I always give the example in lifting of Andy Bolton, who deadlifted 600 pounds the first time someone took him to a gym. Only a half dozen people on this forum have reached that mark with many years of training under their belt.
Gyms aren't the only medium of gaining strength. It's not like he was a computer nerd and decided to start lifting and figured out he could start off with 600 pounds.
Ninja, sprinting is where you can really see the difference in people's genetic abilities. It's been shown to be true that some people are faster than others, and the improvement from training will not make you the fastest man on the planet if someone else is genetically predisposed to be faster.
You can take 2 people, have them race, and one person will probably be faster than the other.
The two people aren't clones in every way, so everything in their lives leading up to that point could have an affect on how fast they run, and no two people have the exact same lives.
What makes the fastest man in the world the fastest man in the world? Genetics? What genes? Do you know their names? Do you know how the genes make them faster?
You can see it in baseball pitchers that can throw really fast, high jumpers, long distance runners - there are people that are really genetically suited for their sport, and you see it evidenced in sports that don't account for much beyond simple ability (vs. skill).
There's always someone who is the best at anything, regardless if it's something that requires speed. There has to be a best. Even if the best is shitty, we wouldn't know, because they're the best.
Skill is aquired through experience. Anything someone does, it's a skill, not a god given ability. They learned how to do it. Their body adapted to be able to do it well. The body just doesn't randomly adapt to things and you get lucky and find out what it is.
If you don't understand this, you should research it, not criticize it out of your lack of understanding.
I understand it completely, I just don't agree with it.
Even if there are genes that help them be fast, doesn't mean that it's anywhere NEAR 90%. If that were true, someone with the genes would always be faster than someone without them, no matter how hard the non-gene guy trains. All while the gene guy sits on the couch.
Good point - and strength training is at the far end of the spectrum from, for example, sprinting - an untrained lifter can make extremely dramatic gains in strength. Not so much with sprinting, throwing, jumping... there are gains to be made, for sure, or people wouldn't train. But like I said, with some work I could put 50% on my bench, but not 50% on my sprinting speed.
That's comparing apples and oranges. That has nothing to do with genetics, it just means there isn't that much to improve. I can run a 40 yard dash in about 5 seconds. You can only reduce that time by so much. I could never reduce it by 50%.
You could have all the genes in the world, but you're never gonna be able to run a 40 yard dash in 2.5 seconds.