boundaries. And final quick question, is
there one single perfect athlete gene? or maybe
perfect genetic profile that guarantees success.
Statistically speaking, absolutely not. It's
a nice idea, but the reality is far more complex.
Just looking at 23 genes linked to endurance,
the odds of someone having the ideal version
of all of them are less than one in a quadrillion.
One in a quadrillion, so basically impossible.
Pretty much, yes. Most of us, genetically speaking,
are somewhere in the muddled middle. Elite performance
arises from a very rare combination of many favorable
genes interacting, plus the right environment,
the right training, immense dedication, and those
crucial psychological factors too. This has been
so insightful. It hammers home that elite performance
is this intricate braid. Genes lay a foundation,
a predisposition. And then environment? Culture?
opportunity, and crucially, the right kind of
dedicated practice work to develop that potential.
It's never either. And that 10 ,000 -hour rule.
Clearly an oversimplification. Practice is vital,
but its effectiveness depends hugely on the individual's
biology and whether the practice itself is smart,
deliberate, and personalized. Spot on. Quantity
isn't enough. Quality and suitability matter
enormously. We've also seen how specialized bodies
are becoming increasingly key for elite success,
with things like limb length, muscle fibers,
bone structure, and sheer trainability playing
huge, often genetically influenced roles. While
geography and ancestry clearly contribute to
talent hotspots, we must remember the immense
diversity within any population group, often
more variation within than between groups. And
critically, it's not just about the physical,
those psychological traits, the drive, the pain
tolerance, that almost obsessive commitment.
Yes, the head stuff. Often with its own genetic
links, too. Think of sled dogs bred for willingness
to pull. Or ultra -runners who genuinely need
that extreme activity. It's the whole package,
mind and body. Absolutely. And the encouraging
thing is, even if becoming an Olympian isn't
the goal, everyone benefits from exercise in
their own way. Finding what works for your unique
biology is key for health, enjoyment, and getting
the most out of it. That's the real journey of
self -discovery, isn't it? It really is. If you
found this deep dive into athletic potential
useful, please do consider rating the show or
sharing it on LinkedIn or ex -formally Twitter.
It really helps others find these conversations.
And perhaps a final thought to leave with. Pursuing
athletic improvement at any level is really a
quest to find what works for your unique biology.
Taking part is a journey of discovering yourself
in ways that maybe even science can't fully map
yet. A perfect place to end. Thank you so much
for sharing your expertise today. My pleasure
entirely. Fascinating discussion. Thank you for
joining us on the Deep Dive. We'll be back soon
with another exploration.