Are Elite Athletes Born or Made

Celtic said:
I dont think Bieber understands that humans are in fact primates and simply another form of animal. He obviously feels like we are the special little butterflies of the universe.
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We are different.

A lion desires the gazelle, because of the instinct that it must eat to survive. I desire a sundae from the dessert menu, because I'm a fat ass and love sweets.

All animals' desire is based on survival. Humans, as well, but we also have desires based on pleasure.
 
BasementDweller said:
Humans -- whether considered animal or not are clearly able to control their instincts and even shape them to a certain extent.

I'm certain that was all he was getting at. Must everything be picked apart on this site?

I mean if you really want to give the Biebs a hard time -- give him one based on his assessment that he could become a very good minor league ball player. :thumbup:
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Thanks. A little off topic, but I'm sure (or at least hope) that most of the members on this forum realize I made my sn as a joke, and I just now realized that I spelled "Bieber" wrong.
 
plfrg said:
First, pool is a sport. It belongs in the category of aiming sports with others such as shooting, archery, and golf. Aiming sports are far more mental focused than physical and there are elite athletes in all of these aiming sports.

Deliberate practice mentioned in earlier posts was also referred to in a short white paper by the Harvard Business Review in 2007 (The Making of an Expert).

The concluding sentence: "New research shows that outstanding performance is the product of years of deliberate practice and coaching, not of any innate talent or skill."
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I agree but I think pool or all billiard disciplines require a large amount of dexterity as well. I think that the actual amount of body control in contorted positions is often overlooked in pool. Pool seems sedentary but it is anything but. I also think that anyone who thinks pool is not physically demanding has not tried to play it with a bad back. you don't realize how much you actually NEED to stretch and twist while playing pool until such actions are very painful.

I firmly believe that "talent" could simply be called interest and desire. When someone is interested in a subject and they have a strong desire to pursue it then they will tend to go deeper into understanding and mastering the subject. Thus the more they really think about it the more that thought manifests into being more adept when the skill is practiced.
 
decent dennis said:
I once read that in an autopsy it was discovered that Secretariat's heart was 5 times the size of most horse's.
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Later, Swerczek also performed a necropsy on Sham, who died in 1993. Swerczek did weigh Sham's heart, and it was 18 pounds (8.2 kg). Based on Sham's measurement, and having necropsied both horses, he estimated Secretariat's heart probably weighed 22 pounds (10.0 kg), or about two-and-three-quarters times as large as that of the average horse. That makes the normal size horse heart at 8 pounds.
 
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JB Cases said:
I agree but I think pool or all billiard disciplines require a large amount of dexterity as well. I think that the actual amount of body control in contorted positions is often overlooked in pool. Pool seems sedentary but it is anything but. I also think that anyone who thinks pool is not physically demanding has not tried to play it with a bad back. you don't realize how much you actually NEED to stretch and twist while playing pool until such actions are very painful.

I firmly believe that "talent" could simply be called interest and desire. When someone is interested in a subject and they have a strong desire to pursue it then they will tend to go deeper into understanding and mastering the subject. Thus the more they really think about it the more that thought manifests into being more adept when the skill is practiced.
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Agreed. The fine motor skills needed in pool as in other aiming sports can definitely be challenging. I have neck issues now and getting into some of those positions to perform precise movements can definitely be demanding. Especially after about an hour or two.

One main point of the white paper wasn't that skill wasn't involved, they just noted that 'innate' skill and talent were not the overriding factors. They found overwhelmingly that experts were made, not born. And that along the way these experts consistently had support from a coach/mentor/family member and that they practiced differently than many other people do.
 
Celtic said:
If you take 100 babies from birth, raise them in nearly identical fashion, put them all into rigorous training for the same sport where shear size is not an overwhelming factor to success (like basketball and being 5 foot 9) after 20 years some of those kids would be "great" at that chosen sport.

BUT you are going to have a statistically normal curve showing that most of those 100 kids fall into a central lump of fairly strong play, some of those kids despite being brought up in the game are going to be lower then the curve, there will be an outlier or two way below the curve that simply could not do it and who never played at the speed of the norm, and there will be one or two outliers at the top of the curve who simply rose faster then all of the other kids, they showed dominance early and as the training progressed their skills increased far faster then the norm and they pulled farther and farther away from the pack.

You cannot simply dedicate 10,000 hours into something and be a pro. If you could I WOULD go play golf for 10,000 hours and become a pro, I would LOVE to have that life. But I know for an absolute fact that in that game that 10,000 hours simply would not get me even close to the lower ranks/tours of pro level golf. I might be a 70-something golfer after that time, single digit handicap, and for me that would be outstanding, but it would still completely suck compared to the pros.
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What if you took 100 clones of the same baby... Do you think the curve would look any different?
 
"The Talent Code" - Daniel Coyle

Sorry for the copy/paste post but "The Talent Code" addresses the OP question - (but not the derailed conversation of is pool a sport - and quite frankly who gives a darn)

Training, motivation and coaching/teaching.

Synopsis of the book - "The Talent Code"

Journalist and New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle visited nine of the world’s greatest talent hotbeds — tiny places that produce huge amounts of talent, from a small music camp in upstate New York to an elementary school in California to the baseball fields of the Caribbean.

He found that there’s a pattern common to all of them — certain methods of training, motivation, and coaching. This pattern, which has to do with the fundamental mechanisms through which the brain acquires skill, gives us a new way to think about talent — as well as new tools with which we can unlock our own talents and those of our kids.
 
TCo said:
Sorry for the copy/paste post but "The Talent Code" addresses the OP question - (but not the derailed conversation of is pool a sport - and quite frankly who gives a darn)

Training, motivation and coaching/teaching.

Synopsis of the book - "The Talent Code"

Journalist and New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle visited nine of the world’s greatest talent hotbeds — tiny places that produce huge amounts of talent, from a small music camp in upstate New York to an elementary school in California to the baseball fields of the Caribbean.

He found that there’s a pattern common to all of them — certain methods of training, motivation, and coaching. This pattern, which has to do with the fundamental mechanisms through which the brain acquires skill, gives us a new way to think about talent — as well as new tools with which we can unlock our own talents and those of our kids.
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Im relatively sure not all theses students / players made it to elite status ,,, even though they have followed the exact same steps as the ones before them
Why? Because we are not all created equal !


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Let me ask this. Why is it that blacks tend to run the fastest, jump the highest, really just play every athletic physical sport better than other races? Cause they worked at it? Bodies built better for it?
 
I firmly believe that some people's eye hand coordination is better than others...innate. There's no possible way that my wife (hope she doesn't see this) could EVER have a smooth pool stroke. How about carrying a tune? Some people can but no matter how hard a deaf ear may try I don't believe results would be promising. Voice control and pitch is another....I'd love to be able to sing bass in a doowop group but it ain't gonna happen. We're all built a little differently and no matter how one may practise and be coached there are some that can and some that can't. Mitch
 
BJTyler said:
btw...I of course agree that poker requires a minimum of athletic ability...perhaps related to stamina.
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No, poker losers read cards while the winners read the losers, think about that



Why am I the Colonel? Because I always get the chicken
 
postcount=iq said:
Let me ask this. Why is it that blacks tend to run the fastest, jump the highest, really just play every athletic physical sport better than other races? Cause they worked at it? Bodies built better for it?
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The book I mentioned above addresses this question.
 
Bob Jewett said:
The book I mentioned above addresses this question.
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I can find books that say global warming is a Hoax ,, and others that support it

However if anyone believes that all men are created equal outside of the bible is simply living in a dream world ,,,people come is all shapes sizes colors and yes "Talents "
Why is it so hard for some to see that ,,,


1
 
plfrg said:
First, pool is a sport. It belongs in the category of aiming sports with others such as shooting, archery, and golf. Aiming sports are far more mental focused than physical and there are elite athletes in all of these aiming sports.

Deliberate practice mentioned in earlier posts was also referred to in a short white paper by the Harvard Business Review in 2007 (The Making of an Expert).

The concluding sentence: "New research shows that outstanding performance is the product of years of deliberate practice and coaching, not of any innate talent or skill."
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That was an interesting HBR article, I remember reading it years ago. However, one of the major issues with its conclusions (which were based on the research of Bloom et al.) is the correlation between effort (usually measured by time spent on mastering a skill) and success. Said differently, the more success one achieves, the harder that person generally works at getting better. Therefore if a factor such as innate skill is positively related to success, then you have an extremely difficult identification problem.
 
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Colonel said:
No, poker losers read cards while the winners read the losers, think about that



Why am I the Colonel? Because I always get the chicken
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Ok...thought about it for about 3 seconds, so to what are you saying "No"? That poker doesn't require stamina or that stamina is not a contributing factor to athleticism? Or are you merely setting up a dramatic non sequitur?
 
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nine o nine said:
I firmly believe that some people's eye hand coordination is better than others...innate. There's no possible way that my wife (hope she doesn't see this) could EVER have a smooth pool stroke. How about carrying a tune? Some people can but no matter how hard a deaf ear may try I don't believe results would be promising. Voice control and pitch is another....I'd love to be able to sing bass in a doowop group but it ain't gonna happen. We're all built a little differently and no matter how one may practise and be coached there are some that can and some that can't. Mitch
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If your wife learned to walk without looking like a drunk person walking, she can also learn to move her arm in a straight line. She can also write, can't she? It just depends on how much she wants to stroke straight, and how much time she is willing to devote to learning it.

And, I suspect you are right about one part, I hope for your sake she does't see this post of yours!:eek:
 
Ken_4fun said:
It appears that I disagree with most here.

You cant take a plow horse and win the Kentucky Derby, I don't care how much "Desire", or "Practice" or whatever, it isn't going to happen, ever.

Most things in life we can affect, but we cant change them. It is mostly genetics.

Keith McCready, (don't kill me JAM), I have read has incredible eye sight, and a natural great hand and eye coordination (plays about the same with either hand). His life, was pool, as a child and he had tons of hours practicing it. I have heard so many times he was pool prodigy. But if he didn't have eagle eyes, and great hand and eye coordination, it wouldn't have made any difference how many hours he played, he wouldn't have been an elite player with all of them. Keith is a freak, like Secretariat, Muhammad Ali, Babe Ruth, where all the genetics, lined up and he luckily was able find a sport or game that he could capitalize those genetics. (I re-read that and felt like I should give a better explaination of freak, it is not 1 out of 100, or 1 out of 1000, it is probably 1 out of 1,000,000.)

I don't know how many times I have met great pool players, who were great golfers too. This is another game that uses almost same skills as pool and IMO, there is never a surprise when a golfer plays pool or a pool player plays golf.

Its the genes, we like to think we all could be like Keith, or Efren, or Sigel, or Hall, but the sad fact is their genetics give them such an advantage it cannot be overcome. So to answer the question, "Are elite athletes born or made?", my answer is if you have the superior genetics to become elite, then they could be made. If you don't have then genetics, you can be great, but you can never be elite.


Ken
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Whoops - have to go now, however will reply to this post with my FACTS ASAP.

Thanks
 
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