David Epstein's new book "The Sports Gene" made headlines last week because it contains a chapter that challenges Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule.
But the book goes way beyond that, and has an incredible number of tidbits about everything from lung size in Kenyan runners to superhuman eye sight among MLB players.
It's a fantastic read about just how meaningful of a role gene play in determining who becomes a world-class athlete.
We picked out our 16 favorite nuggets from the dozens in the book.
1. Slow kids cannot become fast adults, no matter how hard they practice
Speed is partially determined by the proportion of slow- and fast-twitch muscle fibers in the body.
Fast-twitch muscles give you more speed while slow-twitch muscles give you more endurance.
It's possible to train fast-twitch muscles to have more endurance, but you can't get slow-twitch muscles to act like fast-twitch muscles.
Therefore slow people cannot become fast.
Source: The Sports Gene
2. Redheads have a higher tolerance for certain types of pain. The same gene mutation is responsible for both phenomena
Source: The Sports Gene
3. Eye sight is more important than reaction time when it comes to hitting a fastball
The human eye can't physically track an MLB fastball in the hitting zone and tell the muscles where to move.
Instead our brains recognize the ball as it leaves the pitcher's hand and predicts where the ball will go based on visual information. Eye sight is the most important genetic aspect of hitting, and 58% of MLB players have "superior" depth perception compared to 18% of nonathletes.
Albert Pujols is only in the 66th percentile of reaction time compared to college students.
Source: The Sports Gene
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