Nice thread going here, keep up the good work/conversation. Hopefully we can come to some solid conclusions.
Rupert
CharlieFrancis.com
i heard DNA wise, humans are like 99% or 97% the same as a mouse??
there was a french scientist. forgive me for not remembering the name. but his theory was that if you became a weightlifter and got bigger than the rest of the population your kid would come out bigger. it was along the lines that if you had your arm chopped off then your kid would come out sans an appendage.
it’s nice in thought that your hard work will transfer generations. but in reality the only leg up your kid gets if your trying to turn them into a world beating athelte is whatever coaching and training knowledge you’ve aquired.
but you can find an athletic spouse, thats a start. it’s more likely for the child to reach the 4th standard divation away from there parents in terms of fast twitch fibers and latent power capiblities than the 50th standard divation.
It’s like with Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery’s child, it is more likely to tend away from it’s parents end of freakish athletics towards normal, but if it were to go to the end of genetic gifts then it would be the perfect machine.
back to the “they cant all run fast and they are all not great singers”. i think thats my new mantra.
Missed this thread the first time. Actually, an emerging field known as epigenetics is casting some light on this. DNA is the genetics that we’ve known about for the last 50 years. Epigenetics is showing why some people’s “end result” is so different from their DNA. Basically, lifestyle produces methylation or demethylation of DNA that causes genes to be turned “on” or “off”, i.e. those genes code or don’t code for proteins. These methylized or demethylized genes are passed on to offspring. So a gene that is “off” can be turned “on” and begin coding or one that is “on” can be turned “off” and cease coding.
Epigenetics adds a whole new layer to genes beyond the DNA. It proposes a control system of ‘switches’ that turn genes on or off – and suggests that things people experience, like nutrition and stress, can control these switches and cause heritable effects in humans.
These epigenetic changes are reversible by fixing the environmental factors that cause them, such as stress, poor diet, lethargy, and environmental toxins. For instance, skinny, healthy parents have a child who turns into a 400lb morbidly obese guy with all of the symptoms of Syndrome X. He was given good genes, but his lifestyle has changed the encoding of these genes, not the genes themselves. This poor encoding will be passed on to his children. However, proper living can reverse these changes in the children (and in the poor obese guy) moving them back to their proper genetic potential.
Scientists are working to map the epigenome currently…exciting stuff going on here.
A few other links:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml
http://www.mcmanweb.com/epigenetics.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics
Humans are 98.6% the same DNA-wise as chimpanzees. Humans are 85% similar to the mouse.
I knew it!!!
Not only are my kids gonna reap the benefits of my “amazing” athletic knowledge but their genes are gonna be superior too! Good find on those articles. Is this why animals are born with their natural instincts? I’m sure it has something to do with that and how skills are past on through generations. Very interesting but LOGICAL study.
im afraid not. your misinterpreting the data. let me put it simply AQUIRED TRAITS IN LIFE ARE NOT ENCODED ON YOUR GENES AND SUBSEQUENTLY PASSED TO YOUR CHILDREN. what that research is saying it that as humans we have certain genes that we do not always use they are in the off position so to speak. but through enviornmental stressors or stimulators they can be turned on. hence when you lose an arm that doesnt mean that your child will be born without an arm. now dont lose hope for future generations of athletic progeny. a human being especially when young is like modeling clay when it comes to desirable traits such as low body fat muscle fiber compostion and more importantly neurological architecture. for example if you feed your kids shit when they are young they will likly develop more fat cells and later in life will be more likly to store fat and it will be more lilky for it to be hard for them to lose fat. they are chalk full of stem cells so proper training and enviornment during youth can increase athletic talent later in life. even more importantly neurolgically we develop from our enviornment. often the later a child begins to walk the more highly developed their feed forward system (please dont put weights on your kids back to keep them from walking). other factors such as the first signs of pubic hair are indicators of athletic maturity, and these factors can be effected by enviornment. so give up hope of producing a superior athlete through your hardwork it aint gunna happen trust me ive studied the stuff, but just because you werent a great athlete in no way insures that you child wont be.
whats the feed forward system? excuse my igonarance.
and what would you say would be the optimal weight? .1kg of weight per kg of lean body mass? does that sound about right?
the feed-forward system is the balistic control system. in the feedback system an individual performs and act then sensory information about that act is sent to the brain processed and corrections are made to create the desired outcome. this is the system you would use while performing coactivation movements such as standing. during athletics this system is too slow to provide the necessary control over the body. thats where the feed forward system comes into play it is a set of preprogramed instructions (so to speak) which allow use to perform balistic muscle sequencing events such as sprinting jumping cutting in football so on and so froth. a good athlete needs a good feedforward system and it is developed between the ages of 4 and 6. not to say that it cant be changed after that but we all know that a childs body systems are alot more plastic. as for your other question im not sure what your asking.
As james colbert pointed out, that’s not entirely true. Your kids may benefit from overall athleticism, but they aren’t going to inherit your perfect clean and jerk nor your excellent timing on a start from blocks. They may inherit a higher proportion of fast twitch muscle fibers (james, does the body “code” for muscle fibers in this way? would it be heritable?), but skills that are learned are not heritable.
Lion cubs are taught to hunt by their mothers, just as wolf pups are taught to hunt by their mothers and members of the pack. They inherit the knowledge to “make the kill” (the killing bite), but they don’t inherit the skills to hunt. That is to say that they can kill the animal, but they aren’t aware of proper stalking, etc to get to the animal…you can see the rub there. A domestic animal will generally just take off in pursuit of prey, whereas a wild animal will stalk prey to improve the odds of a kill.
So eat right, exercise, get plenty of sleep, live as stressfree as possible, and pass on those positive epigenetic changes to your children. Then teach them to sprint, perform gymnastics, and perform Olympic lifts properly.
This is good stuff… Interesting reads! Hope to see more on this thread as it develops further!
i was asking what would be the optimal weight to strap to a child. i was joking though.
fiber conversion that occurs due to training in an idividual will NOT transfer to their offspring no matter the extent. that which you can transfer to your children (genetically speaking) is present at the moment of said individuals birth.
lol didnt catch that one … good stuf
With Tim & Marion having a child together
you would think that kid liimitation is off the hook, but the pressure might be too great by the time this kid hit junior high.
Kenny Mac~~~~
I totally agree with you. Its education and Logic. You have to be smart and know what to do, or all the genetics in the world will go down the drain. And talking about black and white and stuff like that!!! There are very good white sprinters. They probably had good genetics. But they didn’t sit home crying about the fact that they were black or white or coloured or what ever. They tried Hard and most important of all, they tried smart. And trying smart made them realize the fact that they were genetically able. Look at jeromy wariner ( forgive my spelling ) and many others. So How are you going to know that you are genetically able. Sit home and guess?!!.. Look at the colours?! make up statistics? does that mean that if over 80% of under 10 second sprinters have a blood type of A for example, then type B guys would sit home and cry?? Its just a statistic.Go out there and work RIGHT and as long as the results are coming then you are ok.
What about the statistic that 100% of sub10 sprinters are not caucasian? Mental block? 
What’s the saying? You can’t make a silk purse out a sow’s ear? Is there a Pietro Mennea Jr around?
I think pressure is very positive in sprinting. At least with my experience, there are some very succesful runners here in Ontario who come from families with very accomplished sprinters.
rehashing this baby. Was wanting to know in relation to genes and athletic, is it subjective for an athlete to posess the athletic physique or look like an average joe yet posesses the abilities of a great athlete?
Training determines form. When elite sprinters stop training they look like average joes.