The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance

The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance by David Epstein "The Sports Gene" is an enjoyable book that shares the latest of modern genetic research as it relates to elite athleticism. In the never-ending quest to settle the debate of nature versus nature, David Epstein takes the readers on a journey into sports and tries to answer how much does each contribute. This fascinating 352-page book includes the following sixteen chapters: 1. Beat by an Underhand Girl: The Gene-Free Model of Expertise, 2. A Tale of Two High Jumpers: (Or: 10,000 Hours Plus or Minus 10,000 Hours), 3. Major League Vision and the Greatest Child Athlete Sample Ever: The Hardware and Software Paradigm, 4. Why Men Have Nipples, 5. The Talent of Trainability, 6. Superbaby, Bully Whippets, and the Trainability of Muscle, 7. The Big Bang of Body Types, 8. The Vitruvian NBA Player, 9. We Are All Black (Sort Of): Race and Genetic Diversity, 10. The Warrior-Slave Theory of Jamaican Sprinting, 11. Malaria and Muscle Fibers, 12. Can Every Kalenjin Run?, 13. The World's Greatest Accidental (Altitudinous) Talent Sieve, 14. Sled Dogs, Ultrarunners, and Couch Potato Genes, 15. The Heartbreak Gene: Death, Injury, and Pain on the Field, and 16 The Gold Medal Mutation. Positives: 1. Well-written, well-researched book. Epstein is very engaging and keeps the science at a very accessible level. 2. Fascinating topic that sports fans will enjoy. A look at elite athleticism through the eyes of science. Sports elites. I'm there! 3. Epstein does a fantastic job of skillfully handling the very sensitive topic of race and genetics. Any minor miscue and it would have derailed the book but Epstein never lets that happen and should be commended for his utmost care. 4. There are very few books on this interesting topic and this one covers multiple sports. And behind it all is the quest to find what's behind elite athleticism, "The question for scientists is: What accounts for that variance, practice, genes, or something else?" 5. You are guaranteed to learn something new. As an avid sports fan and reader, I didn't expect to learn too many new facts but I am always humbled and pleasantly surprised when I do. 6. The importance of experience in athletics. "Studies that track the eye movements of experienced performers, whether chess players, pianists, surgeons, or athletes, have found that as experts gain experience they are quicker to sift through visual information and separate the wheat from the chaff." 7. Golfers will pick up a valuable scientific tip...I'm not going to spoil it here. 8. The 10,000 hours rule in perspective. "Studies of athletes have tended to find that the top competitors require far less than 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to reach elite status. According to the scientific literature, the average sport-specific practice hours to reach the international levels in basketball, field hockey, and wrestling are closer to 4,000, 4,000, and 6,000, respectively." 9. Understanding the importance behind visual acuity and its importance in sports like baseball. "Coincidentally, or perhaps not, twenty-nine often is the age at which visual acuity starts to deteriorate and the age when hitters, as a group, begin to decline." 10. Important lessons shared, "To this day," Woods said in 2000, "my dad has never asked me to go play golf. I ask him. It's the child's desire to play that matters, not the parent's desire to have the child play." 11. Addressing the differences in gender. "Much of sexual differentiation comes down to a single gene on the Y chromosome: the SRY gene, or "sex determining region Y" gene. Insofar as there is an "athleticism gene," the SRY gene is it." Great stuff! 12. So who was the greatest high-school athlete of all time according to ESPN? Find out. 13. The impact of the Human Genome Project as it relates to sports. The naturally fit six... 14. The science behind muscle growth. "Something that myostatin does signals muscles to cease growing. They had discovered the genetic version of a muscle stop sign. In the absence of myostatin, muscle growth explodes." A lot of good information here. 15. Discusses physical traits by sport that give the athletes innate advantages over the competition. "The height of a sprinter is often critical to his best event. The world's top competitors in the 60-meter sprint are almost always shorter than those in the 100-, 200-, and 400-meter sprints, because shorter legs and lower mass are advantageous for acceleration." 16. A cool look at the NBA. My favorite team of all time, the 95-96 Chicago Bulls (Jordan, Pippen and Rodman). Some eye-opening facts concerning wingspan. 17. Scientific observations, "Low-latitude Africans and Australian Aborigines had the proportionally longest legs and shortest torsos. So this is not strictly about ethnicity so much as geography." 18. Race and genetic diversity. "Kidd's work, along with that of other geneticists, archaeologists, and paleontologists, supports the "recent African origin" model--that essentially every modern human outside of Africa can trace his or her ancestry to a single population that resided in sub-Saharan East Africa as recently as ninety thousand years ago." Honestly, where would we be without understanding the grand theory of evolution? An excellent chapter, worth the price of the book. 19. Mind-blowing facts, " In an example particularly relevant to sports, about 10 percent of people with European ancestry have two copies of a gene variant that allows them to dope with impunity." Wow! 20. An interesting look at Jamaican sprinting and Kenyan long-term running. What's behind the success? "Consider this: seventeen American men in history have run a marathon faster than 2:10 (or a 4:58 per mile pace); thirty-two Kalenjin men did it just in October 2011." Say what? 21. The honest limitations of the young science of genetics, "Just as it is tough to find genes for height--even though we know they exist--it is extraordinarily difficult to pin down genes for even one physiological factor involved in running, let alone all of them." 22. Is motivation genetic? Interesting. 23. Genetic diseases. "According to statistics that Maron has compiled, at least one high school, college, or pro athlete with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) will drop dead somewhere in the United States every other week." 24. An excellent epilogue on the perfect athlete, "In reality, any case for sports expertise that leans entirely on either nature or nurture is a straw-man argument." 25. Notes and selected citations included. Negatives: 1. Football is the most popular sports in America bar none but wasn't really given as much paper as I was hoping for; sure you get some stories about Jerome Bettis, Herschel Walker, head injuries and weight lifting...but not the treatment a sport of its magnitude would warrant. 2. The science is very basic and done so to reach a larger audience. Links or an appendix would have given curious readers more to immediately munch on. 3. At no fault of the author, the science of genetics is still too young to be able to answer the most demanding questions to a satisfactory level. 4. No formal separate bibliography...you have to surf through the notes. 5. Few links. In summary, the perfect summer book. This was a page-turner of a book that provides us a glimpse into elite athleticism through the eyes of science. David Epstein provides sports enthusiasts with a scientific treat. One thing is perfectly clear...genetics is very complex and we are in its infancy. That being said, it's fascinating science and its increased understanding will continue to be applied to the world of sports. Epstein provides readers with an excellent appetizer of things to come; if you are interested in how genetics is being applied to extraordinary athletic performance, I highly recommend this book! Recommendations: " Outliers: The Story of Success " by Malcom Gladwell, " Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us " by Daniel H. Pink, " The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business " by Charles Duhigg, " Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior (Vintage) " by Leonard Mlodinow, " Running Science " by Owen Anderson, " Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body " by Neil Shubin, " The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution " by Sean B. Carroll, " The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution " by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, " Relics of Eden: The Powerful Evidence of Evolution in Human DNA " by Daniel J. Fairbanks, " Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design " by Michael Shermer, "Only a Theory" by Kenneth R. Miller, "The Greatest Show on Earth" by Richard Dawkins and, "Why Evolution Is True" by Jerry A. Coyne.

It's an interesting book with some excellent research and anecdotal evidence of superior performance due to genes. Geography, social circumstances etc. However I was left a little disappointed as there was not enough evidence to draw conclusions simply because these world class athletes are rare! It was a good breakdown of some of the most famous athletes in the world alongside some lesser known, but no less accomplished, athletes. Worth a read.

Is elite athletic performance the result of nature (our genes) or nurture (environment and training)? Yes, according to David Epstein’s The Sports Gene. This engaging and illuminating work is a pleasure to read. The anecdotes are amazing and humanize the scientific questions and issues raised by the role of genes in sport. Epstein does a great job of reporting the science without getting too technical, but without dumbing it down or sensationalizing it. He clears away the misunderstandings and misuse of the effect of genes. We often, he shows, misascribe the influence of genes: over-attributing them in some cases while failing to see their role where there is a significant influence. Part of the story here is that genes play significant and important roles in athletic performance, but Epstein is careful not to overplay this. First, the target of his work here is extraordinary and elite performances. These are athletes that are already well off the curve. What he finds here isn’t going to necessarily translate back to the rest of us who live in the heart of the bell curve. Second, Epstein doesn’t want to disrespect or downplay the importance of the effort and hard work of these elite athletes. Yes, they often have amazing genetic gifts, but without the effort and practice, these gifts won’t amount to anything. (At the same time, the book looks at the genetic contributions for effort-taking and practicing.) Another important theme of the book is that a better understanding of the genetic roots of performance can help us improve performance. The differences in our genetic propensities (our genotype) require, in many cases, different kinds of training and practice. Our bodies react to training and practice differently and so, to understand better how to improve our skills and outcomes, we have to understand better how we respond to the environment and training. One person’s strenuous cardio workout might be overkill (tragically quite literally in rare cases) for another. Epstein doesn’t tackle the issue of genetic manipulation (or gene-doping) head on, but it certainly lurks throughout the book. Over the last century, the scientific and technological influence on training for athletic performance has increased immensely. As our knowledge of the human genome and genetic technology increases, will we see this influence extend beyond training into the athlete’s genetic makeup? Epstein’s tentative response is that, given the state of the science, there is just too much unknown at this point to do this in any extensive or effective way. But that knowledge is coming; it is more of a when than an if. I am fairly certain that as the knowledge increases, so will the use of this knowledge to improve performance. Epstein is agnostic, ultimately, on the wisdom or morality of doing this. That wasn’t the point of the book, so it is no fault. But his work suggests much about this possible future. Personally, I think that, as with most scientific and technological advances, this will generally be a boon for human civilization and for sport. I am not utopian, though, and recognize that it will come with some harms and dangers. This is in part why it is important to get a better understanding of the science and learn more about how nature and nurture interact. Another moral question not raised by Epstein, but suggested by his book, is how our understanding of the influence of our genes on performance affects our evaluation of doping. If some people have natural advantages conferred by their genotype, then is it really unfair for someone without those genetic advantages to use a drug to produce a similar effect? For example, Finnish athlete Eero Mantyranta has a genetic variation that makes his red blood count as much as 65 percent higher than that of an average man (274). His body is able to move oxygen to muscles much better than most and this (all other things being equal) gives him an advantage in endurance sport. This is quite similar to the effect of taking EPO as a performance-enhancer. If one of the goals in athletic competitions is a level starting point for athletes, then maybe we ought not ban EPO. That is, maybe, allowing EPO would level the field for athletes that do not have the benefit of genetic advantages. Is there a moral difference (putting aside for the moment the wrongness of the rule-violation) between someone who has a performance advantage from their genotype and someone who has a performance advantage from taking a substance? In more fundamentally, it begins to challenge the traditional concepts and evaluations of doping and performance enhancing. While Epstein doesn’t deal with these issues, the book is good place to learn (in a non-technical way) about the scientific foundation for answering these kinds of moral and philosophical questions. For that reason alone it worth a read. But it is also quite interesting on its own terms.

This book is subtitled “Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance.” In a word, the book itself is extraordinary. I have had a long interest in mostly all sports, have participated in many, and refereed basketball for many years. I have seen every level of ability and am drawn to stories of human performance, endurance, and physical improvement. I have seen enormous talent and am particularly intrigued by those who excel at the highest levels. Thus, I was inclined to find this work interesting. I found it to be even better than anticipated. Epstein captivated me with his anecdotes, analysis of clinical studies, and superb writing. I wholeheartedly endorse his work. Epstein marvelously explains complex genetic processes and their effect on physiology while simultaneously discussing the influence of culture and environment on elite performance. Nature and nurture deftly described. Examples of each influence and their interplay abound, such as Albert Pujols’ inability to hit a woman pitching underhand; the trainability of a young Jim Ryan who couldn’t make his junior high track team yet became the first sub-four minute high school runner in a few short years; the remarkable sprinting of Jamaicans and the comparably astounding endurance of Kenyan and Ethiopian runners. These are just a few of the many fascinating performers highlighted in the book. On the nature side, the author reports on the genetic research that reveals the role of genes and resulting physical capacities and/or weaknesses in areas such as visual acuity, muscle growth, limb length, fast and slow twitch muscles, aerobic capacity, oxygen usage and efficiency, energy efficiency based on body structure, testosterone, doping, and several others. In respect to nurture, Epstein reports on studies describing the effect of geography, altitude, family, income, poverty, culture, motivation, drive, the 10,000 hours practice concept, etc. In every instance of performance there is a confluence of factors from both nature and nurture, the precise amount of each varying with individuals and being practically impossible to tease out. Researchers, however, continue to make new discoveries and fortunately there is a David Epstein reporting on and explaining the implications of this complex work. While some gene mutations can enhance performance significantly , other mutations, as is well known, cause disease. The boundary line between these vastly different outcomes is not always or automatically clear. Epstein addresses this topic with feeling and candor as he describes sudden heart disease in young athletes, one of whom was a teammate and close friend. He also elucidates some of the genes implicated in brain insult along with injuries that result from damaged ligaments and tendons. I had never read anything by David Epstein previously. His reporting of difficult scientific material was so clear, instructive and eminently readable that I will easily and eagerly reach for his next effort.

I had the thought last night while reading a section of The Sports Gene that within the next year or two, coaches in all types of competitive spheres are going to start using this book as their go-to Bible for how to make a better team or better competitor. Some of the things I've read in this book have both blown my mind and had me notice I was already nodding my head in agreement because it talks about things that I guess I knew but never fully understood why. Epstein has a way with words that takes things that are scientific and makes them into stories and analogies that allow them to be understood by anyone -- if you like science, all the interesting stuff is in here, AND if you don't like science, everything is still fully understandable and makes complete sense. It is clear that Epstein is not a scientist with some sports knowledge but is more a sports fan who knows science. Over the last week I have literally been told to stop talking about the book because the people I have been talking to have decided to buy and read the book and me explaining chapter-by-chapter (that's how good this bad boy is!) was awesome but somewhat time consuming -- especially since I stream-of-conscious would start to finish one thought and then go, "Oh, and then there's this...!" From female supermodels (are there male ones?) having a higher proportional breakdown of male genes than the regular population to why Barry Bonds couldn't hit a female soft ball pitcher's pitches, this has so much crazy and interesting knowledge I could write a book myself about what is awesome about it. The smackdowns of Malcolm Gladwell's inaccurate use of data is also amusing (and justifies my brother's squabbling about Outliers). I'm going to stop this review now before I just keep going. Basketball players' wingspans versus height comparison and how wingspan is more predictive of a good player! Boom, what!? And how different people train in different ways and how that is linked to genes and how you can better understand how you can train at a higher and more efficient level. And busting myths open about male versus female athletic abilities and why men and women cannot compete against each other. Why Paula Radcliffe can be the best female marathoner but will likely never be able to win an Olympic gold. I will stop now. BUY and READ this book!

Practice makes perfect, Practice makes perfect, Practice makes perfect .....this is basically what this book is all about. Apart from some naturally gifted people, the rest of us have to practice to excel to our abilities in our respective sports. That magical target number seems to be 10,000 hours of practice. What is very interesting is that blacks have all the right genetic attributes to take part and excel in virtually all the sports available in the world but because of the high cost of entry into some of these sports coupled with the expense of 10,000 hour average training requirements and a history of being exploited, you therefore only see blacks excel in sports where the entry barriers are low such as basketball, baseball, football, running, cricket and soccer. Blacks are more than capable to win Olympic medals in swimming, skiing, speed skating and all the other white dominated sports. I just finished watching the White Winter Olympics in Sochi and was totally disappointed to not see more athletes of color. Thanks to the underfunded Jamaicans for giving the rest of the colored world some exposure. The former Colonial power - the Dutch - speed skaters were astounding and their performance was similar to the East Germans in the 80s when they dominated everything while on steroids. The Poor USA team were blaming everything from the bad food in Sochi to their multi million dollar speed less suits for their poor showing, Shauni Davis is too old and past his prime to be taking part in such a demanding sport that requires peak fitness and recovery found in 20 something year olds. But thanks to the brother for adding some color and contrast to the white Olympics. What bothers me is that there are not enough Indians, Pakistanis, Afghanis and Nepalis in the Winter Olympics considering these countries have snow and very aggressive and athletic people. The author described a plethora of genetic and medical testing done on various ethnic groups around the world but he did fail to include the effects of penis size on athletic performance in males although he did mention something about women with testes. I do believe this was a serious omission ...sarcasm. I would recommended this book, especially if you are interested to know how people were exploited and marginalized during colonial times and who only now are emerging to take their rightful places in society despite continued subtle exploitation.

I first learned of this book from Paul Harvey's syndicated radio spot. I was so intrigued by the topic because of my own athletic background (as paltry as it may be) and my avid interest in sports. I wanted to know what this book had to offer to the argument of nurture vs. nature. David Epstein does a fantastic job digging into the argument and unearthing qualified evidence to support both sides. He remains objective and professional throughout the entire treatise. In the 280 or so pages he spans the globe, spans the sports landscape and spans the genetic map to find out what makes superior athletes superior athletes. He interviews scientists, authors, professors, trainers and athletes. He references research from many different scientists and researchers to support their claim of genetics or environment or history or other. I've never had such a thorough lesson in genes and gene mutations. But don't let the content intimidate you or scare you into believing that this book is drab and reads like a text book. It is very interesting and uses a somewhat storytelling style to convey the facts, opinions and anecdotal evidences. It was very interesting to read how certain genes were found in certain athletes or how poverty or lack thereof can contribute to athletics. Poverty and the absence of facilities and training has hindered some nations and wealth has hindered others! Yes, when you have cars, plenty of food and video games with no need to walk to school and no interest in running because there is no need to--then your nation will lose runners. It was great to read the different hypotheses, their evidence and their conclusions. I think David did a very objective and fair job in presenting everything there was to present. Even the conclusions he presented in a very non-biased way and leaving them open for the reader. Ultimately there are so many factors that go into being a superior athlete that no one thing can be pointed to but it won't stop us from trying to find out.

I loved the info the author had from all his research. It's fascinating for anyone interested in sports: racial/genetic profiling (particularly in regard to runners). The author has nice stories sometimes at the beginning of chapters which get you wondering why one athlete may have a capability unexpected compared to others, but near the end of the book and in certain chapters the info seems to drag. He gets too descriptive of snowy scenes and seems to repeat previous chapter's intel too much. Sometimes it seems like he's more interested in showing off his artsy writing skills than informing us on a new area of research. Overall I'd recommend this book with a warning that you'll be bored at certain points and you'll have to do some skimming.

Well researched and compelling decimation of the so called 10,000 hours rule

Excelent book

Pra quem gosta de esportes vale a leitura!!

*A full executive summary of this book is available at newbooksinbrief dot com. What does it take to become an elite athlete? The intuitive answer for most of us is that it probably takes some lucky genes on the one hand, and a whole heck of a lot of hard work on the other. Specifically, that we may need to be blessed with a particular body type to excel at a particular sport or discipline (after all, elite marathon runners tend to look far different than elite NFL running backs, who in turn tend to look far different than elite swimmers), but that beyond this it is practice and diligence that paves the way to success. When we look at the science, though—as sports writer David Epstein does in his new book The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance—we find that the story is much more complicated than this. In general terms we find that nature and nurture interact at every step of the way in the development of an elite athlete, and that biology plays far more of a role (and in far more ways) than we may have expected. To begin with, when it comes to physiology, we find that genetics not only has a large role to play in influencing our height and skeletal structure (as we would expect), but that genes also influence physiology in many other ways that are important when it comes to elite sports. For example, we find that people naturally vary widely in all of the following ways: the size of our heart and lungs, and the amount of red blood cells and hemoglobin that pumps through our veins; the specific type of muscle fibers that are most prevalent in our bodies (and the specific number of each); as well as our visual acuity—and again, all of these factors play a significant role in determining just how athletic we will be (and in what sports we will excel). Second, when it comes to training, we find that hard work is not all there is to it. For genetics not only shapes our physiology, but also how our physiology responds to training (including how much muscle mass and aerobic capacity we are able to build through exercise). The fact is that we naturally vary widely in just how much we respond to exercise (to the point where some of us improve dramatically through exercise, whereas others of us respond hardly at all). And we also respond differently to different training regimens (to the point where a training regime that works well for one person may in fact harm another). And while we may wish to take credit for just how hard we train, here too genetics is found to play a role. For it turns out that we differ widely in just how naturally disposed we are to push ourselves. And over and above this, genes also influence how much we experience pain, such that even among those who experience the same desire to push themselves (both in training and in competition), one may find it much easier to handle the pain involved than the other—which, of course, can have a big impact on results. And speaking of pain, our genes even influence how easily we injure and how well we recover from our injuries—which, once again, has a significant impact on performance. As an added bonus, Epstein not only covers which biological factors have an impact on sports performance, but the evolutionary story behind these biological factors (including why different populations that have adapted to different environments have come to acquire traits that make them well-disposed to different sports and disciplines [for example, why many elite marathoners have origins in East Africa, many elite sprinters have origins in West Africa, and many elite swimmers and weight-lifters have origins in Europe]). In short, then, biology plays much more of a role in elite athletic performance that we may have realized. Not that the point of the book is to say that athletic performance is all in our genes. Just the contrary, as mentioned above the book makes the point that genes always interact with the environment to produce athletic outcomes. Genes are essential in shaping the athlete, but just as essential is the athlete’s upbringing and culture, and that they do in fact get the training that is needed to make the most of their natural talents. This book is a triumph. I can't imagine it would be possible to cover the topic better than the author has. The science involved is thoroughly researched; the anecdotes are perfectly chosen and add both context and interest (many of them are downright inspirational); and it is all presented in a very clear and thoroughly enjoyable way. Well done Mr. Epstein. A full executive summary of the book is available at newbooksinbrief dot com; a podcast discussion of the book will be available soon.

The best sports science book out there