M.E SCIENCE
By Devlin Brown, Editor
MUSCLE SHOWDOWN:
GENES VS
HARD WORK
HOW FAR CAN BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS TAKE YOU?
W
E HAVE ALL SEEN THE YOUTUBE VIDEOS WHERE THE GUY
SHOUTS ABOUT HARD WORK BEATING TALENT WHEN TALENT
DOESN’T WORK HARD, about wanting it more than we want
to breathe, and we get pumped up and run through walls with
enough rage to tear down an empire as we try and bend the
iron and shatter the gym floor. Work hard, push yourself, never give up,
one more rep! How far can this get us if we do not have the genetics of the
stars? After all Phil Heath is not called The Gift for nothing.
HARD WORK VERSUS TALENT
A
nyone who has seen Generation Iron will remember Kai Greene talking about
how he works so hard, and with his hard work he will take on Heath with all his
gifts. This rivalry has been pitted as the hard work versus talent argument. The top two
bodybuilders in the world going head to head and the one with talent coming out tops.
To be fair, this is not entirely true. To portray Phil Heath as someone with abundant
talent and having success served on a plate is simplistic and just wrong. You do not win
the Olympia four times in a row by coasting on genetic superiority. Make no mistake
about it, he works hard, he works very, very hard.
However, where his genetics shine is when his lines and muscle bellies turn into the
works of art that they are. That is genetics. Kai Greene is also, obviously, blessed with the
talent to make him the number two bodybuilder in the world. We are not talking about
an untalented guy here. We are talking about a phenomenal bodybuilder. But for all his
amazing size and proportions, Greene lost to Phil more than once because on the eye,
even to a first-time observer, Heath has just got it. What is it?
D
r Rob Collins from
the Centre for Sports
Medicine and Orthopaedics
in Rosebank, Johannesburg
and Senior Team Physician
for the Golden Lions Rugby
Union says that there
are three categories of
potential athlete.
“Athletic performance
and ability is obviously a
combination of nurture
and nature. I believe that
there would have to be
three groups of athletes
depending on their nature
and nurture abilities.”
1. Those with supreme
natural ability who work
extremely hard.
2. Those who are naturally
good and work average
as well as those who are
naturally average but
work hard.
3. Those who are
untalented and don’t
train.
“I suppose the same would
apply to any area of life, not
necessarily just sport – no
matter how hard the kid with
a low IQ works, he will never
win a Nobel prize for maths.
Similarly, to be a world-class
athlete, one needs extreme
natural gifts which one then
has to work on and hone,”
explains Dr Collins.
It is clear that nature and
nurture both play a pivotal
role in an athlete’s eventual
success. But in order to
be elite he needs to have
abundant natural talent first.
The discussion then leads to
the interplay between nature
and nurture and how they
influence each other and
work together to be able to
produce a star athlete.
“To be a world-class athlete, one needs
extreme natural gifts which one then
has to work on and hone.”
26
Muscle Evolution
TO