The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance (37 page)

190
John Manners’s writing about the “cattle complex” and a number of his accounts of Kalenjin phenoms and his written quotes on Rotich:

Manners, John (1997). “Kenya’s Running Tribe.”
The Sports Historian
, 17(2):14–27.

Manners, John. “Chapter 3: Raiders from the Rift Valley: Cattle Raiding and Distance Running in East Africa.” In: Yannis Pitsiladis, et al., eds.
East African Running: Towards a Cross-Disciplinary Perspective
. Routledge, 2007.

193
From the IAAF list of top marathon times of 2011; John Manners assisted in identifying the Kalenjin athletes.

194
Scott Bickard’s comparison of Peter Kosgei to an NBA player appeared in the
Utica Observer-Dispatch
on April 21, 2011.

195
A succinct summary of the Copenhagen research team’s work—including Saltin’s “seems to confirm” quote:

Saltin, Bengt (2003). “The Kenya Project—Final Report.”
New Studies in Athletics
, 18(2):15–24.

195
A more technical description is here:

Larsen, Henrik B. (2003). “Kenyan Dominance in Distance Running.”
Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Molecular & Integrative Physiology
, 136(1):161–70.

197
Another study finding that African distance runners have better economy at a given pace than white runners:

Weston, A. R., Z. Mbambo, and K. H. Myburgh (2000). “Running Economy of African and Caucasian Distance Runners.”
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
, 32(6):1130–34.

197
Distal weight and running energetics (what happens when weight is added to the ankle):

Jones, B. H. et al. (1986). “The Energy Cost of Women Walking and Running in Shoes and Boots.”
Ergonomics
, 29:439–43.

Myers, M. J., and K. Steudel (1985). “Effect of Limb Mass and Its Distribution on the Energetics Cost of Running.”
Journal of Experimental Biology
, 116:363–73.

197
Harvard’s Dan Lieberman also confirmed the increased energetic cost of distal weight, and the finding by Adidas engineers was conveyed to me by Andrew Barr, global product line manager for Adidas running products.

197
Longer legs and thinner lower legs contribute separately to running
economy:

Steudel-Numbers, Karen L., Timothy D. Weaver, and Cara M. Wall-Scheffler (2007). “The Evolution of Human Running: Effects of Changes in Lower-Limb Length on Locomotor Economy.”
Journal of Human Evolution
, 53(2):191–96.

197
Kenyan runners and their long Achilles tendons:

Sano, K., et al. (2012). “Muscle-Tendon Interaction and EMG Profiles of World Class Endurance Runners During Hopping.”
European
Journal of Applied Physiology
, December 11 (ePub ahead of print).

198
Larsen’s contention that the main point of Kenyan running dominance has been solved appears here:

Holden, Constance (2004). “Peering Under the Hood of Africa’s Runners.”
Science
, 305(5684):637–39.

198
Zersenay Tadese’s running economy:

Lucia, Alejandro, et al. (2007). “The Key to Top-Level Endurance Running Performance: A Unique Example.”
British Journal of Sports Medicine
, 42:172–174.

201
Vincent Sarich’s calculation starts on p. 174 of:

Sarich, Vincent, and Frank Miele.
Race: The Reality of Human Differences
. Westview Press, 2004.

202
The Runner’s World calculation appears in:

Burfoot, Amby (1992). “White Men Can’t Run.”
Runner’s World
, 27(8):89–95.

13

The World’s Greatest Accidental
(Altitudinous) Talent Sieve

207
Most Kenyan runners are Kalenjin and traveled to school on foot:

Onywera, Vincent O., et al. (2006). “Demographic Characteristics of Elite
Kenyan Endurance Runners.”
Journal of Sports
Science
, 24(4):415–22.

208
Most Ethiopian runners are Oromo and traveled to school on foot:

Scott, Robert A., et al. (2003). “Demographic Characteristics of Elite Ethiopian Endurance Runners.”
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
, 35(10):1727–32.

208
Mitochondrial DNA of Oromo Ethiopians and Kalenjin Kenyans is not particularly closely related:

Scott, Robert A., et al. (2008). “Mitochondrial Haplogroups Associated with Elite Kenyan Athlete Status.”
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
, 41(1):123–28.

Scott, Robert A., et al. (2005). “Mitochondrial DNA Lineages of Elite Ethiopian Athletes.”
Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part B: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
, 140(3):497–503.

211
Nineteenth-century scientists were unaware of the variety of altitude adaptation Beall would find:

Beall, Cynthia M. (2006). “Andean, Tibetan, and Ethiopian Patterns of Adaptation to High-Altitude Hypoxia.”
Integrative and Comparative Biology
, 46(1):18–24.

212
Beall raised the possibility that Ethiopians living at high altitude have enhanced transfer of oxygen from lungs to blood. (Snell’s theorizing on that topic was directly to the author in an interview.):

Beall, Cynthia M., et al. (2002). “An Ethiopian Pattern of Human Adaptation to High-Altitude Hypoxia.”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, 99(26):17215–18.

213
Kenenisa Bekele’s altitude workout data was generously shared by Barry Fudge, senior physiologist at the English Institute of Sport.

214
Scientists from Norway and Texas exposed athletes to altitude and documented EPO changes:

Jedlickova, K., et al. (2003). “Search for Genetic Determinants of Individual Variability of the Erythropoietin Response to High Altitude.”
Blood Cells, Molecules & Diseases
, 31(2):175–82.

214
The response of red blood cell levels and 5K times to altitude is highly individual:

Chapman, Robert F. (1998). “Individual Variation in Response to Altitude Training.”
Journal of Applied Physiology
, 85(4):1448–56.

214
Information on the altitude “sweet spot” comes from numerous interviews with altitude experts, including Randall L. Wilber, senior sport physiologist at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. A good background resource—including a list of the altitudes of famous training cities:

Wilber, Randall L.
Altitude Training and Altitude Performance
. Human Kinetics, 2004.

215
Children who grow up at altitude have larger lung surface area, but adults who move there do not:

Moore, Lorna G., Susan Niermeyer, and Stacy Zamudio (1998). “Human Adaptation to High Altitude: Regional and Life-Cycle Perspectives.”
Yearbook of Physical Anthropology
, 41:25–64.

215
High-altitude Ethiopians have larger forced expiratory volume of airflow than Ethiopian lowlanders. (Also contains a table with some measures of stature and sitting height in Ethiopians):

Harrison, G. A., et al. (1969). “The Effects of Altitudinal Variation in Ethiopian Populations.”
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences
, 805(256):147–82.

220
Claudio Berardelli’s coauthored paper on the running economy of European and Kenyan runners:

Tam, E., et al. (2012). “Energetics of Running Top-Level Marathon Runners from Kenya.”
European
Journal of Applied Physiology
, 112(11):3797–806.

221
Andrew M. Jones’s years of physiological testing on Paula Radcliffe:

Jones, Andrew M. (2006) “The Physiology of the World Record Holder for the Women’s Marathon.”
International Journal of
Sports
Science
& Coaching, 1(2):101–16.

222
Sir Roger Bannister’s quote appeared in the June 20, 1955, issue of
Sports Illustrated
.

14

Sled Dogs, Ultrarunners, and Couch Potato Genes

223
A candid and engrossing account of Lance Mackey’s life, in his own words:

Mackey, Lance.
The Lance Mackey Story: How My Obsession with Dog Mushing Saved My Life
. Zorro Books, 2010.

231
Physiologist and veterinarian Michael Davis (Oklahoma State University) gave an accessible talk on his research on the exercise adaptation of sled dogs at Texas A&M’s Huffines Discussion 2012. (I was also an invited speaker, and had the pleasure of discussing Dr. Davis’s work with him.) His talk can be found here: http://huffinesinstitute.org/resources/videos/entryid/330/huffines-discussion-2012-oklahoma-states-dr-michael-davis.

232
The genetics of Alaskan huskies:

Huson, Heather J., et al. (2010). “A Genetic Dissection of Breed Composition and Performance Enhancement in the Alaskan Sled Dog.”
BMC Genetics
, 11:71.

234
Garland’s coauthored work on dopamine, Ritalin, and “running-junkie” mice:

Rhodes, J. S., S. C. Gammie, and T. Garland Jr. (2005). “Neurobiology of Mice Selected for High Voluntary Wheel-Running Activity.”
Integrative and Comparative Biology,
45(3):438–55.

236
The University of Wisconsin mice to which Pam Reed compared herself:

Rhodes, J. S., T. Garland Jr., and S. C. Gammie (2003). “Patterns of Brain Activity Associated with Variation in Voluntary Wheel Running Behavior.”
Behavioral Neuroscience
, 117(6):1243–56.

237
Background on the scientific study of dopamine and addiction:

Holden, Constance (2001). “‘Behavioral’ Addictions: Do They Exist?”
Science
, 294:980–82.

Peirce, R. C., and V. Kumaresan (2006). “The Mesolimbic Dopamine System: The Final Common Pathway for the Reinforcing Effect of Drugs of Abuse?”
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
, 30(2):215–38.

238
Every human study conducted has found that voluntary physical activity is significantly heritable:

Lightfoot, J. Timothy (2011). “Current Understanding of the Genetic Basis for Physical Activity.”
Journal of Nutrition
, 141(3):526–30.

238
In thirteen thousand Swedish twin pairs, identical twins were far more likely to be similarly active or inactive:

Carlsson, S., et al. (2006). “Genetic Effects on Physical Activity: Results from the Swedish Twin Registry.”
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
, 38(8):1396–1401.

238
When activity is directly measured with accelerometers, the difference
between fraternal and identical twins holds:

Joosen, A. M., et al. (2005). “Genetic Analysis of Physical Activity in Twins.”
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
, 82(6):1253–59.

238
Stubbe, Janine H., et al. (2006). “Genetic Influences on Exercise Participation in 37,051 Twin Pairs from Seven Countries.”
PLoS ONE
, 1:e22.

239
Review of research on the dopamine system—and early work on genes—and voluntary physical activity:

Knab, Amy M., and J. Timothy Lightfoot (2010). “Title: Does the Difference Between Physically Active and Couch Potato Lie in the Dopamine System?”
International Journal of
Biological Science
, 6(2):133–50.

239
DRD4-7R and ADHD:

Li, D., et al. (2006). “Meta-analysis Shows Significant Association Between Dopamine System Genes and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).”
Human Molecular Genetics
, 15(14):2276–84.

Swanson, J. M., et al. (2007). “Etiologic Subtypes of Attention-Deficit/
Hyperactivity Disorder: Brain Imaging, Molecular Genetic and Environmental Factors and the Dopamine Hypothesis.”
Neuropsychology Review
, 17(1):39–59.

240
The DRD4 gene in migratory and settled cultures:

Chen, Chuansheng, et al. (1999). “Population Migration and the Variation in Dopamine D4 Receptor (DRD4) Allele Frequencies Around the Globe.”
Evolution and Human Behavior
, 20:309–24.

Matthews, L. J., and P. M. Butler (2011). “Novelty-Seeking DRD4 Polymorphisms Are Associated with Human Migration Distance Out-of-Africa After Controlling for Neutral Population Gene Structure.”
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
, 145(3):382–89.

240
The DRD4 gene and Ariaal tribesmen:

Eisenberg, Dan T. A., et al. (2008). “Dopamine Receptor Genetic Polymorphisms and Body Composition in Undernourished Pastoralists: An Exploration of Nutrition Indices Among Nomadic and Recently Settled Ariaal Men of Northern Kenya.”
BMC Evolutionary Biology
, 8:173.

15

The Heartbreak Gene

Death, Injury, and Pain on the Field

245
The best background resources on sudden death in athletes:

Estes III, Mark N. A., Deeb N. Salem, and Paul J. Wang, eds.
Sudden Cardiac Death in the Athlete
. Futura, 1998.

Maron, Barry J., ed.
Diagnosis and Management of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
. Futura, 2004.

245
In my
Sports Illustrated
article “Following the Trail of Broken Hearts” (December 10, 2007), I made the analogy of an HCM mutation to a typo in
Encyclopaedia Britannica
. There, I analogized a single DNA base change to one typo in sixty full sets of
Britannica
. In this book I used thirteen full sets of
Britannica
. In
SI
, I counted each word in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
set as a possible single typo. In this book, I considered each individual letter as a possible typo—a scenario that I think is more accurately compared to DNA.

245
An excellent primer on HCM, written specifically for the layman and with pictures of the heart cells:

Maron, Barry J., and Lisa Salberg.
Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy: For Patients, Their Families and Interested Physicians
(2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell, 2006.

247
The MYH7 gene was the first, but now many mutations that cause HCM have been identified: