Part One: Nature
Muscle Fibres
In the sporting world, many factors make up an athlete, from how they think, train, eat and even sleep. What if I told you that you could be more suited for a sport just based on your genetic makeup?
Biological advantages such as muscle fibre types and body composition make some people naturally more predisposed to participate in sports. There are three main muscle fibre types that serve as your athletic ability foundation:
Type I
Suited for endurance sports such as long-distance cycling, swimming and running because these fibres contract slowly, enabling athletes to compete for longer periods without tiring quickly.
Type IIa
Suited for sports like rowing and football because the muscle fibre combines speed and power with a slower fatigue time so athletes can compete with bursts of intensity over a sustained period of time.
Type IIx
Suited for sports that require short explosive power like short-distance sprinting and weightlifting, though unlike the two other muscle fibres, it is quick to fatigue.
Here are some tests that you can conduct in the gym to help you determine which type you are.
Knowing your muscle fibre type is beneficial as you might find out that you are naturally more suited to a sport that you would not have thought of and perhaps for someone looking to get into sports, it can make it easier to pick it up if you already have an advantage. It is also useful to help structure your training (athlete or not), so you can get better results, improve performance and very importantly reduce injury risk.
Height
Like muscle fibres, height plays a very important factor in the sports that we know and love today. Take Olympic rowing for example, where the atheletes are around a similar height. The male Olympians tend to be between 6 ft 3 and 6 ft 5 (1.90m-1.95m) whilst the female Olympians tend to be between 5 ft 11 and 6 ft 1 (1.80m-185m). These figures are much higher than the average height in the UK where a man stands at around 5 ft 9 (175.3cm) and a woman around 5”3 (161.6cm).
Athletes that participate in rowing are taller on average as this means that they are more likely to have longer arms and legs, allowing them to have a longer reach and therefore make longer strokes which will help them to achieve a faster speed with less effort. This however, means that those who do not meet this height range, may be dissuaded from taking part.
Heart Over Height
This is similar in the NBA (National Basketball Association) where during the 2022/23 season, the average height of players were recorded to be around 6 ft 6 or 198.6cm. In basketball, there is an emphasis on being both an offensive and defensive player which means players need to be able to shoot and defend. This is very different to sports such as football where most defensive players can go several, if not the whole season, without scoring a goal.
The benefit of players being able to play both sides of the court is that they are able to contribute to the points scored and assist other players whilst also blocking shots and creating turnovers to give their team a higher chance of winning. However, this versatility is a double edged sword as this means that athletes need to be able to guard each other, and when there are players as tall as 7 ft, they need to be taller.
This is where heart over height comes into play. The Memphis Grizzlies recently signed 5 ft 8 (173cm) Yuki Karamura to a two-way deal and with the average height for an NBA point guard being around 6 ft 2.5 (1.89cm), this puts him at disadvantage as he is mismatched against most players in the league. He went undrafted in 2023, but has been playing in the NBA G-league and recently the NBA. Despite this height difference, he has been able to make it to the one of the most competitive leagues in the world.
So although taller individuals may be drawn to basketball due to the advantage that height provides, passion, determination and hard work can, at times, bridge the gap that genetics may not provide. Perhaps this is your sign to try that sport you did not think you were naturally suited for and try the ones that you are.
In part two, I will be covering nurture.
Photo by Tara Winstead