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Re:Roger Bannister has died by mar225 on Sunday March 04, 2018 @04:24PM (#16516845)
Amazingly he basically trained on his lunch hour while studying to be a physician when preparing to run the sub 4 mile. And then went on to be a distinguished medical researcher. He had such a positive influence on running and medicine. If there ever was an athlete that deserved the moniker role model it was him.
Re:Roger Bannister has died by oh_sigh on Sunday March 04, 2018 @05:26PM (#16517156)
Sometimes I wonder how much genetics can explain things like this. Obviously, lettuce has never run a 4 minute mile, but how big is the variance in factors enabling ostensibly normally developed humans to perform impressive feats like this?
Re:Roger Bannister has died by griffinkelly on Sunday March 04, 2018 @08:01PM (#16517907)
Read Sports Gene by David Epstein. He discusses a lot of the genetics vs. developing one's body specifically for a sport, with a large focus on distance running.
Re:Roger Bannister has died by oh_sigh on Sunday March 04, 2018 @09:29PM (#16518268)
Thank you, I appreciate this, I will check it out.
Re:Roger Bannister has died by 0xcde4c3db on Sunday March 04, 2018 @11:13PM (#16518673)
From what I've skimmed genes and gene expression seem to play a huge role (e.g. [1] [2]), but it shows the signs of being a multidimensional space where researchers are far from finished even figuring out what the dimensions actually are. Some of the popular press has mutated this into the notion of generic "exercise super-responders" and "exercise non-responders", but as usual they seem to be dumbing it down to the point of saying something almost the opposite of what the research actually supports.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2886694/

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682667/