Hill bounding with a fellow Nordic skier during the off season a couple years ago, we took a brief respite from jamming our carbide ferruled tips into the pavement near Elk Mound, Wisconsin. Between agonized breaths, my friend looked up and said something that got my blood boiling.

“You know, I wish I had the genetics to really be a superior athlete.”

I just about reached over and slapped him across the face. However, showing magnificent restraint, I just cut loose with a verbal tirade instead.

“That’s the most gutless thing I’ve ever heard!” I screamed. My friend looked up at me in shock. In fairness to him, he didn’t know that he’d just touched a sore spot of mine.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been out skiing or biking or running and passed people saying the same type of thing:

“So and so is a great athlete because of genetics.”

“It takes genetics to be that good.”

“Genetics, genetics, genetics...”

Ugh. It makes me sick.

Now, it’d be one thing if the people talking this way were scientists in white lab coats standing out on the ski trail with steaming blue vials of who knows what. But no, these statements are based on nothing scientific. It’s just regular schmucks spouting off about “genetics” without knowing what they’re talking about.

“Lance Armstrong won all those Tour de Frances because of genetics!” they declare. Uh huh. But he had the same genetics in 1995 when he only finished 36th, now didn’t he?

“Bjorn Daehlie has the perfect genetics to be a cross-country skier!” Yeah. Well then, why was he always the first guy on snow and the last to leave it when the season was over?

You see? That’s the point: It’s not the genetics, it’s the training.

The NFL draft is a good place to see how often genetics fail. How many times has some guy that was a No. 1 overall pick washed out of the league within a year? Sure, the guy had the genetics to get picked No. 1. The scouts saw he was big, strong and athletic. But when it came time to turn pro, it turned out he didn’t have what it took.

Meanwhile some scrappy little fighter who gets picked in the 7th round, despite the fact that everybody always said that his genetic makeup is lacking, sticks around for 11 or 12 seasons and sets all his team’s receiving records.

Genetics. Pff. You know what “genetics” are for the majority of people? Nothing more than a big, fat, excuse.

When I’m out skiing and I hear somebody saying, “I just don’t have the genetics to be a Wave 1 Birkie skiier,” I want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them. Their problem isn’t the genetics. Their problem is that they’re sitting around whining instead of training like they should be. Their problem is that they’ve accepted some other person’s assessment of what their limits are.

Why would you ever do that?

Let’s just pause for a moment and assume that genetics do have something to do with your end results. Let’s just assume that based on your body type and your heart size and your lung capacity there is an absolute maximum effort that you can give.

Now, assuming that this assessment of your potential exists, you have to ask yourself two questions: 1) Is that a number you can measure? (Answer: no.) 2) Are your genetics something you can do anything about? (Answer: no.)

So, if you can’t measure your genetic potential or change it if you could, why would you waste any time thinking about it?

Genetics is just a boogey monster that scares people from even trying. It’s a convenient reason for them to pack it in before they ever get going.

Sure, maybe you don’t have the genetics to win the Tour de France or the American Birkebeiner. But my guess is that if you trained like Lance Armstrong or Bjorn Daehlie for a couple years, if you held yourself to their strict regimen of diet and recovery, you might not win, but I bet you’d be in the mix.

You should never be dismissive about your own genetics because chances are in your lifetime you’ll never even come close to tapping your full potential.

Think I’m wrong? Well just consider how often you’ve heard an athlete giving credit to their genetics for a victory. That’s right. Never. They thank their coaches, their supportive friends, and the long hours of tireless preparation.

If successful athletes are to be believed, then genetics has nothing to do with it.

Ben Jonjak is an avid biker, skier and runner who is attempting to regain his skiing form after having lived in Lima, Peru, for the past 10 years. You can check out his progress at CyclovaXC.com.

top of page