Having watched a lot of olympians the last few weeks, I was struck by how many of them have actually spent their wholes lives/careers training for their one event (be in running a marathon, or throwing a javelin). This is of course unsurprising - a lot of people take their sport very seriously - but I wondered to what degree these athletes are predisposed to becoming atheletes, and to what degree they just 'happened' to end up doing it.
I've had a bit of a search around, but have been unable to find any studies (although there is an awful lot of media attention to the topic) that actually study the interaction between nature (genetics) and nurture (environment/training etc) in the context of top-end athletes.
It is quite clear to me that the answer is of course 'both', but to what degree? Have any common genetic variants/loci been identified, or is 'athleticism' a far too complex trait for this? Thanks.
Atheleticism in and of its own doesn't have its own specific gene. That's because athleticism also depends on the sport that is being played. A person who is a professional golfer will have a different physique than an MMA fighter. What we can do is look at genetics for certain physical characteristics like fast and slow twitch muscle fibers. A person who is really good at sprinting tends to have more fast twitch muscle fibers than another person. Some people are predisposed genetically to certain physiques. For instance, the way one person's bicep attaches to bone could vary leading to a difference in physical appearance. The other part of your answer is to look at psychology and what drives that person. Are they an intrinsically or extrinsically motivated person? This would be more of the nurture part of the question.
