The Sports Gene

Book cover of The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance

Book description

The New York Times bestseller – with a new afterword about early specialization in youth sports – from the author of Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.

The debate is as old as physical competition. Are stars like Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, and Serena Williams genetic freaks put…

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Science

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Sports Gene as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Alex Bezzerides

Author

There is no better book that combines the worlds of science and sports than The Sports Gene by David Epstein.

This book takes you all around the world to explore the physical and mental traits of diverse athletes with the goal of understanding how much of athletic prowess is written in our genetic code. The results are surprising and will flip a lot of your preconceived notions about nature and nurture.

I read it years ago but still talk to my students every semester about why, year in and year out, the best distance runners in the world seem to…

From Alex's list on the evolution of the human body.