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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.

Athletic performance is a generic term covering events as diverse as archery and ultramarathons. Elite performers have a rather narrow range of values in morphological, biomechanical, physiological, metabolic, perceptual, psychological and other traits, depending on the event. The quality of coaching and training and the adequacy of nutritional, psychological and medical support are all related to success in athletic performance. World-class performance also has genetic determinants. Although this notion is accepted as a truism by most people, divergent views exist. For instance, approximately 10,000 hours of practice has been proposed to be all that is needed to reach the level of an elite performer1.

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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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