Is talent irrelevant for great success?

Talking about talent is silly and circular. You might as well just say faster swimmers swim faster and stop there. There are physiological advantages and there are technique advantages, the person with the best combination of those two will be the fastest. What is the point of calling a physiological advantage a talent? What do you learn from that? If you know what physiological attributes help then you have useful information. If you know what technique gives an advantage then you have useful information. If you just say swimmer A is more talented than swimmer B then you have no useful information. To get anywhere you have to ask what is the talented swimmer doing differently than the untalented swimmer, or what physiological advantage does the "talented" swimmer have over the untalented swimmer. One of the main points of the cited article was that "talented" people worked in a deliberate manner to find ways to improve. They may do the same or less work measured in the number of lengths they swim but they make greater improvements in their technique or find more effective ways to extend their physiological capabilities. That is useful.

The psychologists who subscribe to the "talent is irrelevant" school of elite performance are in the distinct minority, and in my view, science has left them well in the dust. If you want to read for yourself: www.edge.org/.../index.html (note: the term "radical environmentalist" here refers to nurture trumping nature, not saving the wetlands), or search under "Thomas Bouchard," or "twin studies." Hard work, sustained over many years, is necessary for elite performance (as shown by Ericsson et al.), but it is hardly sufficient (as incorrectly claimed by Ericsso et al.). Talent is necessary, too.

To eliminate the fuzziness and apparent circularity in the term "talent" or "innate ability," think instead in terms of asking whether certain quantitatively measurable traits or performance statistics (both physical and neurological) are heritable. To measure heritability, you can study twins reared apart, and crank through some standard statistical procedures. This is a perfectly meaningful and worthwhile enterprise. It is fascinating, too - many human personality traits, for example, seem to be a lot more genetically influenced than we might suspect. I remember reading about a study in which the subjects were put through an identical training program intended to build VO2max. The result was that there was a very wide response to the training - a few developed much increased capacity, while others seemed not to respond to training at all. Still others ("late bloomers" they were called, heh heh) did not respond initially to the regimen, but then suddenly took off weeks into it. Seems to me they all brought different "innate abilities" to the table. Nonetheless, there are still otherwise smart people who, in staggering denial of the scientific evidence, cling to the feel-good utopian belief that all people are born with identical gifts, and that all emotionally- and sociologically- loaded differences across the human population are due to environmental factors (for example, training, in the case of athletic ability). Well, they're wrong.

leslie - i agree, minus the weight thing I am a typical backstroker. I've never seen a fast heavy backstroker before - I can't really explain how that worked out in the survey. I guess it's just the height thing - if you're taller you will weigh more. that makes sense. natalie coughlin is skinny, and so is ryan lochte and aaron piersol. :D i'm trying to think back to all the sprinters and backstrokers i grew up with, and as best as i can remember, we were all taller than the rest of the girls, but the sprinters were twiggy and the backstrokers were more solid. but all the distance free girls seemed to be even more solid than us backstrokers and shorter to boot... hmmm.... i wonder if this study had been done 10 or 15 years ago what the results would look like? :dunno: but reading the summarized descriptions at the bottom, i definitely fit into the sprint free (100/200 only!) and backstroke categories. and that's exactly what i swim! i fit better into backstroke however, but then again, the 200 back is my best event :D

Mollie: The 200 back is definitely yours! :bow: Is the 200 free considered a "sprint" in masters? If so, I am not a "sprinter" either and I will have to change my name again.

Maybe talent comes in different sized packages. It would appear so as many elite swimmers are tall and lean and some are shorter and stockier. Donna: Too true. After reflecting on this thread that I started, I think that the "hard work" mentioned in the article may actually have more application in academics or in your occupation than in athletics. You must have some gift in athletics that can be honed. However, I think in endurance sports "hard work" and mental grit gets you much further than in sports like basketball or football. That's one reason I love endurance sports and I admire the people that choose to compete in them at all levels. Remember, the NY marathon is Sunday morning!!

I remember reading an article on Lenny Krazelburg (sp?) a while back about how he was actually very broad for a backstroker. If you've ever seen a picture of him standing next to Aaron Piersol, you can see what I mean. They are both tall, but Aaron is much narrower across the torso and shoulders. The article went on to say that Lenny compensated for being 'broad' by having a great roll and staying on his slide longer than usual in his stroke. Don't know if I've summed it up well at all, but it was an interesting article.

This seems to now be an all-women thread but this short male sprinter read the USS article above.... I am a fly/***/im guy. The article says IMers are generally shorter (etc.). The author doesn't say being shorter and having shorter arms is good for IM. I suspect instead that because shorter people with shorter arms are not good freestyle sprinters nor backstroke, they choose to focus on other events such as IM. IM requires a balance of skill and more endurance over the same distance than freestyle. Phelps is an example of a world class freestyler who is also a world class IMer. But not many like that....maybe Lochte. One oddity in the article - women breastrokers had smaller torsos relative to waist, while mail breastrokers had larger torsos relative to waist. That is about the only set of measurements that was not similar for males and females. He says female breastrokers use their legs more. I wonder if there is another factor - let's acknowledge that female anatomy is different from males in the "torso area." I wonder if smaller "torsos" simply are a bigger benefit in breastroke than in say, backstroke?

Maybe talent comes in different sized packages. It would appear so as many elite swimmers are tall and lean and some are shorter and stockier. Also, development of fast/slow twitch muscles is key to the distance one will choose. Occasionally, a person is born that is better suited physically to sports. This is not talent, it is a genetic gift. But many great swimmers became a great talent without this "gift." They found their "place" in the water and with great coaching, thousands of miles of swimming, dryland exercises, they became a great swimmer. Doug Russell, an Olympian from 1968 (I trained with him as I qualified for the 68 Trials) and I believe also 1972, had the hardest time beating Mark Spitz in the Fly. But I remember when Mark lost to Doug. Now Doug was something like 6'7, 170 pounds with long arms and long legs. Mark was lean but stockier, but could almost always beat Doug. Also, before Doug became an Olympian, he was a basketball player (natural at that, too). I went through the same training Doug went through (it wasn't pretty), but he tweaked his genetic gift with hard work and a desire to not just win, but to always better his times. He swam against the clock. Of course he wanted to win, I am saying that his priority was a personal best time each time he raced because if he obtained that, then he would win. This has stayed with me and today that is what I do. If I place 2nd in an ocean swim and have a "power" swim, or my best time, then I won. As for the description of women backstrokers, I was always 1,2,or 3 in all of the backstroke events I entered. And, I was 5'7, 175 pounds with long legs and long arms. Whatever those stats mean. Cool thread. Donna

SwimmerAvsFan is even taller! I saw her for myself last weekend. And she is not only very fast, she is very nice! :) leslie, i'm only an inch taller than 5'10"! but i guess to someone 5'4", 7 inches is a lot :laugh2: and if i'm very fast, what are you, seeing as how you beat me in the 25 and 50 back? ;) (and it was nice to meet you finally!) but about height, i've been at many a meet where people take one look at me (and not my funky elbows either) and immediate identify me as a backstroker, citing my long arms and legs. is that really so stereotypically backstroke??? ie, are other backstrokers out there exceptionally long legged and long armed?