There has long been a debate among doctors, scientists and psychologists about whether nature or nurture is more important in our development as humans. But when it comes to sports and fitness, do genes count more than constant practice?
Malcolm Gladwell made famous the dictum that to achieve expert status at anything, from playing a violin to kicking a football, you need at least 10,000 hours of practice. But it turns out there are genetic markers that can help determine what kind of sports you would be good at.
“The theme that’s coming out of exercise genetics is that they are finding trainability genes,” says David Epstein, a former athlete and author of The Sports Gene . Genes have an effect on anyone’s level of improvement from training, he says. “For muscle growth and endurance, some of those genes have been located.”
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Read the full, original story: Our genes are an integral part of a training regime
