Travel Where next

[exe ex machina]

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[Caesar]

Eh, it's not really true. There's tons of physiological stuff that affect your ability at sport that you're unable to control. Tennis players over 6' have a big natural advantage compared to little runts like Lleyton Hewitt. Great cyclists like Greg LeMond and Miguel Indurain had huge lung capacity, giving them massive VO2 Max advantages over their competitors.

Michael Jordan is, ironically, a prime example. Everyone always talks about how he got cut from varsity, went away and practiced his arse off, came back a year later and made the team. Yay hard work! Guess what else happened in the interim? He grew 5 inches. Kind of an advantage in basketball.

Other stuff you can improve with work, but is also beyond your control to some extent. Hand-eye coordination develops very early in a baby's life, and is a combination of a billion different neurological factors that are optimised to varying degrees in different people. You can improve it through practice but some people will always find it comes easier than others. Same goes for all the psychological stuff (leadership, confidence, tactical/strategic thinking, being cool under pressure). They can be improved by anyone, but some people find they come a lot easier than others. Since all training involves opportunity cost, that is an advantage to people who don't have to work on it.

I'd totally agree that a good mentality and hard work from an early age is the most important things in sport. But anyone who doesn't think that talent doesn't play a role is kidding themselves. I tend to find professional athletes espouse the hard work mantra because - like all of us - they want to believe that they have got where they are off the back of their own efforts rather than pure luck of the genetic draw.

 

[exe ex machina]

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[exe ex machina]

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[Bunk Moreland]

It's a combination. Some get there with more talent, some with more hard work. The ratio varies.

Somebody like Jordan is what happens when you have a collision of the very best of both - tremendous god given gifts, combined with an almost psychopathic work ethic and drive to succeed. Result, possibly the greatest athlete of all time.

 

[exe ex machina]

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[Gough]

Watch a David Gower cover drive and tell me that there is no such thing as natural ability.

 

[exe ex machina]

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[Silent Alarm]

Other stuff you can improve with work, but is also beyond your control to some extent. Hand-eye coordination develops very early in a baby's life, and is a combination of a billion different neurological factors that are optimised to varying degrees in different people. You can improve it through practice but some people will always find it comes easier than others. Same goes for all the psychological stuff (leadership, confidence, tactical/strategic thinking, being cool under pressure). They can be improved by anyone, but some people find they come a lot easier than others. Since all training involves opportunity cost, that is an advantage to people who don't have to work on it.

Good points.

I think 'natural ability' can be the same as nurtured ability. Some people, like Stephen Hill, aren't that mentally tough. He misses set shots from 25 metres out and just has a bit of an issue with it. I don't think your genetics deem 'you're confident, you're shy' but it's ingrained via... well, anything and everything. It's out of your control so I reckon you should bundle it in with natural ability.

I could try really hard to be a good basketballer, but it won't happen. I can go to training twice a week and still be as good a footballer as I'd be a basketballer who trained every single day. While you can dictate things to become better at them, you're probably always going to be prone to be shit at something, and easily skilled at another.

 

[Thistle]

Some sports it's through hard work and training others it can almost entirely be natural ability.

Do you think anyone can become as fast as Usain Bolt purely through training. No chance, his speed is a genetic gift.

No doubt learning at a young age is a serious advantage and I agree most ball sports require a lot of hard work to become elite but even then I have known blokes who are in their first season of footy to be better than those who have played their entire lives. I think it's due to traits such as hand-eye co-ordination, awareness, decision making and awareness all of which are difficult to learn and train.

 

[Gough]

Natural ability =/= skill

I could devote my whole life to replicating a David Gower cover drive and it would be utterly futile. I simply do not possess the skill. Imagine the player Gower would have been if he had actually applied himself to more than just drinking claret and pestering wenches.

 

[rayven]

It's in the genes and it's in the upbringing/environment of the athlete when they were kids.

The other night I was having a few drinks with a guy who is an exceptional freestyle superrcross freak.I really got a lot out of his attitude and his reflections on his upbringing compared to the kids he raced with in his childhood. He explained to me why he was better than one of his nearest rivals and he was right. He Learnt about preparation, dedication,hard work and humility from his soldier father who could build any bike he wanted and taught him how to. Nothing was a given to him as kid unless he worked for it, working for it taught him confidence,confidence that no matter how hard he tried and failed he had base to fall back onto .Alot of his rivals had parents that would pay to keep the bikes going, meddle in committees and stuff to get ahead etc etc and thus they became a spoilt brat.When shit got real in the heat of competition they crumbled.

 

[woopedazz]

I was talking to a couple of athletes the other day, from various sporting codes, and something they all said kind of blew me away, I hadn't thought about that before, but it's true....

They said, there's no such thing as god-given ability, that skill is all just man-given, as in gained and honed thru training, working at it night and day, since they were kids. Out-working others thru their amateur and professional stages.

Example, Tiger Woods, is only Tiger Woods, because he was constantly practicing and honing skills of golf since he was a little boy. Night after day, year after year. Another example they gave was Michael Jordan. How he failed to impress scouts/coaches, and he just worked longer every day at it.

I couldn't disagree more. London Olympic video on eugenics explains my view perfectly and is very interesting. People can strive for the best and in lower skill brackets this is the key differentiator between contestants, but once you start approaching the top echelons of sport genetics is the driving force.

I would call golfers sportspeople, but not athletes.

 

[exe ex machina]

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[Caesar]

Of course, there is a level of natural ability to every athlete. But what separates them is the "man-given" thing---work ethic, relentless training and learning, honing skills.

Again, I'd disagree. David Gower, Mark Philippoussis - you could name dozens of athletes who rose to the top of their sports on the back of their talent, rising above many, many others who were much harder working.

Some people rise to the top on the back of being exceptionally talented, some rise to the top on the back of being exceptionally hard working. I would argue that in modern professional sport, where the vast majority of top athletes all work equally and intensely hard, the differentiating factor is usually their talent/natural ability.

 

[exe ex machina]

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[Caesar]

If by 'couldn't cut it in the pros due to lack of work ethic' you mean 'had his career ruined by a series of injuries', then sure.

Lack of work ethic stopped him from being as good as he could have been, but it was never an obstacle to him competing at the top level. Not sure where you got that from. Injury free he was a top 15 player who made two Grand Slam finals and regularly beat anybody going around. He was one of the laziest guys in the ATP and was still better than 95% of the guys on tour, purely due to natural ability.

 

[Contador]

This blew you away?

 

[MrCharisma]

Yeah, look at someone like Bolt or Phelps. They were made to do what they do, then they trained like a mofo for years. To be great it's a combination of both, you can be good with just one...just not the best .

 

[exe ex machina]

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[Underdog]

Again citing Thistle. In terms of ball sports. What stopped the scud was lack of work ethic. And im sure there plenty of examples of mediocre talented tennis players who did far more than him due to work ethic, had far greater skill due to relentless training. Im not a tennis-head to know all the names, but guys like nadal and that red headed american who won a few aust opens. Cant ever put the scud in the same stratosphere as nadal...thats when someone makes it in the pros. Scud did jack shit except blow his load/hype early. Pat rafter out succeeded him in the pros. Another example of work ethic not god given ability

Rafter had great natural ability. The fact someone else might have had more doesn't mean he didn't have any. Your initial post suggests natural ability is irrelevant when it's clearly not. People have varying levels of natural ability which is the base level that hard work builds upon.

 

[exe ex machina]

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[exe ex machina]

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[Underdog]

I'd suggest their points highlight something else we know about sportsmen, a lot of them are not the sharpest tools in the shed...

 

[exe ex machina]

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