Science and the Summer Olympics

I haven't written a post in almost three weeks. That is because I have been enthralled with all that is the Summer Olympics in Beijing and the phenom that is Michael Phelps. I have been keeping up with him ever since I first got a glimpse of his talent watching the Athens Olympics back in '04. He is awesome. He is amazing. He is definitely the greatest Olympian in history. Of course Phelps isn't the only great athlete in this Olympic games. As an audience, we also have the pleasure of cheering on other great swimmers like Jason Lezak, Aaron Piersol, and Dana Torres and Jamaican runner Usain Bolt to name a few. But how do they do it? How do these athletes constantly become faster and faster and break more and more world records? Some say that it's genetics, that these athletes were born to do these things. For years, researchers have been studying the scientific factors that contribute to superior athletic performance for the select few who go on to be world-famous sportsmen. What they have determined is that it has more do to with physiology than genetics.

I came across an online article recently that quoted Dr. Michael Joyer, a Mayo Clinic physician-scientist and discussed some of the things that contribute to enhanced performance of athletes. These feats of athleticism are thought to be due to a combination of harder training and improved medical care in recent decades. It's no secret that these athletes go through very intense training sessions. I once read that Michael Phelps burns about 4000 calories in just one training session, which demonstrates just how hard these athletes can work. Because of advances in sports medicine and the positive societal attitudes to sports, they are also not concern with over-training and have the opportunities to train everyday for hours at a time. Athletes are also participating in their respective sports for longer periods of time, some Olympians competing in 2-3 Olympic games, which leads to better races and the determine of these athletes to improve their times.

The article goes into three physiological factors that impact an athlete's performance. These factors include the maximum oxygen intake (VO2), lactate threshold, and athletic efficiency. The VO2 is, more accurately, the consumption of oxygen by a person when they are at their peak performance. It has been documented that the VO2 of an athletic is about 70-85 milliliters per kilogram per minute. This is approximately double that of the average person. A higher VO2 usually denotes more physical fitness and athletic stamina. The VO2 of an athlete usually depends on their lactate threshold, a marker of the steady-state level of performance of an individual. This is particularly important for athletes participating in longer events that dependent on physical endurance (i.e. marathon runner, long distance swimmers). Intense exercise typically leads to a build up of lactic acid in the body, which can be metabolized and used for energy by muscles. How well an athletes muscles use oxygen and the speed to which they generate lactic acid (athletic efficiency) are all important for performance. This goes back, again, to hard training which can increase these factors and to the dedication of these athletes to perform beyond our imaginations.

Though genetics have also been thought to be, at least in part, responsible for spectacular athletes, no major genes have been discovered for this. Nor have a combination of genes been found to create enhanced physical activity. Scientists would agree that it is the physiology of performance and not genetics that creates these great Olympic champions.