Your capacity for fitness gains starts with your genes. Are you ready to level up?
Like everything else about you, your capacity for fitness gains starts with your genes. Here’s how taking a peek inside your genetic make-up can help you train smarter, get better results and find exercise more enjoyable
INTRO TO GENETICS
Let’s start with the basics. DNA
(or deoxyribonucleic acid to the scientists) is the material in your cells that gets passed down from parent to child and carries the code which informs every aspect of who you are.
That code is made up of bases, arranged in pairs. A human has around three billion base pairs of DNA, distributed over chromosomes – threads of DNA. Around 99.9% of these base pairs are the same in all humans
– which is why most people are born with two eyes and one head and so on – the other 0.1 percent is what makes each of us unique.
“Humans have 46 chromosomes – 23 from Mom and 23 from Dad,” explains Bernice Venter, registered dietician at genetic testing laboratory DNAlysis. “The DNA strand is like a recipe to who you are. This includes physical traits, like if you have curly hair or brown eyes, but also – what does your genotype say about your health and how your body functions on a cellular level? How is it affecting, for example, your health or your sports performance?”
Why is it that some people can rise before the sun and Instagram pre-dawn runs with eyes bright and ponytails bouncing, while the rest of us can barely tie our shoelaces before 10am? Why can some people run marathons and others struggle to run for the bus? Or breeze through heavy workouts without ever pulling a muscle while others get a neck spasm checking their blind spot? Sure, some of it comes down to training and conditioning. But there’s another factor at play: genetics.
Important to note, she says, is that the variations you’re looking at when you get a genetic test done are not the kind that are linked to mutations
the chromosome, as is the case with people who are born with a medical condition, such as Down syndrome. Instead, you’re looking at that 0.1 percent of genetic variation that provides you with information on predispositions to health and even sporting performance.
WRITTEN IN YOUR GENES
So, if your genes control every aspect of your being, what’s the point of getting them tested? Well, the thing is that while your genetic code informs everything about you, it’s not a prophecy so much as a loadshedding schedule – in other words, things might go according to how your genes suggest they will go, but they might not.
“Genes are passed down, but whether they are expressed or not is influenced by your environment, diet and lifestyle,” explains Venter. “We talk about turning them on or off, like light switches. So certain environmental factors will turn genes on, which, in certain areas, like sporting performance, you want, but in other areas, like say, स्तन कैंसर, if there’s a risk, we want to use lifestyle interventions, like food choices and supplements, to turn it off, so it doesn’t express.”
Say you have a gene that predisposes you to obesity – if your diet is full of delicious calories and you shun exercise, that genetic predisposition means you’ll probably put on weight a lot faster than someone who leads a similar calorie-laden, exerciseaverse lifestyle but who doesn’t carry the gene. However, if you eat a healthy, balanced diet and lead an active lifestyle, you may never know that you were predisposed to pick up weight easily.
That’s where genetic testing can be useful. It’s giving you information about what you’re naturally predisposed to – good and bad – and you can use that information to adjust your lifestyle in a way that sets you up for success.
“The purpose of these types of tests is not to be diagnostic, but more informative – to give you the insight and power to make changes and improvements,” says Khilona Natha, a geneticist with the Optiphi Helix effort at Skin Rejuvenation Technologies. “As much as our genetics encode for the multitude of physiological functions in our bodies, our health is also influenced by external influences, such as diet, exercise and certain habits. Genetics and what we expose ourselves to go hand in hand when it comes to our health.”
She sees genetics as the missing piece of the puzzle when it comes to setting yourself up to be the healthiest possible version of yourself. “We all know what we eat, how much physical activity we do, what environments we are in, and so on, but what is not naturally known is our genetic code,” she says. “Therefore, these genetic tests provide us with the missing piece of information that we need to unlock a healthy life.”
FITNESS POTENTIAL REVEALED
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) identifies five components that make up overall fitness: cardiorespiratory fitness – how long you can exert yourself and the degree to which your heart
and lungs can keep supplying your muscles with oxygen before you become fatigued; muscular strength – the ability of a muscle to generate force; muscular endurance – how long your muscles can keep performing a movement or hold a contraction before they become fatigued; flexibility – the ability of your joints to move through a full range of motion without pain or restriction; and body composition – how much body fat you’re carrying versus lean muscle mass and bone density.
Genetic testing can provide insight into all of these factors. “Genetic testing can offer insight into how well one can metabolise and mobilise fat in their body, as well as burn calories in response to physical activity, all related to avoiding the risk of being an unhealthy weight,” says Natha. It can also tell you the types of exercise that your body is more inclined towards, she adds. Some people may be more predisposed to sprinting as opposed to longdistance running, for example – which is why athletes like Akani Simbine are impossible to catch on the track, but you won’t find them winning 10-kay races on the weekends.
DNA testing can also give you insight into your injury risk. “Exercise promotes tissue remodelling – for example, building stronger muscles,” says Natha. “However, if the structural properties of these tissues are compromised due to genetic variations and risk factors, it can lead to increased risk for injury.” That kind of insight can help you pinpoint why you keep picking up injuries – and knowing this before you start exercising could help you prevent yourself from getting injured in the first place. And therein lies the crux of DNA testing’s growing popularity. Once you know what you’re dealing with, you can start tweaking your habits accordingly.
DECODING THE CODE
Genetic testing itself is only the start. As with any tool, what really matters is how you use it. The key here lies in knowing how to interpret and apply the results. That’s why, when you have a genetic test done, your report includes a full explanation of what the results mean, as well as personalised recommendations to help you achieve desired outcomes. Venter also recommends going through the results with a healthcare practitioner, rather than going it alone. They can make recommendations, as well as answer your questions and address your concerns.
“The word we’re using more and more is that genetic tests empower,”
says Venter. “It’s not meant to be a daunting, scary thing – because the results are modifiable and because it’s a predisposition, not a diagnosis.
It’s about how to optimise your training and performance through what your genes have given you.”
In the case of injury, you may find that your body breaks down collagen really quickly and you may need to take measures to boost your collagen, like taking a supplement, or that your body is susceptible to inflammation and you need to include more oily fish rich in omega-3 or include more anti-inflammatory-type foods in your diet, says Venter.
“The risk for injury is also dependent on how quickly one can recover from exercise,” adds Natha. “Some people may take longer to recover from an intense workout session, which puts an individual at higher risk for sustaining an injury during their training. Therefore, these people may need to incorporate more recoverytype activities and less strenuous exercise in between their usual workouts and can even adjust their daily nutrition accordingly. Understanding your body’s ability to build strong muscles, tendons and ligaments, as well as heal after a tough workout, can aid you in designing a well-balanced exercise regime.”
But there’s a lot more to DNA testing in fitness than keeping you off the bench. “You can use it as a tool to help improve your sporting performance,” says Venter. So if you’re trying to improve your cardio fitness and you’re more genetically predisposed to power activity, running or cycling for
hours on end may feel impossible. Instead, switching to high-intensity interval training (HIIT), which involves short bursts of intense activity, rather than long stints of moderate-intensity exercise, can help you achieve the same fitness goal in a way that will feel more natural and enjoyable to you.
Similarly, if you’re not predisposed to heavy lifting, you can still reap the benefits of strength training by focusing more on muscular endurance – lifting lighter weights with a higher rep count. It doesn’t mean that certain fitness goals will suddenly be off limits just because you’re not genetically predisposed to them, says Venter – you just need to play to your strengths.
Another handy insight you can gain from genetic testing is what time of day your performance peaks. “This is especially useful for athletes who are looking for the best time to train,” says
Venter. But it can make workouts a lot more enjoyable for the rest of us too. Some people are just not cut out for pre-dawn training sessions. And if that’s you, they’re always going to feel like a struggle, no matter how iron-clad your discipline may be. You’ll probably also find you don’t get the most out of them because your body is not primed to perform at its best. All of this makes you much more likely to fall off the wagon with your training – leading to a feeling of failure and negative associations with exercise, which make you less likely to try again.
Knowing that you’re predisposed to peak later in the day empowers you to mix up your training timetable – if your schedule allows – or, at the very least, not berate your lack of willpower when you battle to give it horns at 5am.
RESULTS WITH YOUR NAME ON IT
Obesity and its associated diseases, such as heart disease, high cholesterol and diabetes, are on the rise in South Africa. According to government data, 68% of South African women are obese and according to research published in BMC Public Health
earlier this year, the rate of obesity in non-pregnant women of childbearing age in South Africa increased by nearly 10% between 1998 and 2017.
It has never been more important to find effective ways to help women reduce body fat. But while national healthy guidelines abound, they may not work as well for everyone.
Having a personal trainer or dietician in your corner is becoming more commonplace as people look for advice on what’s going to work for them.
And genetics is the next step towards personalisation in all aspects of Health and wellness – from fitness and diet to healthcare.
“We used to treat the disease without considering the holistic picture of the person; with personalised medicine we are now able to look at the person, their environment and how that environment influences disease,” says Venter.
The same goes for fitness
– yes, general guidelines may recommend that people do 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week and eat five small meals a day, but what’s going to work for you, personally? You may be running for 150 minutes a week and, frustratingly, not losing a gram. But what your body may be craving is bursts of intensity in those runs – like a sprint session – or some weightlifting in between.
The technology around DNA testing is advancing rapidly and as it becomes more mainstream, the cost is coming down too, making personalised wellness insights more accessible to the general population. The barrier now is people’s willingness to have genetic testing done because they’re afraid of what they might find out. Again, it’s informing you about predispositions, not giving you a diagnosis – and the earlier you find out what your predispositions are, the more scope there is to make positive lifestyle changes.
“People are afraid to test their genes,” says Venter, “but we should rather see it as information that enables us to make informed, personalised decisions to optimise our healthcare.”
