The Sports Gene Chapters 5 &6

 Chapter 5: The Talent Trainability 

The most interesting thing that I read in this chapter was the HERITAGE family study that looked at 98 two generation families and had them participate in a 5 month long stationary bicycle training regimen that was made up of three workouts per week with increasing intensity controlled in the lab. The question of this lab was "How did regular exercise alter these previously untrained people?" and "How would the strength of their hearts change? Or the amount of oxygen they could use during exercise?" They also looked at the decrease in blood pressure and the change in cholesterol and insulin levels. The reason this study was different than others is because DNA was studied from all 481 participants with the a goal of seeing if genes played a role, and which ones. The findings in this were very interesting. The researchers found that even though every participant had the same training regimen, there was a vast and similar spectrum of aerobic capacity improvement. Also, the amount of improvement that any one experienced had nothing to do with where they started numbers wise. Family members generally had similar aerobic benefits from training, but the variation between different families were great. 

In 2011, which if you think about it was only 10 years ago, the HERITAGE research group identified 21 gene variants that predict the inherited component of an individual's aerobic improvement. Finally, we are narrowing down the answer to why some athletes are born with "the sports gene" and why some aren't.  This was a huge breakthrough in research.  

This chapter goes on to talk about several athletes that have always just had "it." It being the athletic factor, even without heavily focusing on their sport. Two factors noted were a highly elevated aerobic capacity, and a rapid training response. 

Chapter 6: Superbaby, Bully Whippets, and the Trainability of Muscle

Reading just this first page of Chapter 6 had me giggling imagining this ripped newborn baby, and the jacked mice. Anyways, I learned of a gene called myostatin, that literally translates to muscle halt with its root works that serves the same purpose in humans, cows, chickens, fish (which is interesting because they're not even mammals), pigs, sheep, and turkeys. It basically signals muscles to stop growing. Superbaby had little amounts of myostatin. He had the myostatin gene mutation which is what made him come out naturally muscular, and it stems from his mother who has the same mutation. 

The network of genes that regulates muscle growth is only beginning to be studied in depth. Some athletes have greater muscle growth potential than others because they start with different allotment of muscle fibers. Another strong suit of interest with me was the study on pro soccer players. The guys with a lot of fast-twitch fibers that can contract their muscles faster, but have much more risk of a hamstring injury than those with more slow-twitch fibers. The fast ones can't train as long as others and at least in this study, were often more injured than other players. Less training for these players is better than more, but for the ones that have the slow-twitch fibers and less-injury prone, more training is fine. It is so crazy the differences between different bodies and genetics leads to people being better in different positions, sports, and training ideals.