Chapter 13 and 14 Sports Gene

Chapter 13:  This chapter starts off speaking on Evans Kiplagat, who to me, seems like a super human that trains and runs miles on top of miles everyday. Apparently, numerous Kenyans do this everyday, and if they have talent to run, they believe that it is never too late to train. 

We then transition back to Pitsiladis' research work he has done with the Kenyans, Kalenjins, and Jamaicans. According to Pitsiladis' work, he has found that runners from Kenya are mostly from the Kalenjin tribe, grew up in poor or rural areas, and would hike miles to get to school had a higher aerobic capacity on average than their peers. Is that genetic or cultural? Pitsiladis would say it's a socioeconomic phenomenon. 

I find it extremely interesting that the high altitude in Kenya and Ethiopia is what may help the trainability of these athletes. If it actually does have such an impact, why aren't more avid runners and competitors coming down to these parts and training there as well? This is no longer a concept of genetics, but an adaptation that their bodies had made to the life of lower oxygen. Being born in these higher altitude is preferable to these adaptations the entire body is making rather than moving there just to train. 

Kenya's running success comes from being born native to higher altitude because they proportionally have bigger lungs which have a larger surface area, they have the poorer or rural backgrounds of them having to walk or run to school every morning, and having longer, thinner legs overall.  

Chapter 14: This chapter starts with talking about Lance Mackey, an icon in the dogsled racing world. Mackey talks about his racing dogs, how they are reinforced and trained, and how each one has their own trainability quirks.It then went on to talk about Mackey’s life before he started training and breeding sled dogs. He bred the hardest working dogs, because he couldn’t breed the fastest dogs. After winning the Iditarod multiple times, people wanted to copy Mackey’s unusual  marathon breeding style. Breeding dogs to race is very attainable, as 40% of racing whippets have the rare myostatin gene mutation that we talked about in the superbaby chapter. This chapter also talks about the adaptability of the huskies and malamutes to exercise. Humans adapt slowly with fatigue and soreness when first introduced to training, but dogs can do it on the run. It is proven that work ethic is genetically proven. That is super interesting to me and answered one of the questions I had from reading last chapter. 

Next, it talked about Pam Reed, an Ironman champion. Pam had an intense desire to run, and like the studies of the rodents that got pleasure from running for long bouts, so did Pam. Large studies have hinted at these traits to be hereditary. This may be due to variations in the brain’s dopamine system. There is proof that it could be hereditary, and that a dopamine response does come from exercise. The last question in this chapter brings up an interesting point. That is “ Can there possibly be any practical use at all for genetic testing in sports right now?” The answer is “absolutely.” I agree, and think we could identify different genes that contribute to trainability, athleticism, hard work, speed, endurance, and more.