The Argument
In the argument section of his book, David Shenk emphasizes that "a person's mind-set has the power to dramatically affect both short-term capabilities and the long-term dynamic of achievement" (p.110). This would be the reason why several records had been broken over the course of a century in the athletic fields of running, with the "record speed for the mile...cut from 4:36 in 1865 to 3:43 in 1999" (p.111); swimming, with "the 200-meter freestyle swimming record decreased from 2:31 in 1908 to 1:43 in 2007"(p.111); and cycling, with the increase of the one-hour cycling distance record from "26 kilometers in 1876 to 49 kilometers in 2005" (p.111). Our ability to take on more aggressive forms of physical training has improved, at least in Kenya, where "Kenyan runners...will cover 230 kilometers per week"(p.111) compared to the "67 kilometers per week [which used to be] considered an aggressive level of training" (p.111). While "the mind is the most athletic part of any...athlete's body" (p.110), the increased training intensity and desire to improve has expanded the capacities of the human body to take on such arduous physical tasks. How has the mind influenced certain parts of an athlete's body to be able to take on such intensive training and triumph in such achievements over the span of a few generations? What is different about the mindset and physical features of future generations that allow them to cut previous records by almost a whole minute? Which features of the circulatory system (Chapter 42) and the endocrine system (Chapter 45) may have changed in response to mental demands of athletes (ex: Jamaican runners and their cultural demands) within a few generations? What certain hormones play a role in allowing future generations of athletes to tolerate increased levels of physical activity than previous generations of athletes? Relate back to Chapter 42 and 45 as well as the biological theme of evolution.
Tracy Lai
(tracymlai@hotmail.com)
I think that the biggest factor in success and “evolution” is the determination and strength of the human mind. This goes along with Shenk’s argument that many traits are caused by the interaction between genes and environment. Back to Hart and Risley’s study on children and childhood development, Shenk attributed childhood intelligence to the fact that “they are trained to be” (48). When Hart and Risley tested children to see why children from homes with professional parents had more success and less crime than children from homes with parents on welfar, they found that since the children in professional homes were exposed to more words and more encouragements, the children developed faster and displayed more intelligence overall (45-46). The gene portion of GxE is like having genes that predispose an individual to a particular activity. However, without the “E,” or the environment portion of GxE, the genes will not be expressed, as there are no stimuli or opportunity. It goes without saying that children who grew up with parents on welfare went through childhood without reaching their full potential, because the children never got the environment that children with professional parents usually receive. After all, we can’t measure the level of skill or talent lost. Since mental triggers for children include speaking to children early, reading early and often, encouragement, setting expectations, and embracing failure, most of which are not embraced by welfare parents but accepted by professional parents, the welfare children had much wasted potential by just not having the optimal conditions to develop in. It is easily shown that environment has a massive effect on childhood development.
ReplyDeleteThis may have seemed like a bit of a tangent, but this ties into the success of athletes. Although most children from welfare homes are less intelligent than children from professional homes, there are exceptions. There are cases where children from professional homes, with many resources and much care, end up not nearly as intelligent as children from welfare homes, who have little resources to spare. Even though these welfare children don’t receive the encouragement and constant exchange of words (47), as well as imprinting and cognition, which should definitely be developing as the child grows (and is thus ignored by the welfare parent) (Campbell 1128), the welfare child becomes the top of his or her class. This created the need for financial aid for education. This is because a lot of hard work was put into it by the welfare child. "Examine closely even the most extreme examples - Mozart, Newton, Einstein, Stravinsky - and you find more hard-won mastery than gift. Geniuses are made, not born", the British journalist David Dobbs pointed out. Cambridge University put together a study about IQ that yielded surprising results: being a genius is 99% work (at the very least!). This hard work is brought forth by hard work and determination. People may be extremely predisposed to, oh, something like basketball. Michael Jordan was an average player, but constantly practiced until he got better (96-97). So good, in fact, that Jordan became a legendary figure in basketball. Now, the person predisposed to basketball (let’s call this person “X”) can be talented through high school, joining the varsity team and cruising through games. However, X did not have the drive that Jordan had; thus, Jordan became the NBA star, while X just went on to college and a career. Jordan’s mentality was to play hard and practice right.
PART ONE
Annie Lee (xxannie.leexx@yahoo.com)
The mentality of athletes is many times to beat the previous record; they have a goal in mind that they want to reach. As records keep breaking records, athletes find themselves reaching to achieve even more. Actually, in 2008, the New York Times ran an article that discussed the merits of adjusting records for “inflation.” William Saletan believes that athletes have “considerable advantages – technological, scientific, and otherwise – that make it impossible to compare to their feats to those of past Olympic athletes. A new record means that an athlete using today’s equipment outperformed an athlete using yesterday’s equipment.” Today, we use science and information from trial and error to train in the most efficient way possible. As technology continues to increase, athletes get better and better, as they are trained in a way to maximize output. Runners of just a few decades back did not partake in “natural blood doping” or anything of the sort. Swimmers didn’t have aerodynamic suits. Hockey players skated on rough ice with wooden sticks instead of titanium and carbon fiber. More and more is demanded of these athletes, and with the help of technology, athletes are meeting the demands. With Jamaica’s “wealth of aggressive, ambitious young sprinters” (109) it’s no wonder that each sprinter wishes to break the last record.
DeleteAthletes train even harder, working their bodies to the limit. Through this, the athletes are able to control their bodies better, doing everything from strengthening the heart muscle and lowering heart rate to increasing propensity for hemoglobin. Even the slightest changes can affect a person. Hormones also affect everything from endurance to healing ability, according to Erick Nolin. In accordance with the biological theme of Evolution, athletes will pass down any selective advantage that they have, to create more variation and have offspring with more advantages. Researchers found that pronghorns got their incredibly high oxygen consumption rate from natural selection (Campbell 926). In many humans, not just Jamaicans, there exists alpha-actinin-3, a protein that “drives forceful, speedy muscle contractions” (Shenk 101). This protein is found in the majority of Europeans and Americans, so with the evolution of humans, more proteins that give advantages will be found in more people all around the world. Humans seem to be evolving with the increase in technology and communication.
PART TWO
Annie Lee (xxannie.leexx@yahoo.com)
PART ONE:
ReplyDeleteI disagree with Annie in that I think the biggest factor in the success of athletes today is the level of physical training they undertake. That’s not to say the mind isn’t an important factor; without the mental drive to succeed, there would be no strenuous training. Also, back in 1954 when Sir Roger Bannister became the first man to run a sub- 4:00 mile, the entire world thought it impossible; running under 4, most trainers and doctors claimed, would exhaust the human body to its limits and ultimately end in death. The twenty-first century, in contrast, has a less resigned mindset; athletes, instead of accepting limits, train to push them.
More influential, however, in the development of faster runners today is the creation of the professional athlete. Bannister, according to a History channel report, “had limited time to train, as he was enrolled at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School. He would run 30 minutes most days, focusing the rest of his time on his study of neurology” (http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/roger-bannister-breaks-four-minutes-mile). Considering that professional runners today run for a living- and don’t have to devote the majority of their time to school or work, as athletes decades ago did- and have all day to train with the best athletes and coaches in the world, as well as access to the latest physical therapy and nutrition, it is no surprise that running times have drastically improved. Because of the time and attention runners today are able to devote to the sport, their physical fitness is far greater than that of runners from Bannister’s era. Shenk confirms this increase in training with the proliferation of professional sports, noting that, “It used to be that 67 kilometers per week was considered an aggressive level of training. Today’s serious Kenyan runners, Noakes points out, will cover 230 kilometers per week” (111).
Mackenzie Levy (GinnyFan@comcast.net)
PART TWO:
ReplyDeleteThe fact that today’s runners have more time-and mileage- to devote to training means modern athletes have had more time to improve their muscular and cardiovascular fitness. The textbook explains how increased exercise can improve muscle function: “If [a muscle with both fast- and slow-twitch fibers] is used repeatedly for activities requiring high endurance, some fast glycolytic fibers can develop into fast oxidative fibers. Because fast oxidative fibers fatigue more slowly than fast glycolytic fibers, the result will be a muscle that is more resistant to fatigue” (1111). In other words, consistent endurance training develops muscle fibers to be more efficient and tire less quickly. In terms of cardiovascular fitness, the more exercise an athlete does, the stronger his heart will be, and the more oxygen he can deliver to his muscles. An article from the Texas Heart Institute explains, “The heart's pumping muscle, the skeletal muscles (movement muscles), the blood vessels and the red blood cells all grow in size or number with exercise” (http://www.texasheartinstitute.org/HIC/HeartDoctor/answer_66.cfm). An increase in the size of the left ventricle increases the cardiac output, which means more oxygenated blood is circulated throughout the body per minute. Dilation of the blood vessels also allows more blood to be pumped, and an increase in red blood cells means more oxygen molecules are carried in a given volume of blood. All the cardiovascular adaptations caused by exercise mean more oxygen is delivered to and used by somatic- specifically muscle- cells during cellular respiration in order to fuel exercise.
In the endocrine system, high-altitude training utilized by many full time athletes would increase the production of erythropoietin, which “stimulates erythrocyte production” to increase the amount of oxygen-carrying red blood cells in the blood (Campbell 914). A more common facet of the endocrine system in athletes is Human Growth Hormone (hGH), which, according to the magazine Sports Medicine, is produced at higher levels during exercise. In fact, “The exercise-induced growth hormone response (EIGR) is well recognized” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12797841). In athletes, then, a larger anterior pituitary gland would enable more secretion of hGH and improve athletic performance.
Each physical adaptation promoted by training allows for greater tolerance for intense physical activity, and allows athletes to push themselves farther than ever before, leaving records like Bannister’s in the dust. If the recent studies in epigenetics are to be believed, each physical adaptation could alter the structure-and therefore function- of an athlete’s genome, a change that would be passed down to future generations with the genes themselves. As Randy Jirtle, Director of Epigenetics and Imprinting at Duke University, says, “everything we do. . . can affect our gene expression and that of future generations” (160). Therefore, the hard work today’s athletes put in now pursuing the limits of human accomplishment could be passed down to progeny and influence the evolution of the human race. If the fitness benefits are significant enough to alter the epigenetic structure of the athlete, all of his descendants could benefit as well.
Mackenzie Levy (GinnyFan@comcast.net)