Usain Bolt’s speed. Michael Phelps’ dominance. Serena Williams’ court savvy. What drives these athletes to rise above their competitors, to push the limits of human ability and achieve what no one before them has ever accomplished? Is it their endless hours of training, or are the endowed with a special recipe of DNA that destines them to greatness? David Epstein, a former senior writer at Sports Illustrated who was just hired as an investigative reporter at Pro Publica, asked these questions of elite and non-elite athletes, leading sports scientists and psychologists, among others. And what he found, as described in his new book The Sports Gene, is both encouraging and eye-opening. So is there a sports gene? There is absolutely no such thing as single sports gene. I think it’s a metaphorical concept. But there are cases where genes, depending on sport, are not sufficient for elite performance, but necessary. One obvious example is height for the NBA. And less obvious is the gene that tells you that you absolutely are not going be in the 100m final in the [Olympic Games in] Rio in 2016. The ACTN 3 gene, the so-called sprint gene, explains a small amount variation at very high levels of performance. So if you don’t have the correct copies [of this gene] for sprinting, you’re not going to be in the 100m final. What genetic science is showing us is that the more important part of talent — and certainly of endurance – is the ability to respond to training, the biological setup that makes you train better than your peers. If you’re not set up that way, you can put up a heck of a lot of work, but it might be impossible to reach elite levels. What does this mean for the 10,000 hours rule? That’s the idea that 10,000 hours of effortful practice is both necessary and sufficient to achieve excellence in almost everything. It originated in 10 violinists who already were highly pre-screened [for their ability], so much of humanity was already … Continue reading Is It Genes, or the Gym, That Makes Great Athletes? Q&A With Author of “The Sports Gene”