What you have already learned: In the first two articles in the article series Find out in which sport you will excel I and Find out in which sport you will excel II you could already familiarize yourself with the topics of muscle structure, muscle volume, strengthening, proportion of fat-free mass, heart capacity and the warrior gene.
What we can teach you: In this article, we will show you how your genetics affects your muscle fatigue, regeneration after exercise and the risks of soft tissue injuries, and thus also your sports predispositions, performance and goals. You will find out how useful a certain type of training can be for you.
Physical activity in general affects our health, but some sports activities are more suitable for some individuals than for others. For example, genetics has a great influence on various athletic characteristics, such as strength, performance, endurance, size and composition of muscle fibers, flexibility, neuromuscular coordination, temperament, but also the risk of injury, regeneration and more. And that's why we can use DNA analysis to give you recommendations that will help you on your way to achieving your goals.
MUSCLE FATIGUE GENE
Did you know? Scientists have discovered that, in addition to muscle cells, brain cells can also use lactate as an energy source. It is even lactate that during longer periods of aerobic exercise (like marathons) when we have depleted our blood sugar, allows our brain to continue to function.
Muscle fatigue can be one of the main obstacles preventing athletes from reaching their maximum potential. During exercise, contracting muscles produce lactate and hydrogen ions as a result of a process called glycolysis. Small amounts of lactate act as a temporary source of energy. However, the accumulation of lactate during high-intensity exercise leads to a burning sensation in the muscles and restricts muscle contractions, leading to muscle fatigue. Therefore, our body has a system to transport lactate out of the muscle cells. A molecule called monocarboxylate transporter 1 (MCT1) is responsible for the export of lactate across the muscle cell membrane. A specific mutation within the MCT1 gene affects the amount of MCT1 transporters produced and thus affects the rate at which lactate is removed from muscle cells. And this can further affect how quickly a person gets tired and can also affect recovery time after exercise.
Analyzed genes: MCT-1
RISK OF SOFT TISSUE INJURY
Did you know? Maintain a normal body weight or BMI < 25, as a higher BMI poses a greater risk of injury.
The role of soft tissue is to connect, support or surround other structures of our body, so it is very susceptible to injury. A soft tissue injury is a physical injury that does not include skeletal damage, cardiovascular damage, etc. It is damage to attachments, tendons and muscles and can occur when walking, running, performing other strenuous activities or performing repetitive movements for a long time. Types of soft tissue injury include acute injury and overuse injury. Symptoms of acute injuries appear suddenly, while an overuse injury occurs as a result of repeated rubbing, pulling, twisting, or squeezing that builds up over time. Our genetic make-up can significantly influence our susceptibility to soft tissue injury, in which case exercise, and especially warm-up, is even more important. If you know you are prone to injury, you can adjust your training to avoid injury in the future.
Analyzed genes: COL5A1, COL1A1, GDF5
REGENERATION AFTER EXERCISE
Did you know? If you feel that you need more time for regeneration, then high-intensity training two days in a row is counterproductive for you. Take your resting heart rate the next morning, and if it's higher than normal, you need one more day to recover. The amount of sleep also affects your recovery; therefore, take some rest, especially after high-intensity activity. You can also learn more about yourself in the Sleep Cycle analysis.
Did you know that physical activity can cause oxidative stress in your body through increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS)? In addition to ROS generation, exercise affects the body's complex immune system and can have a cascading effect on the inflammatory response, which can lead to chronic inflammation. ROS are constantly generated in our body during various processes of cellular metabolism. ROS in themselves are not bad, but increased ROS production can lead to oxidative damage, which also affects the immune system. Such a situation can occur during and after physical activity. Especially during high-intensity exercise, oxygen intake to active muscles increases up to 20-fold, while oxygen flow in activated muscles can increase up to 100-fold. This results in the formation of large amounts of ROS. Similarly, ROS production will also increase in the case of skeletal muscle injury. When ROS are produced in amounts that exceed the capacity of the body's antioxidant defense mechanism, it causes oxidative stress in your body, and when the body enters a state of chronic inflammation, a number of negative and potentially harmful conditions can occur.
Analyzed genes: CAT, NQO1, GPX1, SOD2, IL6, TNF, CRP, IL6R, MMP3
What we taught you: There are no 2 identical individuals with the same genetic make-up and therefore there is no training plan that will work equally well for everyone. We have different susceptibility to muscle fatigue after training, otherwise we are prone to muscle injuries or soft tissue injuries, we need different regeneration after exercise. Only the right combination of knowledge about the training process and facts about your body based on genetic analysis will allow us to achieve the desired sports goals.
So far you have learned basic information about 9 out of 10 sports genetic analyses, which are only a small part of . You can read more in other articles.
References used:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24485392/
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0096916
