Genetics Matter. Period.
I’m not the only one to share this viewpoint as this article in the Brisbane Times, proposing that world class sprinters will continue to get taller and heavier. It talks about a few factors, ranging from leg length to muscle composition.
I want to make the point that there is a lot going on at play here that is completely beyond an individual’s control.
Consider the photo showing the finish of the 100m event in Berlin where Usain Bolt recently broke the 100m world record with a time of 9.58s:
I think that this event was an amazing event. Not only did the world record get smashed by a crazy margin, it got beaten by 2 people, and the number of runners with sub 10s times was astounding.
One thing about the photo, basically all the runners were of African-region descent.
And this raises the potent question of, How much does genetics matter
It is a fact that genetics do matter, and some groups of people are good at certain things. Sure, there are cultural reasons as to why we don’t see that many Africans in gymnastics, but there are also reasons as to why they are good at sprinting.
Consider Usain Bolt. Tall, long legs, high calves, ridiculously lean, the list goes on. Let’s just pick up on a few of those characteristics.
We can look into high calves. It’s no myth that the proportion of black people who have high calves is greater than most other populations. What this means, is that their achilles tendon is on the average longer. Longer tendon = more elastic energy = higher potential rate of force production.
We can look into muscle composition. Africans also tend to have a higher ratio of type IIA and IIB fast twitch fibres in their muscles, also enabling a higher rate of force production.
We can even talk about Bolt’s leptin and insulin sensitivity, which is very likely to be astounding. That means that he can maintain a low body fat without his hormonal expression being compromised (as compared to a regular guy). That obviously means less weight to push around.
We can talk about his muscle insertions points, in which his quads insert at longer points, providing a larger fulcrum and more torque on his leg.
In short, we can talk about many, many, many things…
Take the Average Trainee
In short, just to repeat once more, Genetics do Matter. And they probably matter more than you think.
Let’s take the common example of the chronic female dieter.
She may have lousy insulin sensitivity (genetic insulin sensitivity, the kind you’re born with, can vary tenfold amongst different people), this makes her do very poorly on carbohydrate rich diets, and thus has to can carbs to seriously lose weight.
She may have lousy leptin sensitivity, which makes her leptin expression crash hard during a diet, cascading into a host of other side effects.
She may have an intense, focused personality, and tells herself that she MUST lose weight and MUST do cardio like crazy.
She may be genetically prone to produce more cortisol (a stress hormone which causes water retention), which is compounded by the fact that she is doing so much cardio (since exercise tends to increase cortisol).
At the same time, she is one week away from her period, when progesterone is dropping and water retention is increased as a result.
The net effect is that she bloats with water retention from all the above. Thinking that she is not losing fat, or even gaining fat due to the increases water weight, which also makes her look puffy, she diets and trains harder, just like someone of her intense personality would do.
Disaster in the making.
The Take Home Message
Even if you didn’t understand a single thing that was presented in the eamples above, these 2 points can summarise everything that can be drawn for that example.
- Not everyone is blessed with the same type of genetics. Some people may burn fat more easily than others purely because of better hormonal response; some people may be able to lift more than others purely because of better muscle leverage factors and bone structure
- Some people have it really hard at accomplishing certain physical goals (like losing weight or sprinting really fast)
What this is NOT, is an excuse to stop trying.
Sure, some people have it harder because of their genetics, but that only means that the individual will never be able to compare to others on the world-class level.
So what if you can’t be a Usain Bolt, you can still run really fast (say a 11 second 100m) if you train.
So what if you have compromised hormones during dieting, it just means that you have to be more diligent to reach 5% bodyfat (which is ridicuously low to begin with)
I guess my real take home message is this: Because genetics matter, and genetics vary so much, it becomes irrelevant for you to compare yourself to someone else.
As long as you are getting stronger than you were before, slimmer than you were before, faster than you were before, you know that you are doing something right.
Finally, I would like to end by saying that the example of the female dieter I gave in this post demands more elaboration, something which I will do so in a future article.
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