Working in Movement

Are elite athletes just born that way, or do they just work real hard to get to the top of the athletic heap? Science writer and athlete Gina Kolata takes a look at the question in Why Joggers Labor and Olympians Fly, specifically related to runners. Running at high performance levels involves three things according to the article. You have to be able to process oxygen, your stride have to be efficient and you have to be able to sustain long periods of peak effort. Almost all people who run can improve the efficiency of their strides, but the ability to pump enough blood for sustained times turns out to have a lot more to do with genetics than with training. Training hard is mandatory to do your best, but the physicality and physiology have to be there at the base of it.

I've often wondered how this works in golf. Can a good swing really be learned, or does it mostly depend on the physicality of the person attempting to swing the golf club? The more I observe, the more I'm coming down on physicality. Sure, those guys on tour work really hard on their swings, but they are starting at a really different level than the weekend hacker. I've never met a teaching pro who learned the game later in life; they've all been able to play a decent game almost since they started. This, of course, doesn't dissuade some hackers from plunking down lots of their hard earned cash for lessons that probably can't help much in the end. And take a look at the informercials on the golf channel if you want to really piss your money away. It's end-gaining at its worst.

But like Dennis Miller says, "But that's just my opinion; I might be wrong."