Bounce

Joshua Naterman said:

I mean, anyone and everyone can substantially improve what they currently have if they are not super highly trained but when you're talking about the difference between 11.0 and 9.7 in the 100... genes.

If that's true, than how come the sub-10-second gene didn't exist before, say, 1968?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men's_100_metres_world_record_progression

The gold-medal time in the first modern Olympics in 1896 (12.0 seconds!) wouldn't be enough to win a HS state meet at most High Schools in the country today. Franz Liszt purposely wrote his "Transcendental Etudes" to be so difficult that only he could play them. Today, any college piano major worth his salt is playing them. Are you going to call that genes? Are we evolving? Do sprinters and concert pianists of today all work harder than those a century ago? Of course not. This is why, in my previous post, I was careful to say practice how I practice, not just what or for how long. There are many corporate lawyers, business execs, and retirees who've played 10,000+ hours of golf. How come they're not all on the PGA? I think part of the answer is training - they don't look at every time they do something as an opportunity to improve at it. At why should they? While it's fun to be competitive, sometimes people just want to relax. Having your brain turned onto that mode all the time is exhausting. I think part of the answer is also that competitive spirit alluded to above. I also think part of the answer lies in technology, advancement of training methods, and our collective experience as a society. I have a theory that if you took Franz Liszt or Archie Hahn, put them in a time capsule as young children and zoomed them up to 2012, they'd still grow up to be among the best in the world.

ryanjanus said:

If that's true, than how come the sub-10-second gene didn't exist before, say, 1968?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men's_100_metres_world_record_progression

The gold-medal time in the first modern Olympics in 1896 (12.0 seconds!) wouldn't be enough to win a HS state meet at most High Schools in the country today. Franz Liszt purposely wrote his "Transcendental Etudes" to be so difficult that only he could play them. Today, any college piano major worth his salt is playing them. Are you going to call that genes? Are we evolving? Do sprinters and concert pianists of today all work harder than those a century ago? Of course not. This is why, in my previous post, I was careful to say practice how I practice, not just what or for how long. There are many corporate lawyers, business execs, and retirees who've played 10,000+ hours of golf. How come they're not all on the PGA? I think part of the answer is training - they don't look at every time they do something as an opportunity to improve at it. At why should they? While it's fun to be competitive, sometimes people just want to relax. Having your brain turned onto that mode all the time is exhausting. I think part of the answer is also that competitive spirit alluded to above. I also think part of the answer lies in technology, advancement of training methods, and our collective experience as a society. I have a theory that if you took Franz Liszt or Archie Hahn, put them in a time capsule as young children and zoomed them up to 2012, they'd still grow up to be among the best in the world.

The things you listed are true too, but it is true that everyone's abilities are limited by their genes especially sprinters. Otherwise, how come sprinters of West African descent are the fastest and have the most sub-10 sec 100m sprinters while other groups barely even have a sub-10 sprinter.

ryanjanus said:

If that's true, than how come the sub-10-second gene didn't exist before, say, 1968?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men's_100_metres_world_record_progression

The gold-medal time in the first modern Olympics in 1896 (12.0 seconds!) wouldn't be enough to win a HS state meet at most High Schools in the country today. Franz Liszt purposely wrote his "Transcendental Etudes" to be so difficult that only he could play them. Today, any college piano major worth his salt is playing them. Are you going to call that genes? Are we evolving? Do sprinters and concert pianists of today all work harder than those a century ago? Of course not. This is why, in my previous post, I was careful to say practice how I practice, not just what or for how long. There are many corporate lawyers, business execs, and retirees who've played 10,000+ hours of golf. How come they're not all on the PGA? I think part of the answer is training - they don't look at every time they do something as an opportunity to improve at it. At why should they? While it's fun to be competitive, sometimes people just want to relax. Having your brain turned onto that mode all the time is exhausting. I think part of the answer is also that competitive spirit alluded to above. I also think part of the answer lies in technology, advancement of training methods, and our collective experience as a society. I have a theory that if you took Franz Liszt or Archie Hahn, put them in a time capsule as young children and zoomed them up to 2012, they'd still grow up to be among the best in the world.

Your argument is not applicable to the gene discussion.

Think of it like this: in the old days, the 'baseline' was a longe running time, say 14 seconds instead of 12. The people with good genes ran the 100m in 12.7 seconds, while the not so genetically gifted athletes ran it in 14 seconds.

Improvements in technique brought down running times overall, so you have to look at the whole spectrum of running times and not just the records.

So if you wanted to provide a good argument against the involvement of genetics in 100m sprinting, you'd also have to take in account the times non-gifted athletes ran, but those are (in the current day and age) sub 11, which is faster than the world record in 1896. What that means is that genetics cannot be the cause of the improvement of running times. So the improvement of running times and genetics are unrelated and as such an argument based on running times throughout history is going to be fundamentally flawed.

Talent matters and it matters huge.

Of course, I certainly understand that this will not be as crystal clear to someone else who does not have my over three decades of experience working with world class athletes in the unforgiving arena of high level competitive athletics. However for those of us who have spent our lives immersed in this arena, there is not doubt whatsoever regarding the veracity of this truth.

When two people work equally hard and have equally good coaching, the more talented of the two will always win. In the case of the harder working one possessing Olympic class talent, they are not just going to win - it is going to be a blow out. This is reality.

This does not however preclude everyone else from making the most of the talents you have been given. While none of you are going to become Olympic Gold medalists, being able to climb a rope with no legs, do press handstands and planches etc are all certainly within your grasp and achieving these things will make you stronger than 99.99% of the world's population.

Which, no matter how you look at it, is not a bad consolation prize.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

And the truth was spoken, and it was Good.

Talent, of course, is a massive, huge advantage in all sports, especially in a sport like gymnastics where it's not a competition between people as much as it is a race against yourself.

To give a bit of contrast, things are quite a bit different in martial arts / fighting / combat sports. Probably because much less technically challenging as gymnastics.

I've seen very talented fighters (people who went from "white belt" level straight to better, relatively, than me in less than a third of the time I've spent on training). They almost all ended up losing to someone who trained hard and consistently, studied their fighting style, applied the appropriate counter style to it, and crushed them. I've done it quite a few times. In a sport where two people compete against each other directly, I think the areas where human error and patterns make the playing field a bit more even.

It seems to me that the biggest challenge to a gymnast is 1) himself (mentally), 2) his physical limits (not getting injured), and 3) time.

In a fight, the biggest challenge to the fighters is 1) their opponent, and 2) their mental state. Their opponent first, because a good fighter will change your mental state within a few seconds of a fight unless you stop him.