Your Body's Endurance is Determined by Genetics
Your Body's Endurance is Determined by Genetics
There are people who never work out but looks like they spend hours in the gym. These people are very rare, but they exist. We also know those people that spend hours in the gym, eat right, and can’t seem to look fit . You can say good genes or bad genes for these situations. Have you ever started a training program with a workout friend, and one of you seems to gain strength and also lose weight faster? It’s frustrating.So, with the same conditions (age, diet, activity level, general state of health), why is it that two people can have different results altogether? Well the answer Is Genetics.
Studies into the field of fitness related genetics is still very new. Out of the entire genome, only a few dozen of genes have been examined very close for their role in exercise, body composition and fitness levels at this time. We know that genes can be more effective or less effective due to a number of internal and external factors, which means that how your genes affect your fitness levels can change with time. For people that are obese or has a health related issues, the rules change!
We will start with something easy to understand fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fiber. People with mostly fast-twitch muscles are better at sprinting and building muscle mass. While an individual with slow-twitch muscles do better at endurance sports and building lean muscle mass. It is said that your genetic predisposition for one type of muscle fiber over another affects nearly 50% of your ability to excel in one type of training over the other. This entails that the other 50-60% of your success will be affected by diet and training regimens.
Your athletic excellence is influenced mostly by your family genetics as much as two-thirds by some estimates. Everything from your aerobic endurance, muscle-building potential, how fast you recover, which type of exercise you are good at, and so, so much more.
If you have parents who are good in marathon race, odds are you won’t be the best power-lifter or running back; but if your parents are good at gymnasts, you will likely excel more in a much shorter amount of time.
Nature and Nurture?
Much of the emphasis laid today on healthy living is now focused on implementing healthy habits in kids. Parents and teachers are trained to lay a strong foundation of healthy eating and activity levels as a way to get ahead of preventable health issues later in life. Given what we know about some genetic issues, how effective will these preventive measures be?
In one lipid profile study conducted as part of the Heritage Family Study, experts found that heritable genetic factors were significant in response to exercise up to 38% of the total influence with an exception of the individual’s ethnicity. It shows that your ethnicity can contribute to individual health changes more than inherited family genetics alone between 0-60% in certain lipid markers. Therefore Your body's endurance is determined by genetics.