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World-class athletic performance and genetic endowment

Nature Metabolism volume 2, pages 796–798 (2020)Cite this article

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Individual differences in physical performance in the sedentary state and in response to exercise training have been observed in rodent and human studies. The genomic variants underlying these genetic components are unknown. Nonetheless, without a rich genetic endowment, world-class athletic performance is out of reach.

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Fig. 1: Human variability in percentage type 1 muscle fibres.
Fig. 2: Resources, technologies, and analytical and bioinformatics tools currently available to support the discovery of the genetic and molecular basis of performance-related traits in the intrinsic state and in response to exercise training.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Exercise Science, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

    Mark A. Sarzynski

  2. Human Genomics Laboratory, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University System, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    Claude Bouchard

Authors
  1. Mark A. Sarzynski
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  2. Claude Bouchard
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Correspondence to Mark A. Sarzynski or Claude Bouchard.

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Competing interests

M.A.S. is a consultant for Genetic Direction, LLC. C.B. has no conflicts of interest to declare.

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Sarzynski, M.A., Bouchard, C. World-class athletic performance and genetic endowment. Nat Metab 2, 796–798 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-020-0233-6

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