This past summer, David Epstein, who ran for Columbia in college and used to write for Sports Illustrated, made a big splash in the running world with the release of his first book. It's called The Sports Gene and, inspired by Epstein's own curiosity, it explores the role of genetics in elite athletic achievement. The chapter that I'm going to focus on in this post is called 'The Talent of Trainability.' The chapter opens with a superbly-written anecdote of Jim Ryun's rapid ascension from high school wannabe to teenage world record holder. Epstein then transitions over to science, in particular the HERITAGE study, which produced a couple of stunning revelations:
1) There is a lot of variation in how much different people improve even while doing the same training.
2) There is much less variation in how much relatives improve while doing the same training.
In other words, improvement is, partially, a talent. Some people respond really well to training - their body is very good at handling, and adapting to, the stress of training. These are 'high-responders,' Jim Ryun having been one of them, obviously. Athletes who see relatively little improvement from training are called 'low-responders.'
I had a vague sort of knowledge of this phenomenon in the past but, since reading The Sports Gene, I have paid more attention to it. In particular, two of my high-school teammates stand out to me as being pretty far on opposite ends of the trainability spectrum.
One of them - let's call him Lenny - had a running age of three years entering the summer preceding the 2013 cross country season, his last one. Lenny was never one of the better runners on even the JV team but he came to practice regularly and enjoyed running a few miles with his friends. He didn't have an overly-competitive mindset; he just liked how running felt. His 5k PR was run during his sophomore year but he wanted to be sure to lower it in his senior season so he committed to building his best aerobic base ever. Lenny put in a full summer of mileage, making his way up to 40 miles per week, which was a lot for him. He even tried the occasional tempo run or strides. He was sure to make a big jump this season, I remember thinking.
