Are Genetics REALLY to Blame When it Comes to Physique?

This blog post from T2 Fitness is centred around the discussion of genetics and the idea that you can alter the coded DNA you were dealt from your parents. When you're trying to in to the gym for the first time, you might try and give yourself the excuse that you're not a 'natural'. Read on to see what the team make of it all...

It has long been accepted that ‘you are what you are’, and to a certain extent that’s totally true, but recently I came across the work of Mark Sisson and his blog 'Mark’s Daily Apple' after hearing him talk on The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast, and it just might be enough to challenge the conventional wisdom.

Sisson tells us that traditional understanding of genetics is that of a set of predetermined, individual circumstances are thrust upon us at birth, that this code of chromosomes and DNA is loaded with details of our predisposition to disease, allergies, baldness, and body shape. He also tells us that this is nonsense.

To listen to Sisson tell it, there is no such thing as predisposition. Sure, you may be more likely than someone else to contract a disease in the same way that you’re more, or less, likely to be tall if your parents are tall, and you can’t alter your bone structure, but so many of the things that happen to us in our lifetimes are down to the decisions we make and their subsequent impact on the activation or deactivation of specific genes we carry. He tells us that while you may well carry a higher likelihood of developing Type 2 Diabetes, for example, you are not sentenced to it. If you keep that gene ‘turned off’ through the correct decisions for your body you will beat this ‘predisposition’.

Mark Sisson is the creator of The Primal Blueprint, a book and way of life that you could be forgiven for confusing with the increasingly popular Paleo lifestyle. However, where Paleo preaches to the nutritional mastery of our ancestors, Sisson goes one step further to include the lifestyle and recovery aspects also. The view that we evolved over millions of years to eat a certain way, to move a certain way and to recover through certain methods is what piqued my attention.

His assertion that agriculture, lack of primitive stress and reliance on man-made coping mechanisms are where Sisson raises the bar with his thought process.

As a former endurance athlete coming to the height of his powers in the 70s and 80s Mark was like a host of other runners and endurance athletes, carb-loading and ingesting a disproportionate amount of carbohydrates in order to fuel his output. He is quick to say he isn’t ‘anti carbs’ and nor should you be. The message is to be aware that if you want to burn fat as a fuel source you need to promote your body to do this by not allowing an abundance of carbohydrate to enter the body at multiple junctures throughout the day. The key part of that sentence being the multiple junctures.

The reason for Mark’s change of heart came when he researched the issues he was having in his early to mid-forties, a leaky gut and arthritis, and found they were doubtlessly linked to the high carb intake he had survived on and the resultant inflammation this caused.

Carbohydrate intake is important for high level performance, it is a key fuel source for high intensity work as well as the substance we use to run our brains. As such it is a vital part of our daily intake needs. The issue is over-reliance and this is where Sisson believes the answer lies to a host of health issues humans currently face.

Revisiting the point about inflammation is important. You see, inflammation of any kind is the body's way of immobilising an issue that it deems a hazard. If you have a joint issue for example, the body initiates a swelling response in order to immobilise the joint and stop it from moving too much, potentially causing more damage. This can also happen at a much more acute cellular level. It is this inflammation that can hinder our bodies natural processes and promote a foreign metabolic ‘norm’ whereby we begin the process of selectorising our fuel burning, prioritising carbohydrate over fat, due to its prevalence.

Inflammation is also a vital part of human development. The DOMS experienced post-workout is a necessary inflammation that allows us to remodel the muscle tissue in order to deal with additional stressful loads.

Sisson now preaches the ingestion of fat replacing a certain proportion of carbohydrate in the diet as it is less inflammatory than carbohydrate. The take home message is that you should eat carbohydrate but moderate it against the intake of fat in order to allow your body to perform its evolutionary metabolic process.

The other key points to Sissons’ message that struck me as a nice, simplified, easy to follow guideline are that we should:

• Walk often
• Lift heavy things
• Sprint sometimes

Walking keeps the structures that power low level activity, the heart and lungs, functioning well. Sprinting engages the maximal output of these structures frequently enough that they don’t lose their top end capacity. Finally, lifting heavy things stresses all,available muscle fibre types adequately in order to build muscle, regulate fat metabolism and build enough mitochondria (the power plants of fat metabolism) to alter your bodies processes away from preferentially burning carbohydrate as a fuel source.

There is also an interesting additional point that struck me as a powerful statement from someone who has been involved in the supplement business for a number of years – Sisson believes the inclusion of a recovery shake post-exercise should simply be used as a recovery method if you plan to repeat a high energy output the following day. The glycogen replenishment is important for consecutive days of hard training. However if you’re not training the next day his belief is that the insulin surge a recover drink inevitably induces more trouble than it’s worth. This will blunt the effects of testosterone and growth hormone, which will be elevated port-exercise and are the bodies key materials to promote recovery.

All in all a great listen and a top guy to follow!

Now, at 62 years old and 9% body fat who are we to disagree?