To be the best athlete, musician, or even gamer, you have to train relentlessly. But
to what degree does natural talent come into play? Are some of us just born with a better
chance to be the best at what we do?
To study this question in sports, scientists have tried subjecting untrained individuals
to identical exercise regimes, to see if the same amount of training would lead to varying
results. Not so surprisingly, different individuals saw different improvement - some improved
in leaps and bounds while others seemed stagnant. But interestingly, individuals who were related
by blood saw similar improvements, indicating that their genetics played a role in their
athletic potential. If your parent or sibling saw incredible results from training, so would
you. These individuals are considered 'high responders' to training.
After statistical analysis of endurance, it was determined that 50% of athletic improvement
was linked to genetics. In other words, great athletes are born with great genes.
With time, scientists have been able to isolate particular sets of genes which they believe
are responsible for these traits. High responders have them and experience significant improvement,
regardless of how fit they are to start. On the other hand, if your genes deem you a 'low
responder' for endurance training, cross-country skiing may not be for you.
But even before training, scientists noticed something else; individuals all had different
baseline endurance levels as well. Without any training, some individuals were simply
more fit than others. It turns out, a different set of genes give some people a higher baseline.
In the case of endurance, these genes can code for larger volumes of blood, which are
generally only seen in trained athletes.
So, you can have a high baseline or high trainability - or both! And it's likely that our greatest
athletes train as hard as they can, on top of having some great genetics. It seems that
talent is trainable, under the right circumstances.
So have you got what it takes to be an Olympic athlete? Science says, you'll never know until
you try.
Don't forget: we have a new video out every day of the Olympics.
Can't wait? Our amazing partners at the CBC already have five of the videos up now for you to binge on.
Just head to cbc.ca/olympics/ScienceSays to watch them before anyone else. Link in the description.
But we also want to know your questions for this special series. Use the hashtag ScienceSays and let us know your burning olympic questions.
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