Genetic testing available for sprint versus endurance talent

Thanks, Lindsay. I just emailed my editor at Men's Health about it, and am hoping the magazine will pay to have me and my 16-year-old son tested to see if the results parallel our respective athletic histories (he's a distance runner with more endurance than speed; am a middle distance swimmer with a bit of pathetic speed and a bit of pathetic endurance.)

Save yourself some time and money. Just do a vertical leap test. If you can't jump at least 20" you'll have a hard time excelling in sprint events.

this test is primarily aimed at elite athletes, serious competitors and teenagers already involved in sport and considering the next steps in terms of professional sports development;

sprinting is definitely about being explosive, the higher you can leap the better off you are, shaun jordan in his prime besides being a very fast kicker was an outstanding jumper, i think his vertical leap was in the low 30's and his standing broad was around 10 feet. my best in college was around, 28 - 30 inches when I was training for the 50 free in 1991 -1992 I could standing broad jump over 9 feet. sprinting is developing the ability to do a lot of work with a lot of power with great technique in a little window of time how we train prepares us for the events we swim in college I was a sprinter, nothing super incredible 20.4 50 free and 44.7 100 fr right now as a master I'm training for the 200 IM and the 400 IM at some point some year in the future I may shift back to sprints just to see what kind of times I can do Rich has swum some remarkable masters times in the 50 -54 and 55 - 59 age groups. part of it is due to who he is and a lot of it is due to how he trains. it's a shame a better coach didn't get a hold of wayne in his younger years. someone like dave salo or eddie reese if a sprinter does the wrong kind of training it can be quite detrimental to her potential ande Originally posted by Rich Abrahams Save yourself some time and money. Just do a vertical leap test. If you can't jump at least 20" you'll have a hard time excelling in sprint events.

I totally agree with Rich Abrahams. The verticle leap test or the standing broad jump will tell the truth. With polymetric training a sprinter can leap 30 inches plus. I also use the verticle leap to tell me if I hit taper right. When I hit my taper perfect I can leap another 14-18 inches. I also continue testing the verticle leap for two weeks after the "big" meet to see if it continues or maxed out. When I was 15-16 I could go 9 ' 10 " in the standing broad jump, white men did not verticle leap :p I should have been a sprinter, but Urho Saari trained me to be a 200 breaststroker. I could not sprint, not even a hundred. Everything was one or two miles for time in the morning, and 200s and 400s stroke on short interval.

just tried to order the screening kit and was told the company is currently working to obtain export capability and would contact me when they've obtain that right

Kevin, You are correct in not making assumptions. But I would bet that in the USA, natural selection usually puts the sprinters into sprint events and distance people in those events. I did not train to have over a 9 foot standing jump. If I had correlated it I probably would have forgotton about the 200 ***. And at one time my coaches wanted me to swim the mile:D There are always exceptions to everything (Allen Stark), but most male breaststrokers are heavily muscled compared to the other strokes. Testing their verticle leap would be interesting. Then testing the 1500 meter distance people:p

I'd like to point out something that this question brings up. The vertical leap test tends to predict whether someone will be a better sprinter or long distance swimmer. Now, would anyone say that if we want to be a better 50 meter swimmer we should do plyometrics to work on our vertical leap? I sincerely doubt it. That leads to a generic study that comes out, let's say that it finds great 200 meter *** strokers have very large bicep muscles. Would we then see articles suggesting that we should work on our bicep muscles? Maybe Now that brings us to the finding that the best endurance athletes had high lactate threshold swim speeds and high lactate threshold heart rates. Would we then see artciles suggesting we throw out the big yardage and work mostly on trying to raise lactate threshold? We already have seen thousands of them. The first instance seems ludicrous, the second less so, and the third is accepted dogma. What we haven't demonstrated in any case is that the better athletes actually trained those aspects. A sprint swimmer doesn't train his vertical leap to make it better. A supposed breastroker may or may not work on his biceps. But most importantly, while we can show an association between high lactate threshold swim speed and performance, what is often glossed over is that the people with the highest lactate threshold swim speed may not have done very much "lactate threshold" swimming. Everyone takes that logical leap and we don't seem to question it much. I'm not saying I have better ideas, just that we should be a little cautious.

Can anyone provide specific detail on the vertical leap test? How do you do it?

I really think that speed begets speed. Physical prowess eg. My Grand father was once called the strongest man in Scotland. My father was a 6 day bicycle racer. My brother Tom beat the world record holder for the 100 fr and was world professional marathon swimming Champion. My four other brothers Canadian Champions. My sister a professional marathon swimmer 2nd in the world. Me I have done OK . Tom also fought thirteen fights as a wealter weight and won all by knockouts. He weighed in when fighting at 147 lbs. he knocked out the light heavy (178lb) weight champion twice. He Played Football and Hockey. He was a great all around athlete. I even took up the Shot Put for three weeks and broke the Canadian record. George