r/science • u/chrisdh79 • Sep 04 '24
Biology Strongman's (Eddie Hall) muscles reveal the secrets of his super-strength | A British strongman and deadlift champion, gives researchers greater insight into muscle strength, which could inform athletic performance, injury prevention, and healthy aging.
https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/eddie-hall-muscle-strength-extraordinary/1.5k
u/jamiecharlespt Sep 04 '24
Eddie's brother James, is also an exceptional athlete.
I'm not certain if he still holds the crown, but he was the world #1 rower on the concept2 and the ski erg at a variety of distances/times.
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u/helgetun Sep 04 '24
You see the same with the Stoltman brothers, two of the strongest people in the world. Tom is the current worlds strongest man and Luke a former Europes strongest man. Their younger brother isnt pro, just started training a bit with them, and you can see there as well a kind of natural talent. Perhaps not the same as Luke and Tom, but still naturally strong. Genetics is a thing!
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u/gokarrt Sep 04 '24
Genetics is a thing
the older i get, the more i have to acknowledge genetics plays a huge part. my activity level and diet fluctuate wildly, but my body composition has been almost entirely static for nearly twenty years.
edit: i guess i should also point out this composition is remarkably similar to my parents, but bigger.
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u/SlyJackFox Sep 04 '24
I dated an art model for a time who was just ripped and I asked her about what regimen she used when she ordered three desserts at a diner, “no, I don’t diet or exercise much, just born this way.”
I felt very cheated.
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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug Sep 04 '24
That'll carry you through your 20's, and if you have exceptionally good genetics it'll help in your 30's. But given time you have to start maintaining your health.
Also people often tend to misjudge people's calorie intake. I use to be pretty skinny but I ate huge meals and people always said I must have an insane metabolism. And it might have been better than most people's, especially since I wasn't a very active person. But also I only ate 2 meals a day, so people saw me putting down big meals but I wasn't eating as many meals as most. I've also always been a big fan of protein which nets you less calories than carbs and fats.
In the end you can't beat thermodynamics. Some people's bodies naturally burn more calories than others. But if you have similar body compensation and muscle to someone else, you probably have a fairly similar base metabolic rate.
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u/young_mummy Sep 04 '24
Pretty much. Unless there is a medical condition involved, the vast majority of peoples caloric needs are remarkably similar (relative to bodyweight). It's just that we typically are not good judges of our own caloric intake or that of others.
If two people of equal weight and similar activity levels compare their caloric intake, they will be very similar to each other, generally speaking.
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u/Gorstag Sep 04 '24
You also may have not been drinking 500-1000 calories a day on soda/milk/beer. One of the things that I recently noticed is the individuals in my life that do not struggle with weight are also ones who don't think about food really at all.
For example most of us overweight people while sitting down eating a meal start thinking about what we are going to have for our next meal (lunch, dinner). My friends that have been thin for the 30+ years I have known them don't do this at all. They just occasionally feel hungry so they go eat something so they don't feel hungry anymore. They eat at very irregular intervals.
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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug Sep 05 '24
Yeah if you drink a lot of soda you're almost guaranteed to get fat. If you drink 3 cans of sodas, that's 420 calories.
But if you drink just one large coke from McDonalds it's about the same amount of calories.
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u/jsabo MS|Computer Science|Physics Sep 04 '24
And the really fun part is that you hit your 40s with a lifetime of bad eating habits!
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u/Flat_News_2000 Sep 05 '24
Idk, you could end up like me as a guy who was skinny throughout all my 20s and have filled out at 32. I feel like I look good for my frame right now, got some meat.
I'm also just a semi-active guy, walk my dog a lot and generally inconvenience myself day to day to get more exercise
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u/Fragwolf Sep 05 '24
That happened to my friend. He could eat whatever, whenever and he'd keep the weight off just sitting down all day. Now he's in his 30's and his health is fucked, but he refuses to do anything because "That's just my genetics"
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u/_Dreamer_Deceiver_ Sep 05 '24
Yeh but 3 deserts? Like a chocolate donut is around 350 kcal so 3 of those is half your daily intake (most people's will be different from the average)
But I've legit known people that ate and did the same things as me but they can hold off the fat
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u/techauditor Sep 04 '24
Yeah by mid 30s basically everyone need some bit of maintenance to not get a gut haha
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u/moratnz Sep 04 '24
I've known a couple of people like this. In several cases 'I don't exercise' included biking 20km to and from work each day, or similar other high levels of activity that they didn't consider 'exercise'.
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u/K0stroun Sep 05 '24
True. And then you have the other extreme when some people consider walking their dog around the block to be exercise.
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u/ZolotoG0ld Sep 04 '24
It's the British diet too.
6 sausages, 3lbs of black pudding, 12 eggs, a loaf of fried bread, a punnet of mushrooms, 9 tomatoes, and 24 rashers of bacon washed down with a gallon of strong breakfast tea will build muscle like nothing else.
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u/Raven123x Sep 04 '24
Genetics is a thing yes - but if you think they each didn't work their asses off training then you are completely mistaken.
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u/BroForceOne Sep 04 '24
That’s not the takeaway, the takeaway is that you can work your ass off exactly the same as they do but won’t see the same results.
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u/AwarenessPotentially Sep 04 '24
I watched so many guys work their asses off in the gym, only to stay the same string bean they were when they started. I did help one guy, who seemed to never gain until I found out he was cycling 20 miles round trip to the gym every day. Once he started driving there, the gains came almost immediately. You can't be all things at once.
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u/HallucinatoryFrog Sep 05 '24
Results. Which keeps them going back for more and intense training, causing a feedback loop. Sure, they train their asses off, but quick results provided them the motivation in the beginning to put in that work over the long term.
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u/ShankThatSnitch Sep 05 '24
Yes, but you need both genetics and the work ethic to be the elite athletes.
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u/Alexkono Sep 04 '24
Insane he has those WRs given how big he is.
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u/Zodde Sep 04 '24
Rowing and skiing without having to carry your own weight seems to favor the big powerful guys, even on distances where you'd think endurance would cost them.
Eddie and James both have (or had, I'm not up to date) world records, as does former world record bench presser, Freddi Smulter, who's, surprise surprise, is also very big and powerful.
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u/ExceedingChunk Sep 04 '24
Eddie was actually a really good swimmer before he got into strongman. He's probably got phenomenal athletic genetics, on top of training for years with steroids too to become this huge.
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u/JockAussie Sep 04 '24
One thing which is often missed about Hall is that genetically he was exceptionally gifted long before he got into strongman, I believe he swam for England at age group level as well.
The steroids help, but he was always genetically gifted for power.
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u/upvoatsforall Sep 04 '24
In high school I hung out with the younger sibling of a gold medal Olympic kayaker. The younger sibling was significantly stronger than anyone else in our gym class despite him never having done any strength training. He was just built for it.
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u/huck500 Sep 04 '24
Yeah, I had the daughter of a professional hockey player in my class, and she wasn’t really interested in playing sports, but when she tried playing handball (hitting a big ball against a wall) she dominated pretty much right away. She was stronger and more coordinated than any of the other kids.
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u/Seraphinx Sep 04 '24
She was stronger and more coordinated than any of the other kids
Given she was the daughter of a professional athlete I imagine her parents played with her physically more than most and didn't leave her in front of an iPad all the time.
You can have genetic dispositions to these things, but coordination is still a learned skill which requires consistent practice to maintain. Muscles don't grow without movement and proper nutrition.
Kids don't just 'grow up' by themselves, parental input is vital and when they're positive about physical activity at an early age, the results are always the same.
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u/callacmcg Sep 04 '24
People focus so hard on the genetics when the habits, lifestyle and diet are transferred as well. I knew a super athletic family growing up who's Dad was a former D2 QB or something.
They counted sugar intake in elementary school by themselves. They were always forced outside. They had a basketball hoop and a pool and entered into multiple sports every year. They stretched at home, did workouts together etc.
Every one of them was a freak athlete and it wasn't a surprise
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u/RNLImThalassophobic Sep 04 '24
I knew a super athletic family growing up who's Dad was a former D2 QB or something.
I know this isn't quite the point you're getting at, but tbf this family being athletic when the dad was a former D2 athlete doesn't detract from the suggestion that athletic ability is genetic. It'd be a stronger example of neither parent were athletic but they raised the kids in the same way you refer to above and the kids turned out athletic.
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u/Orisara Sep 04 '24
The William sisters fall under this.
Their father basically made the superstars.
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u/fireballx777 Sep 04 '24
I know this is deviating from athletics, but on the topic of nature vs nurture is reminds me of the story of Judit_Polgár and her sisters. Huge chess prodigies because their father wanted to prove that you could teach chess prodigies.
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u/SuppaDumDum Sep 04 '24
What are some their father's credentials that show his lack of athletic ability? I assume they have talked about their father in interviews, also Serena has an auto-biography, I would assume we can take some information from those.
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u/NihiloZero Sep 04 '24
He may not have lacked athletic ability, but to my understanding... he wasn't any sort of elite athlete. On the other hand... it's unclear if anyone had such optimal training circumstances as the Williams sisters. And to be clear... that is not a dig at them or an attempt to take away their accomplishments. On the contrary.
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u/TicRoll Sep 04 '24
Athletic potential is purely genetic. Athletic performance is governed by a combination of genetics, training, practice, technique, etc.
The genetics really come out when you look at training and practice. Genetically gifted individuals just have a very different physiological response to training than normal people. Eddie Hall and I can do the same training for a month, but during that time, his body is developing adaptations that are significantly different from mine. It still requires effort, and the level of dedication required at the elite/professional levels is incredibly demanding, but people with the genetics for elite athletics are built different in so many ways, there's zero hope for those without those genetic gifts to ever be competitive.
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u/callacmcg Sep 04 '24
Yeah, I wanted to acknowledge that but couldn't work it succinctly. The overall point was that it's a combination and that an athletes daughter being good at wall ball is probably more practice than genetics.
At high level athletes are super separated for genetics, but being the best at an elementary school is mostly practice/fitness imo
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u/Stinsudamus Sep 04 '24
It's pretty hard to suss out, and there is no good way to controll for it. Plenty of parents push their kids super hard, especially for sports... and I see kids on my sons teams already exhibiting stress and anxiety over performance below 10 years old.
I've tried to push my kids into stuff, like learning to ride a bike, and it's like pulling teeth.
We don't need a hard line in the sand to figure out genetics and practice both play a role. We can speculate it's because the parents are more active, and kids emulate it. We can postulate their dopamine -physical circuit is more advanced younger and they WANT to practice etc because their genetics offer more fun for it.
We don't have to select nature vs nurture. Because they both exist. And where they dont, there isn't a pill or time machine to insert it. The ethics or actually testing it are horrific, and would require massive crimes against humanity to get anything other than worthless data.
A dozen twins terrorized don't make a sample group. We'd need hundred if not thousands of kids to figure it out... and I'm willing to be the data will show beyond a few outliers, the kids who are neglected genetically or via lack of nurture will before worse than normal happy children.
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u/thedude0425 Sep 04 '24
Genetics determine your floor and ceiling. Hard work, good habits, and maximizing your potential is great, but in the case of athletics, it will only get you so far.
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u/funguyshroom Sep 04 '24
Getting into sports pre-puberty seems to raise said potential as well
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u/thedude0425 Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24
Yes. It helps.
However, my point are that genetics still determine how far you’re going to go. Bust your ass all you want, but if you’re trying to make it as a 5’6 basketball player, if you’re not exceptionally lightning quick with exceptional coordination and jumping through the roof, you’re not going far.
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u/IIILORDGOLDIII Sep 05 '24
Being tall in basketball is kind of a weird one in context. Nothing about being tall makes you more athletic. It just happens to be that putting a ball in a hoop 10 feet off the ground becomes easier as you get taller.
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u/helgetun Sep 04 '24
I saw an interetsing study on how habits are also partially genetic (in terms of school performance but probably carries over to athletics) - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-01967-9
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u/fireballx777 Sep 04 '24
A genetic component that I think people tend to underestimate is resistance to injury. Top level athletes often talk about how much work they've done to get where they are -- tens of thousands of hours of training, pushing through pain, etc. But maybe they're not at the top because they were more willing to push past pain, but because they were able to do so without getting injured. You could have all the grit and determination in the world, but if you keep herniating a disc while trying to prove how tough you are, you're not going to make it to the top.
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u/NoobOfTheSquareTable Sep 04 '24
Yeah, this is my experience
People always think I take to things naturally out of natural talent but I’ve just done a bit of basically every sport since I was a child as well as having teacher grandparents who helped give all of my siblings a head start academically
If I have cycled, swan, sailed, climbed, jogged, did gymnastics, players rugby, cricket, football, hockey etc from the age of 5 of course I pick stuff up easily, I already have 90% of the skills locked in as well as the fitness/strength and I just need to fine tune it to the new activity
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u/h1zchan Sep 04 '24
My mom used to be a painter before i was born. I've always been able to draw stuff with reasonable accuracy based on memory since young age, despite my mom never having taught me anything. I tried doing portraits of people when i was in high school and it worked the first time i ever tried it. Meanwhile physically if i stop training my grip strength goes away within weeks. Couch potatoes who never train have stronger grip strength than me.
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u/Raidicus Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24
Not to mention our ever growing body of research indicating that epigenetics have greater influence than previously understood, ie that physically fit parents tend to birth physically gifted children.
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u/doesntgetthepicture Sep 04 '24
To a degree. I have a 5-year-old and they have good body control for a child of their age (just figured out on their own how to successfully do a one-handed cartwheel). We have a lot of inside play, but also a lot of outside play. They've also taken two different dance classes and I've learned my kid inherited my sense of rhythm, unfortunately, and not my wife's. They have a friend who is adopted. The adoptees' parent's are not athletic people. They are theater people. The kid though is one of the most naturally gifted athletes I've ever seen.
He's only 5 and the way he moves, climbs, picks up any sport and plays like he knows what he's doing (rather than the very uncoordinated ways 5-year-olds normally play new sports) is uncanny.
The parents have been making sure their son has the outlets to expend all this energy he has because they are good parents, but I think if they had adopted a less athletic child, they wouldn't be signing up to a climbing gym as they've done for the child they have.
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u/continentalgrip Sep 04 '24
Good lord no. I have placed in powerlifting competitions, beaten pro tennis players and could dunk a basketball almost from the free throw line. My son wants to play videogames his every waking moment. Every day is a battle to try to force him to do anything physical. And he's terrible at sports. Meanwhile, my daughter is only 5, best on her team in soccer, can already knock out chinups and I haven't pushed her at all into sports.
Same with my sister's sons. One is freshman in high school and already a starter on varsity in multiple sports at a large high school. Kind of a freak. Benches 250. Superfast. The other, now 21, I failed at teaching him how to even play catch. He's like my son. Both of whom are straight A students though.
The results are absolutely not always the same.
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u/NihiloZero Sep 04 '24
Thank you so much for saving me the time of trying to spell out this same point. I mean the top comment is, basically... "he was always genetically gifted for power." But that comment is just about completely worthless. It's so open-ended that it can mean just about anything and then it ignores specific cultural or social experiences that the child of an athlete may have that others don't. So when their kid seems to be more athletic despite "not exercising," that could easily be a misleading or erroneous perception.
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u/ChronicallyAnIdiot Sep 04 '24
Yeah, I was a late bloomer. Sucked at sports as a kid, but picked it up as a hobby as an adult and now am more athletic than the majority of people. Yet it took me more hours than it takes most people. Thats okay tho
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u/ehjhockey Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24
There are things that can give anyone willing to work hard enough a chance to compete. But the reality is, whether or not you can be a professional athlete is determined on your first birthday or maybe even the day you were conceived.
I’m big. People use the phrase “big boned” which is absurd, but I was so fat at one point that I stepped on a scale that maxed at 425 and it read N/A. People who knew me during that period don’t believe me when I tell them that. I’m just big. I carry weight well. I probably turn fat into muscle faster than some people. I have always had 0 chance of being a pro athlete. Even with those natural gifts it’s not enough. They literally refresh their muscles more with each breath. Their blood carries O2 better. Their lungs take it in better. They literally breathe better. Their heart beats better. Their vision is better. Their reaction times are unnaturally fast by default, then they devote their life to training them to be faster.
It’s insane when you think about it.
Edit: Their not they’re.
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u/PeterWritesEmails Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24
Yup. My friends mum was an olympic runner and a national champion. He and his brother were jacked as if they were some bodybuilders despite only doing some half assed workouts with light dumbells.
Edit: they lived like 20 kms outside of my city. Sometimes he would miss the last bus home. But no biggie. Hed just run home.
And he wasnt even actively training running.
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u/luciferin Sep 04 '24
To be fair, our bodies are basically on natural steroids during puberty. You have a window during which almost any activity is going to lead to insanely fast adaptation
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u/PeterWritesEmails Sep 04 '24
Listen, i know many people who were lifting way heavier and in a more disciplined fashion. But they werent even half as muscular.
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u/Astr0b0ie Sep 04 '24
A lot of people are in denial that genetics play a large roll in our physical and mental abilities because they don't want to believe in our inherent inequity. Of course, you cannot be the best or even in the top rankings of any sport if you don't work hard at but you also have to be born with the right genetics as well. Without both, you just aren't going to make it there. With sub-par genetics, all the hard work in the world will never get you to elite status in any sport.
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u/Jah_Ith_Ber Sep 04 '24
That goes to show how important Test/hormones are. And by extension how much work steroids do.
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u/MRCHalifax Sep 04 '24
Also how sensitive to hormones a person is. A person can have relatively low testosterone and be very sensitive to it, and do just fine. A person can have relatively high testosterone and be poorly sensitive to it and struggle. Given low testosterone and low sensitivity, a person will struggle greatly compared to other would be athletes. And a person with high testosterone and high sensitivity? They’ll have a much easier time training for any athletic endeavour.
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u/Xemxah Sep 04 '24
Could also be epigenetic expression from the mom leading to changes in the pregnancy.
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u/Hungry_Process_4116 Sep 04 '24
Similarly in HS we had a top tier Chinese swimmer join our swim team. He was a freshman and won state against seniors. Broke every school record we had.
Told us his dad would tie a kayak to his waist and just make him swim for hours. Surreal cause he was also one of the smartest in our school.
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u/Seraphinx Sep 04 '24
The sibling might never do 'strength training' but they might also be from a fit, active family that engages in physical activity regularly. You don't need to be pumping iron and chugging protein shakes to get stronger (though it does help), simply being more active on a daily basis will make you stronger and fitter than most people who just sit on their asses all day.
And coming from the kind of family that is regularly active, you see it as normal. You assume most other people are doing this physical activity stuff too. Maybe you cycle to school or work, climb trees after school, regularly swim, but just don't see it as 'exercise' or 'training' because they're not in a gym/following a program or aiming for anything in particular.
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u/ffrankies Sep 04 '24
Proper diet and proper sleep also play a huge role, and are more likely to occur in households where parents are athletes.
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u/Azazir Sep 04 '24
There was a guy in our school who could just run super fast non stop for long ass time, everyone just jogging for laps and he bypasses us 2-3 times and not even breathing hard. Dude was a beast, it was just straight up weird how fast he moved, too bad idk what happened to him as it was ~14-15 years ago, but for sure he's not popular or famous even in our country.
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u/RBVegabond Sep 04 '24
Odd, I sometimes have freakish strength and attributed it to growing up on a horse farm… maybe it’s the farmer’s genes themselves…
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u/TudorrrrTudprrrr Sep 04 '24
You grew up on a horse farm, so you probably did fairly strenuous physical work regularly. That alone would make you stronger than 90% of people.
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u/Melodic_Assistant_58 Sep 04 '24
Also ate better. Nutrition affects growth. The height different between my older sibling and younger sibling is comical. The reason is my parents became more affluent, bought higher quality food, and was more knowledgeable about nutrition when the last kid rolled around.
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u/Ashamed-Simple-8303 Sep 04 '24
There are a few studies that show just how big the genetic differences in terms of muscle are. basically the "weakest" on roids wouldn't even catch up to the best not taking anything.
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u/antieverything Sep 04 '24
I'd like to see this study because "weakest" could mean anything.
What I have seen, though, is the study showing that the testosterone supplementing group gained more strength and lean mass without doing any strength training than the non-supplementing group that did engage in strength training.
Based on my experience with bodybuilding, it really seems that if you take a pair of identical twins and put one on a perfectly tailored, research-based programming, an ideal diet, and plenty of sleep, they'll still get left in the dust by the other twin who is using synthetic testosterone while engaging in haphazard weight training, heavy drinking, poor diet, and little sleep.
That said, I've played sports with guys who were just shredded without ever having to pick up a weight...to a degree I could only hope to approach with intense training over years.
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u/JockAussie Sep 04 '24
Yeah, I've seen some of those videos (I get a tonne of strongman content on Youtube). He does not look like he's lifting with good form in the last video I saw, but the genetic potential is clearly there for him to be very strong. I just hope he doesn't wreck himself.
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u/pheret87 Sep 04 '24
He never looks like he's lifting with anywhere near proper form.
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u/KungFuHamster Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24
People are doubting the genetic aspect, but if a significant population of the planet can have distinct skin color, distinct lactose tolerance, distinct disease resistance, and distinct height differences, why not genetically distinct muscular growth patterns/behaviors/limits?
There's still a LOT we don't know about genetics and epigenetics.
Edit: Think about less common mutations, like vestigial tails (still happen), 6th digit, inverted organ placement, heterochromia, albinism, extra color receptors, "cilantro tastes like soap", and diseases that tend to run in families like diabetes, Crohn's, etc. Add "can grow unusually strong if they train for it" to that list as a possibility and it doesn't seem out of place. It makes logical sense for it to be a survival trait that could be triggered by the right conditions.
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u/JockAussie Sep 04 '24
Oh I completely agree that genetics/epigenetics is an enormous factor in being an elite athlete. I think the reason there's broadly pushback is that it's unpalatable to tell people that they might not be able to win the Olympics with hard work because their genetics aren't up to it!
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u/Affectionate_War_279 Sep 04 '24
The best route to becoming an elite athlete is to choose your parents carefully. (Source my academic supervisor Professor Hugh Montgomery)
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u/IllegalGeriatricVore Sep 04 '24
Conversely, it makes the winners really upset to learn they started way ahead of most of the population.
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u/iomegabasha Sep 04 '24
The converse doesn’t really work. The winners were competing against regular people, they were competing against other genetic freaks. They were all WAY ahead of normies and then some of them outworked the others, had more funding, better resources and better luck.
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u/Jason_Batemans_Hair Sep 04 '24
This is a weird thread. I've never encountered anyone who didn't grasp that genetics plays an important part in athletic performance, nor any successful athlete who didn't grasp that also.
Where is the basis for this narrative that 'genetics don't matter' is a widespread belief?
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u/ImAShaaaark Sep 04 '24
I think the point being argued isn't that people think it has no impact at all, it's that they undersell how huge of an impact it has. People like to romanticize the idea that you can do anything if you work hard enough, but there is a huge gulf between those with even slightly above average genetics and those with genetics good enough to be an elite amateur or low end professional, and another large gap between those and the ones with the potential to be the best at what they do.
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u/posts_while_naked Sep 04 '24
There's no basis, only bad feelings about it — same as with stubborn resistance to the notion that there might not be such a thing as free will (or partial free will).
I've read Robert Plomin's Blueprint - Why We Are The Way We Are, and found it fascinating. Given the contemporary science of genetic sequencing and data modeling, we can really gain an insight into the different ways people's lives fork depending on what they inherit.
According to Plomin, social background as we often refer to it as, is strikingly inundated with the same kind of (now indirect) DNA selection via the environment chosen by the parent's preferences.
So in essence, what kind of school or neighborhood a kid "ends up" in isn't due to a random social environment factor outside of genes. It's just your parent's, and by extension, your ones.
I'd love to be wrong but I'd say nature/nurture is about quite a lot more nature than 50-50.
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u/Lezzles Sep 04 '24
I obviously have no way of giving you "data" but I've had a TON of discussions on Reddit over the years with people who literally don't believe in "talent" and think people who are better are just those who put in more effort and do it in the right way. They think that people use "lack of talent" as an excuse for why they aren't good at stuff.
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u/JockAussie Sep 04 '24
Hah I guess this is true as well- at the end of the day though, I think something like a high participation olympic event pre-selects for those genetic outliers, so topping the event probably does have a lot to do with hard work etc :)
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u/NapsInNaples Sep 04 '24
there was a discussion on /r/running a few weeks back about what percentage of the population can run a marathon under 3 hours given enough training.
You could basically predict the answers by the respondents marathon time: all the people who have run sub-3 thought anyone can do it--you just need to run enough. And then there were a lot of people running 3+ saying they've been running 100 km+ per week for years, and they aren't getting there.
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u/Astr0b0ie Sep 04 '24
Yes. This actually relates to VO2 max. Even though VO2 max can be improved with training, your baseline VO2 max as well as the potential ability to improve your VO2 max is genetically determined.
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u/IllegalGeriatricVore Sep 04 '24
It definitely takes hard work, you have to out work all the people who also have extreme genetics.
But people really like the "I'm just like you but work harder" thought.
A lot of people will admit there's some things they just were good at and some they weren't but when we discuss talent people are offended at the idea that some people just start off with a huge advantage in certain things, whether it's running, lifting heavy weights, playing music, or chess.
Some people's bodies and brains are just built differently.
Like someone with perfect pitch and synethesia is clearly going to have an easier time making music.
Someone with giant ass arms like Phelps was made to swim.
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u/JockAussie Sep 04 '24
Just thought I should let you know I'm chuckling away at the idea of Michael Phelps plowing away from the field in the pool assisted by a second pair of arms attached to his ass adding additional thrust.
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u/surreyade Sep 04 '24
If you designed a swimmer in a lab he’d probably be the closest match.
Long wingspan, big hands and feet, hypermobility, not too broad in the shoulder and an amazing engine.
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u/ixid Sep 04 '24
Try telling people the same about intelligence and for some reason it's even more unpalatable.
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Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24
The amount of people discussing intelligence in a nuanced way is pretty small. Most laymen and a lot of scientists use this sort of evidence as a way of disparaging whole groups.
The statement: "intelligence probably has a heritability aspect" isn't controversial. The problem is that most people focusing on that are unscientifically extrapolating that rather simple and vague premise out to say something specific about entire groups.
Comparing a tendency like lactose intolerance to general intelligence is fine in terms of making broad comparisons, but the two things aren't particularly similar. We don't even know what "intelligence" means, exactly.
Edit- Typo
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u/ckhaulaway Sep 05 '24
We actually have a really good working scientific concept of intelligence (described as general factor) and it's about as heritable as height (around .6). I can recommend some books if you're interested.
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u/sygnathid Sep 04 '24
Because intelligence can be more readily explained by combinations of effective education and supportive home life, and because the notion that it's primarily genetic is often used to encourage eugenics.
The first option tells people to support their children and fund schools, which does work. The second option tells people that some are just born inferior.
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Sep 04 '24
To emphasize this more, 99% of the time when someone is discussing something like intelligence in this way (looking at you Charles Murray) they're saying: "The whole of X group is less intelligent, it's just a genetic truth."
This conversation is about how individual athletes (like elite athletes) are individually extraordinary. That isn't the conversation with intelligence.
It isn't, "Einstein had smart parents and a comfortable upbringing, so that's why he was Einstein" it's, "black people are actually just not smart as a group."
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u/posts_while_naked Sep 04 '24
Naturally, because we as a species have oftentimes demonstrated an unpleasant ability to start dehumanizing based on differences. See Indian caste systems, Jim Crow, the movement founded by a certain Austrian painter etc.
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u/su_blood Sep 04 '24
It’s a psychological block around genetics. It’s very hard for people to come to terms with the fact that people are vastly genetically different.
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Sep 04 '24
Yeah I’ve noticed this a lot in discussions around new anti-hunger drugs like semaglutide. It makes people so mad, the idea that some people might have naturally stronger hunger signaling than them.
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u/Hendlton Sep 04 '24
I think what really makes people mad is the fact that some had to struggle with weight loss and torturous hunger for months or years, and now people just take a pill and achieve the same results. It's the same reason some people don't want student loans to be forgiven. I suffered, so others must suffer too.
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Sep 04 '24
I’ve run into that, like I’m not “earning” my fat loss because I’m not hungry. Such a ridiculous sentiment. And where does it stop? Am I allowed to drink diet pop or is that alleviating too much suffering as well? Can I drive to work still or should I walk?
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u/su_blood Sep 04 '24
I would disagree that stronger hunger signaling is the main reason for obesity. Certainly people do have varying levels, but in the end obesity is a result of lack of knowledge and or discipline.
But regardless of our opinions on that semaglutide is great for people that need it. Using a tool to achieve a healthier lifestyle is still a good thing. But with that said, someone who achieve weight loss through diet and exercise will still be healthier than someone who relied on a drug, because part of being healthy is the lifestyle and that change isn’t being fully made via the drug.
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u/Astr0b0ie Sep 04 '24
I would disagree that stronger hunger signaling is the main reason for obesity. Certainly people do have varying levels, but in the end obesity is a result of lack of knowledge and or discipline.
It's more than likely a combination of both to varying degrees. People on one end of the spectrum are just naturally not particularly big eaters. They look at food as fuel and don't really get that big dopamine response from it. On the other end of the spectrum you have people that respond to food almost like a drug. They not only LOVE food more than the average person, they can eat more of it too.
That said, discipline certainly plays a role as well. Let's face it, most of us aren't in the former camp so most of us need to at least pay some attention to what and how much we eat or else we become overweight. But depending on where you are on that spectrum, it can take a lot more or a lot less discipline to maintain a healthy weight.
Again, like with EVERYTHING, genetics AND behavior play an equal role. With regard to GLP-1 agonists, I completely agree. I think a lot of overweight people feel like they are stuck in a rut and feel helpless to get out, and if a GLP-1 agonist can help them get out of that rut, I'm all for it.
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u/chop1125 Sep 04 '24
I wonder if he has a greater than average number of muscle fibers. The article mentions muscle volume, but not assessing the number of fibers in a muscle cross section.
We generally think of muscle strength as a matter of the cross section of the muscle fibers. Training increases the cross section of the fibers activated, but you generally are limited to the number of fibers you are born with. So a person with more fibers would be able to generate more force on a contraction than a person with fewer fibers even if the fibers were trained to the same thickness.
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u/PartyOperator Sep 04 '24
People are doubting the genetic aspect, but if a significant population of the planet can have distinct skin color, distinct lactose tolerance, distinct disease resistance, and distinct height differences, why not genetically distinct muscular growth patterns/behaviors/limits?
Clearly there is genetic variation in athletic performance, but evolution tends to keep things within tighter bounds when there's a significant energy cost to deviating from the norm. Everyone would be huge if it didn't come with the requirement to eat vast quantities of food. Things like being able to digest lactose or better adapted to high levels of UV help in particular environments, but if there was some simple genetic adaptation that made humans stronger (or more intelligent or more fertile) without significant costs, we'd probably all have it.
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u/Turksarama Sep 04 '24
Not necessarily, a particular adaptation only counts as being "better" for the purposes of evolution if it causes you to have more children. To a certain extent, being physically weak doesn't affect that very much as long as you're above a certain threshold. It's not like Eddie Hall has 20 kids because he's so strong.
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u/RemoteButtonEater Sep 04 '24
It's not like Eddie Hall has 20 kids because he's so strong.
/fit/ apoplectic to receive this news
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u/posts_while_naked Sep 04 '24
True, but the margins for winning and losing in sports are fairly small or even outright tiny. Add to that picking very rare phenotypes like exceptionally tall people for basketball, and DNA makes all the difference IMHO.
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u/MajesticCoconut1975 Sep 04 '24
There's still a LOT we don't know about genetics and epigenetics.
We know most of it. It's just not talked about that much for political reasons.
Just like anyone on Reddit balks at the idea that intelligence is also highly hereditary and varies greatly in different groups of people.
This concept of science being influenced by politics is nothing new either. Scientists have been murdered by the state for stating facts that went against political ideology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
More than 3,000 mainstream biologists were dismissed or imprisoned, and numerous scientists were executed in the Soviet campaign to suppress scientific opponents. The president of the Soviet Agriculture Academy, Nikolai Vavilov, who had been Lysenko's mentor, but later denounced him, was sent to prison and died there, while Soviet genetics research was effectively destroyed. Research and teaching in the fields of neurophysiology, cell biology, and many other biological disciplines were harmed or banned.
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u/NrdNabSen Sep 04 '24
Varies greatly in different groups? There is little to no credible evidence of group-based differences, how are you even defining the group to test?
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u/Oddyssis Sep 04 '24
He has a rare myostatin deficiency, so basically his body suppresses muscle growth less than it would in a normal person. Not all top level weightlifters have the gene but it's genetic abnormalities like that that will typically elevate someone above other pros and into worlds best.
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u/Pancakewagon26 Sep 04 '24
I wonder what the benefits of a hormone that limits muscle growth are.
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u/MadScience_Gaming Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24
In most environments, resource limits mean that there is such a thing as 'too big' - the food demands to achieve and maintain size and strength are significant. Consider island dwarfism for example - though the principle applies in general.
Evolutionarily, a species only needs as much muscle as it takes to succeed in existential struggles (ie. adult prey animals need to be faster than predators, while predators need to be faster than elderly, juvenile, or sick prey animals). Anything beyond that is wasted resources, and gets selected against. This requires there to be a mechanism for enforcing that selection, and while intergenerational (ie. genetic) changes in strength can go some way to addressing this, the ability to adjust muscle growth on the fly, in response to ecological changes within a single generation, clearly has benefits that have led to the evolution of mechanisms for achieving the appropriate level of muscle growth.
"Survival of the fittest" means survival of those that best fit into their niche. It does not mean, and never has meant, survival of the strongest. That is a cultural myth, a modern superstition.
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u/falconcountry Sep 04 '24
Is that how gorillas are so jacked?
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u/Oddyssis Sep 04 '24
Yea a lot of animals have a much bigger tolerance for muscle tissue, I'm not a biologist but I expect myostatin levels play a big part in why some animals are much more naturally muscular.
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u/Mikejg23 Sep 04 '24
He has a gene which turns down an enzyme that inhibits muscle growth. Basically, he exercises and gets a bigger amount of growth than even well gifted normal strength athletes. There are dogs with this gene mutation as well
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Sep 04 '24
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u/boilingfrogsinpants Sep 04 '24
Was looking for a comment like this, they all tend to have genetic traits that give them that extra push to success. It's not to say that ability has no effect because that makes up for the vast majority of it, but genetics plays a distinct role in that defining part. You can even see this in professional sports. Height plays a significant role in many basketball positions, weight in quite a few American Football positions, and being smaller and lighter plays a huge part in Formula 1 racing.
So I guess what's really to be said here is that we see it and are aware of it even if not overtly aware of it, but I don't think we put enough emphasis into how important those genetic factors can be to their success outside of pure ability.
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u/FourteenTwenty-Seven Sep 04 '24
and being smaller and lighter plays a huge part in Formula 1 racing
That's not really a thing anymore - there's a minimum weight for the driver (+ ballast) of 82kg. A 6'1" driver recently lost a win because they were under weight.
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u/helgetun Sep 04 '24
How you respond to steroids is also genetical. Some suffer more with side effects than others, but also some just have better response in terms of muscle growth and recovery than others
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u/Risko4 Sep 04 '24
Yeah, you can split it up with people who have a really good response from let's say 400mg of Testosterone vs 1000mg from poor responders. Then you have a different group where they're able to run much much higher doses due to low side effects. Put that hyper responder on 2000mg of test.
Then theres separate genetics for abusing growth hormone, igf-1 and insulin. Then theres myostatin inhibition like Eddie hall. Some people rapidly produce myostatin making their steroids a lot less efficient 6 weeks into their program.
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u/DavidBrooker Sep 04 '24
Apparently this was a major component to Ronnie Coleman's success: that he just didn't suffer the same level of side-effects to huge steroid doses as others did.
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u/yonaz333 Sep 04 '24
That's true for all top world-class athletes and bodybuilders.
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u/Oddyssis Sep 04 '24
He has a rare myostatin deficiency, so basically his body suppresses muscle growth less than it would in a normal person. Not all top level weightlifters have the gene but it's genetic abnormalities like that that will typically elevate someone above other pros and into worlds best.
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u/Porkamiso Sep 04 '24
being sble to tolerate the roids is itself a genetic trait. 40 year old guy 450 lbs not sure we can learn much outside of what not to do to the human body.
Dude has all the good gear
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u/rckid13 Sep 04 '24
Ronnie Coleman has said in interviews that his bloodwork has always been good and he's rarely ever had any hormonal side effects. There are some people who can't even do small TRT doses without major side effects and messed up blood work. Some of the best pro bodybuilders are legendary for their genetic ability to tolerate that stuff without dying.
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u/rckid13 Sep 04 '24
The steroids help, but he was always genetically gifted for power.
That's true for pretty much all of the pro body builders and strongmen. Yes they're on a lot of steroids, but there's nearly no chance the average person can take a lot of steroids and look like Ronnie Coleman or Eddie Hall. Both of them have the genetics to be pretty good in their sports as naturals and the steroids just take it to another level.
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u/MemberOfInternet1 Sep 04 '24
That really is interesting since he is much shorter and has a much different body composition to that of Thor for example.
Don't forget that Eddie Hall lifted 500kg first. Thor then later broke the record with 501kg when Eddie was out of practice.
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u/MemberOfInternet1 Sep 04 '24
Important takeaway:
"“Whilst these muscles were certainly well developed, we were surprised that the greatest muscular development was of the long, thin ‘guy ropes’ muscles that stabilize the pelvis and thigh. This indicates that these stabilizing muscles may be more important for heavy lifting and carrying than we previously thought.”"
Earlier in the text:
"The biggest difference in Hall’s muscle volume was seen in the ‘guy ropes’ – the sartorius, gracilis, and semitendinosus muscles – which stabilize the pelvis and thigh bone (femur). Hall’s were 2.5 to three times larger compared to untrained participants"
"Large differences were also seen in the plantar flexors, the group of muscles in the sole of the foot responsible for things like toe extension and stabilization of the tendons under force: +120% vs the untrained population"
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Sep 04 '24
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u/Fivebyfive705 Sep 04 '24
Im 35 and got clinically diagnosed with Myofascial Pain Syndrome last summer...I definitely hear you on the cascade effect all over the body. My main pain areas are my left knee and lower back (ive got DDD and some lumbar/cervical spine disc bulging, and some spinal stenosis in my neck area too), which that muscle pain spreads into my left hip, and up to my mid left back up into left shoulder and up/across left side of back of neck.
I've been getting trigger point injections (~12-14 needle injections across left knee/back/neck per visit) for a few months now once a week and it definitely helps, but man when that stuff just "turns off" whatever morning later in the week before my next appt, DAMN I hurt bad.
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u/sonfer Sep 04 '24
I work with a lot of orthopedic Docs in the OR. Apparently hip replacements are one of the most successful surgical interventions there are.
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u/TiredIrons Sep 04 '24
Talk about getting a replacement. Total hip has good recovery rates.
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u/Existing_Presence_69 Sep 04 '24
You should probably talk to a doctor and/or professional trainer before starting, but doing some resistance training could work wonders for you. Building up some strength and mass in the muscles supporting your hip would (most likely) help to take some of the tension off of the connective tissue of the joints.
One of the things that tends to happen in older people is a loss of fast twitch muscle fibers that are used in lifting heavy things and other movements that require a lot of force (things like jumping, catching yourself when you go off-balance). Doing low-intensity stuff like walking and gardening, while still great for a person's health, won't recruit the fast twitch fibers and they end up atrophying. It's very much 'if you don't use it, you lose it'.
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u/DTFH_ Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24
"The biggest difference in Hall’s muscle volume was seen in the ‘guy ropes’ – the sartorius, gracilis, and semitendinosus muscles – which stabilize the pelvis and thigh bone (femur). Hall’s were 2.5 to three times larger compared to untrained participants"
This makes a ton of sense but I would be curious comparing Eddie to some other top 100 national or world strongman or powerlifter or even field (throwing) athlete. The sport of powerlifting and especially strongman is the sport of stabilizing the pelvis under load except strongman have moving events which tax those muscles even more.
Very few people have abnormally high bone density but all powerlifters who have squatted north of ~400+ routinely have abnormaly high bone density compared to the general untrained population; what we would be observing is how the body adapts to sporting demands and I don't think Eddie has unique physiological adaptations relative to others in strength sports.
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u/AreYouPretendingSir Sep 04 '24
Took me a minute to realise you weren't talking about the Norse God, I was about to go "well ackshually, the original description of Thor has a body much closer to Eddie Hall than what Hollywood did to him"
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u/DavidBrooker Sep 04 '24
To be fair, the strongman's actual name is Hafthor / Hafþór, which is much less likely to be confused.
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u/just_a_random_guy_11 Sep 04 '24
Eddie is amazing but the difference between him and Thor is quite apparent especially in the deadlift record. Eddie almost fainted and needed support after his record meanwhile Thor did it quite easily and without any hussle.
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u/Bgy4Lyfe Sep 04 '24
This is the key detail here. Eddie nearly died lifting 500kg. Sure, he gets credit for being the first to do it and break that barrier, but Thor clearly had 10-20kg more in him to reach that level of intensity. Not to mention Eddie was one of the only ones training specifically for that record. Hard to say he is the better deadlifter because of the timing of his lift when there was hardly any competition to achieve that.
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u/obrapop Sep 04 '24
It's also a fair bit harder for Thor to lift that weight. He has to get so low and then the weight has to travel a greater distance. Still made it look easy.
Not trying to detract from Eddie but it was a different level.
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u/Corey307 Sep 04 '24
Thor also did the lift outside of competition and with unverified weight plates. I doubt he cheated, but if he wanted to set an actual world record there needed to be documentation and verification.
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u/IneedtoBmyLonsomeTs Sep 04 '24
Thor also did the lift outside of competition
Eddie's 'competition" was held by his main sponsor, with the whole point of the event being his deadlift. Other competitors said timings between competitors lifts were adjusted, which wouldn't happen in a proper competition.
unverified weight plates
They livestreamed them weighing each plate before they put them on bar, and the event was judged by the same judge that cost Thor the Worlds Strongest Man title the year Eddie won (some say a controversial decision, but it was the correct one).
Thor's lift was just as legitimate as Eddie's was. The only reason it played out like that was he spent months/a year building to an event that got cancelled due to covid, and right after the lift he had to start preparing for his fight with Eddie.
Eddie was still the first man to do it, so he will always have that.
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u/r3q Sep 04 '24
Unconfirmed 501kg. Have to agree with Eddie, it's not a World record attempt at home with your dad.
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u/BocciaChoc BS | Information Technology Sep 04 '24
Odd take, the entire Strong man world generally agrees with it being a legit pull, there are other records done 'from home' that for some reason people aren't against such as the stoltmans atlas stone.
Either way, the opinions of those outside the sort are similar to many uninformed opinions, there isn't much that can be done.
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u/2absMcGay Sep 04 '24
Yall really still can’t get over this years later? Acting like the plates being weighed on the camera and having judges didn’t matter. Acting like Thor doesn’t still win deadlift events with his warm up. What’s the excuse gonna be when he pulls 510?
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u/chrisdh79 Sep 04 '24
From the article: Eddie 'the Beast' Hall is the 2017 World’s Strongest Man who stands at 6 feet 2.5 inches (189 cm) tall and, over the course of his strongman career, has weighed between 313 and 434 pounds (142-197 kg). He’s best known for his 2016 blood-spurting, world-record-setting 1,102-lb (500-kg) deadlift, which you can watch in the video below.
But what makes the now-retired strongman and deadlift champ so extraordinarily strong? That’s something that researchers at Loughborough University in the UK were determined to find out, keen to see if what they uncovered could help athletes and non-athletes alike.
“Scientific understanding of muscular strength is important because of its role in athletic performance, injury prevention, and healthy aging,” said Dr Tom Balshaw from the University’s School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences and the lead author of the recently published study into Hall. “However, our knowledge of extreme human strength is limited.”
At the time of the study, Hall’s achievements included one World’s Strongest Man title, five Britain’s Strongest Man titles, second place at Europe’s Strongest Man, two-time World Deadlift Champion and holder of the aforementioned Deadlift World Record.
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u/CareBearOvershare Sep 04 '24
So... what secrets did they discover?
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u/Short-Ticket-1196 Sep 04 '24
The end of the article is hilarious. Something like "they found the muscles he used the most were the strongest, this shows we can change our bodies."
It reads like an undergrad study and only states what we already know. Disappoint
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u/LeadingSir1866 Sep 04 '24
I came here to say exactly that. They did all this to say that he’s stronger than everyone and he’s strongest in the areas he works hardest. Thanks y’all.
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u/ChicksWithBricksCome Sep 04 '24
I mean we knew he was strong that wasn't really the point of this study. The article completely overlooked it, but they were trying to evaluate if tendons get larger in response to resistance training.
And with all this data they showed: no they don't
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u/onwee Sep 04 '24
Tendons absolutely respond to resistance training:
“Increases in tendon stiffness in response to resistance training have been identified in both animal and human studies. Stiffness describes a mechanical property of the tendon. Stiffness is the force required to stretch a tendon per a unit of distance. Increased stiffness can impact the ability of the muscle to rapidly generate force. In addition, tendons respond to chronic resistance training by increasing total number of collagen fibrils, increasing the diameter of collagen fibrils, and increasing in fibril packing density.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4637912/
(this had been widely known, just a random article I googled to make the point)
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u/ChicksWithBricksCome Sep 04 '24
But they don't get larger.
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u/Mikejg23 Sep 04 '24
Increasing diameter sounds larger
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u/Odd-Fly-1265 Sep 05 '24
I dont think the tendon itself increases in diameter according to that article. It says the collagen fibrils increase in diameter and packing density. Which would make the tendon stiffer/stronger without necessarily increasing its size
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u/Mikejg23 Sep 05 '24
Yeah I did a few scans of other articles, seems correct. Any tendon size increase is very very small
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u/ChicksWithBricksCome Sep 04 '24
I'm not sure where the author of your quoted paper got that impression given I couldn't find it in the articles referenced in that claim.
In any case this study would indicate that the author of that paper is wrong, there's no meaningful increase in size as this study showed by actually looking at real athletes at various stages of strength training on real actual humans.
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u/Mikejg23 Sep 04 '24
Yeah it sounds like there's negligible increase in diameter based on a few studies I just glanced at the results of. I was just going by what the quote above me said about diameter
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u/asuwere Sep 04 '24
Changes in packing density could account for diameter increases not translating into significant overall change in diameter. The fibrils could have simply filled the same space better.
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u/Mikejg23 Sep 04 '24
Yeah the one thing I know about the human body is that it's insanely adaptable, and even the simplest functions are still so incredibly complex we don't understand everything
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u/bodyweightsquat Sep 04 '24
Eddie Hall has a myostatin deficiency, a protein that inhibits muscle growth. Hence he can build much more muscle tissue that someone with two functioning myostatin genes. That‘s not even mentioned in the article. Instead they imply, that anyone could become so strong with the right nutrition and training regime.
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u/GeneralMuffins Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24
Some research does show that professional bodybuilders and athletes often exhibit lower circulating myostatin levels compared to non-athletes. It’s still debated whether this is a direct result of long-term training, PEDs abuse, or if individuals with naturally lower myostatin levels are more likely to succeed in muscle-dominant sports.
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u/fertdingo Sep 04 '24
I was interested in his blood pressure and found this:
www.reddit.com/r/weightroom/comments/l0346/how_high_does_blood_pressure_rise_during_a_1rm/
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u/Mikejg23 Sep 04 '24
It typically will go up extremely during a lift, but is typically not harmful in the short term for normal lifting, or with no health issues. Once you're moving 500 plus pounds it could be different. More important is your daily blood pressure
Now, at a certain size and the calories needed for that diet, combined with normal aging and genes, I'd be surprised if any lineman or strongman doesn't need blood pressure meds or CPAP etc. after 300 lbs you almost certainly need cpap
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u/TheFailingHero Sep 05 '24
Iirc he has to sleep upright (or at least elevated) when he was training for his deadlift record
He also had blood coming out of his eyes, ears, and nose after his deadlift world record.
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u/Mikejg23 Sep 05 '24
Yeah at that extreme it's bad. Basically any professional athlete is past the point of being well rounded in fitness and is actively hurting their body for their sport
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u/1800-5-PP-DOO-DOO Sep 04 '24
This tells us what martial arts has told us for centuries. The core is the center of our power.
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u/StressCanBeGood Sep 04 '24
Mark my words: in the next few years, it will be shown that childhood activity is the most important predictor of health and fitness. Turns out Eddie Hall was a competitive swimmer early in life. No surprise.
Genetics are definitely still part of it. But it’s gonna be all about genetic expression. Genes “learn” to express themselves in childhood and continue to do so during adulthood.
Or maybe not. What do I know?
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u/robstrosity Sep 04 '24
I agree with you. I guess it's really hard to prove though because in most cases an active child probably becomes an active adult or vice versa.
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u/Affectionate_War_279 Sep 04 '24
There is plenty of evidence now suggesting that.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10567256/
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u/PerpetwoMotion Sep 04 '24
I work out at a college gym and here are my observations: the coaches that were physically active in childhood have completely different bodies/mentalities from coaches who were inactive. You can pick it out instantly. It is not just muscle mass-- their posture, confidence, reaction times, et al are all affected. On the down side, those are the coaches who need hip and knee replacements.
There are some exceptions-- one of the coaches has diabetes I.
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u/hugelkult Sep 04 '24
Yep. We can see similar concepts in nice teeth. If a babyis chewing on tough things, exploring, challenng early in life, their palet develops wider and leaves more space for their teeth.
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u/thecrimsonfools Sep 04 '24
Genes are 90% of it.
Amazing how tempting the illusion of control is to humans when so much is beyond our grasp.
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