The ALTIS Apprentice Coach Program: Olympic edition (Part 3of 8)

Transforming human potential into human performance

Dr. Jeremy Koenig
Twitter: @koenigator
Web: https://www.athletigen.com

Background

This is blog post 3 of 8 where the goal of this communication is to deliver to you my personal take-aways from a variety of world-leading experts across multiple disciplines whom I met at The ALTIS Rio Olympic Games Holding Camp. This Super ACP included a panel of renowned guest speakers including Dr. John Berardi, Kelly Starrett, Dr. Matt Jordan, Brett Bartholomew, performance guru Dan Pfaff, and myself: Dr. Jeremy Koenig

The ACP is a self-directed, experiential learning opportunity which allows visiting coaches the freedom to interact, observe, and engage directly with their mentor coaches and world-class athletes as they complete a week of training. You can read more here. I have been most fortunate to work with ALTIS and hundreds of coaches from around the world and through these collaborations make a concerted effort at using genetics to turn human potential into human performance.

In my talk, Transforming Human Potential into Human Performance, I discussed performance genomics as a concept in addition to delivering some of the insights gained from working with world-class and Olympic athletes as well as the professionals who train them.

The Human Technology

There is only one technology that has endured the pressures of billions of years on earth: our DNA. This human technology has a significant impact on who we are and what we do: our appearance, personal characteristics, and even how we should consider our approach to human performance.

You may recall Kelly Starrett’s statement from my previous post: “…humans have been evolving for millions of years and the human body is extraordinarily engineered. Nevertheless, while people are born with this incredible machine, they aren’t necessarily born with the right software to run that machine.”

This is a profound statement. Arranged a different way, it reads like this: you are born with a unique hardware, but you are likely not running the most compatible software necessary to achieve world class performance. This in my mind is a paradigm shift in our understanding of genetics. Specifically, dogma says that our genetics are fixed, however, the environment is dynamic. This means that where genetics meets environment and how we respond is fluid in both space in time. Furthermore, the component of your hardware that you exploit will depend on your goal and the software you choose to run. Therefore, let’s dispel this notion that genes are 100% deterministic in the world of human performance. The fact is, though you might know your genetics, if you don’t have a goal and you don’t know your environment you can’t predict a performance outcome with absolute certainty.

Performance Genetics

For those who are passionate about the performance genetics movement, it’s important to think carefully about how we integrate genetic insights as a critical tool for precise training solutions. We must also remember that this new information does not replace current best practices in coaching. There is a wealth of information in our DNA and using the right information at the right time is paramount. However, living in an age where information is abundant and accessible, we risk being overwhelmed. Given the complexity of facilitating performance, we must be empathetic to what the coach is already managing and be careful not to disrupt the critical components of the athlete’s training environment.

If we fail to do this, we can feel as though we are drowning in data. Putting genetics in context is therefore a critical step in the direction of making this information relevant and actionable.

Consider the scenarios in Table 1:

On the left (Genetic insight without context) the athlete learns about their DNA, however given no context i.e. their goals, what they experience in training, etc. it’s not immediately obvious to see how they might use this information. Nevertheless, it shouldn’t be concluded that this information doesn’t matter. In fact, it does matter so we need to teach people how to use it and more importantly, involve them in the discovery process.

In contrast to the scenario in Table 1 on the left, take the example on the right (Genetic insights with context) we see that there are some pretty compelling insights revealed as a result of considering the athlete’s sport, response to training, as well as their genetic makeup. Specifically, the coach now has some evidence as to why this athlete reports this particular response to training and in addition, why training adaptation is different among athletes in the same training group.

What’s more, coaches can actually do something with this information. For example, the IL6 variant might warrant a reduced training load compared to other athletes in the training group, an approach that 10x Olympic Coach Dan Pfaff has implemented with success. In addition, supplementation with D-Ribose might offset this athletes tendency to cramp during high-intensity sessions. Finally, while the coach might have previously thought that this athlete’s fatigue was a result of poor sleep hygiene (which was probably correct) he/she didn’t know that sleep itself was affected by this athlete’s slow metabolism of caffeine and the observed fatigue was exacerbated by their predisposition for poor vitamin B12 absorption.

Now we have interesting dialogue!

Nurturing the nature of our athletes is a continuous dialogue. The more we speak to our athletes the better we come to understand them. Thus genetic information on its own is far less effective compared to incorporating these insights into an holistic approach to performance training. This was my rationale for choosing ALTIS as Athletigen’s first official partner in 2014. They exist to create — for the first time — a professional environment and approach to Track and Field. As a consequence, ALTIS holds us to the highest standard because to them, one-one-hundredth of a second matters, and all of their athletes must be treated as individuals in order to facilitate a precise performance training plan.

DNA, as the human technology is more complex and more impactful than any of the new innovations or products on the market today. Over 3 billion letters in our human code are responsible for building around 25,000 genes that make us who we are. This 3 billion letter narrative contains the instructions for an infinite number of permutations with the potential to manifest in the form of human performance. Maximizing human potential will come from honouring our similarities and celebrating our differences and an in depth appreciation for the human technology must come from collaborations like these. After all, the human genome is our shared heritage and so all people will have a role to play in our pursuit to uncover and share this information with the world.

The opportunity here is for the coach to join our mission to translate human potential into human performance and in the process, discover a 360 degree perspective for each of their athletes. Genetics is not the puzzle — but it is a critical piece of it. The more time we spend as performance professionals building and protecting the athlete’s training environment while simultaneously honouring what makes them unique, the more likely we will truly nurture their nature. I think this is the sacred contract between coach and athlete.