Talent is overrated.
(What actually matters)
‘Hard work beats talent — every time’
We’ve all heard this old adage. I’m not sure if it’s always true. But I AM sure that with hard work, we can become the best version of ourselves.
Today I’m going to talk about some common limiting beliefs on talent — as usual through the lens of fitness.
In weightlifting, bodybuilding, and sports more generally, it’s often referred to as ‘genetics’.
Genetics are overrated when it comes to lifting and sports.
More specifically — speculating on people’s genetics and talking about genetics in a way that implies we know more than we do, is overrated.
I’m not saying there are not heritable traits, unevenly distributed amongst humans, which play a role in determining our potential to perform in fitness and sports. There are. They play a role. Is it a huge role? Maybe. Probably. But honestly I don’t think we know.
Unless you’re a geneticist, doing genetic testing of individuals and athletes to learn more about the roles of these unseen factors, you probably don’t benefit from thinking about it too much.
Talent cannot be be measured
To explore this topic, it’s useful to define two relevant concepts from the field of genetics:
Genotype - An individual’s unique genetic makeup. Essentially this is their DNA. The list of all their genes. Crucially, these are thought to be largely fixed from birth, and heritable to offspring.
Phenotype - An individual’s physical and behavioral traits. Unlike genotypes, these are usually easy to observe. Occur as a result of the interactions between genes and the environment, and experiences.
For instance, for certain phenotypes, like ‘tall’ or ‘short’ or ‘heavy’ or overweight, we can say useful things about sport performance.
- Short people tend to have better strength to weight ratios, because regardless of muscle mass, their bones, soft tissues and organs weigh less. Short people seem to dominate the fields of gymnastics and calisthenics
- Tall people can support more total mass, and more total muscle mass, which seems to help for absolute strength sports like strongman.
- Overweight people often have relatively weaker joints, compared to their higher bodyweight, and so can often struggle with impact sports involving running.
It’s crucial the remember that these three examples are all phenotypes. They’re observable traits. These are distinct from genotypes. An extremely common mistake is to conflate these two concepts.
But there’s an obvious problem with this: How do we know how much of a person’s phenotype (observable traits) are due to their genotype (genetics)?
We don’t.
We do have good evidence that genotype plays a crucial role in human height. Tall parents tend to have tall children. And once we’ve reached adulthood, we stop growing, and no amount of ‘training’ can make us grow more. However - even that isn’t as simple as you might think. Researchers have already identified over 700 genes that can have an impact on height.
But it’s also true that environmental factors play a huge role. Nutrient deficiencies in childhood can severely stunt growth. Certain conditions like hypothyroidism are also known to prevent adults from reaching their full ‘genetic’ height.
Now think about bodyweight and body fat. How much of this is genetics, and how much of this is lifestyle influences? On a population level, I don’t think we know.
Individuals’ talent is invisible
When people talk about genetics in real life, it’s often to explain the observed phenotype or traits of others.
But this is speculation.
Consider this fitness example.
As far as I’m aware, we don’t have reliable genetic tests to determine if people
- grow muscle easily
- recover well from workouts
- absorb nutrients well from diet
- were born with efficient mitochondria
I believe there are a few papers linking specific genes to distributions of muscle fiber types, which is really cool. But until there are validated and widely available ways to genetically test individuals to see what genes they actually have, talk about someone’s genetics is just speculation.
The info we actually have is observations about how quickly a person developed an attribute, from whatever training they actually did. But it’s impossible, at this point, to know precisely how much was genetics and how much was strategy or other lifestyle factors.
So why say these things? Why speculate?
Two reasons I see often:
- People want to feel like they know more than they do. It sounds smart to say genetics. Until you realize that they don’t mean anything specific by using that term.
- People want to discredit the methods of others. ‘Oh yeah that only worked because he’s a genetic freak’. ‘Well it’s easy for this person, he’s got great genetics’. This is a very similar fallacy to ad-hominem argumentation, where when some hears an argument, they attack the speaker of that argument rather than the argument itself.
In contrast, I think the only constructive way to go about evaluating if a person’s results are due to their training style are to… evaluate the training style, rather than the person’s genetics. And the best way to do that is to use personal experience, and try different strategies that you haven’t yet tried.
Talent is out of our control
The Stoics had this figured out 2000 years ago.
There are things which we can control. There are also things which we cannot control. Focusing on the latter is a fundamental waste of time.
If we can’t control it, then energy spent on it can’t change it. Conversely, if we can control it, then energy spent on that area can drastically affect our lives, and the world around us. It makes sense to focus more on these things.
Considering an individuals’ ‘talent’ or ‘genetics’ is often committing this mistake:
Focusing on something which is important (has a large impact on the person’s traits) but uncontrollable.
Ultimately, no matter what gifts you do or don’t have, you can’t change them. All you can change is your actions, your habits, and the strategies you use to interact with the world.
We all start from different places. But we have some control of where we finish.
So focus on where you’re going, not where you came from.
My story: From weak to strong
I’d say I don’t have much ‘talent’ for sports and athletics. I was the slowest on my cross country team. My fastest 5k in high school was 22:36
I also tried track & field, where I was also the slowest sprinter. My fastest 100m sprint was around 14s.
So at basically all distances from 100m to 5k, I was the slowest.
But was that because of genetics? Maybe. But I don’t know. Maybe it was because I spent 25 years eating mostly Doritos and Mountain Dew, and never trained at an intensity appropriate for a beginner. Maybe it was because I played video games all night instead of sleeping for most of my high school career.
Ultimately, I don’t know what my ‘talent’ or ‘genetics’ for fitness & sports is.
But here’s what I can say for certain:
- When I started lifting with intensity, I started getting stronger and putting on muscle
- When I started running at a low heart rate, my endurance and running speed increased
- When I started stretching with intensity, I started getting more flexible.
- When I started eating whole foods, I got leaner, had more energy, recovered better
- When I started going to sleep earlier, I had more energy for both physical and mental work.
When I started doing things that actually matter, that actually move the needle on health and fitness, I started seeing the benefits. Almost immediately.
I’d say it’s probably too late for me to become a professional athlete or elite performer. But is that going to stop me from continuing to improve for as long as I can? Hell no.
I’m going to get the one arm chin up. I’m gonna continue doing them into my fifties.
I’m gonna improve my climbing for the next two decades at least.
Worrying about genetics is wasting my energy playing comparison games. I can just focus on doing the work, and on progressively improving my strategies to find what interventions work for me.
Just do the work
I believe that 100% of people who take positive actions — who implement habits which are known to cause positive outcomes — will achieve positive outcomes. I don’t believe in non-responders. That’s bullshit. There’s always a strategy, something that can be done to improve yourself.
The only way you can discover your potential is to try as hard as you can.
- Prove to yourself you can’t get stronger by strength training
- Prove to yourself you can’t grow muscle by hypertrophy training
- Prove to yourself you can’t gain or lose weight by actually implementing a diet.
Will those outcomes be equal? No. They will be distributed across a continuum.
The only way to know your outcomes is to get after them. The only way to improve is to do the work. Stop with the cope. Start with the work.
A good life is about trying to push the limits, seeing where your potential really is. And you cannot ever know unless you try.
Action Item
Identify one area of your life which in which you feel you lack talent. Is this belief holding you back from taking action? What could you achieve if you tackled the problem head on, for months or years?
The only way to know is to try. So pick something important. And try.
Send me a DM if you need help on the journey, or if you need help identifying where to focus your energy.
Thanks for reading,
-John
P.S. Need help getting unstuck in your fitness journey?