Heritability of explosive power and anaerobic capacity in humans

Abstract

There is a disparity in the information about the heritability of the response of muscle anaerobic metabolism to exercise and the use of explosive power, as well as a lack of information concerning the genetic determinants of this form of work, as measured using different specific physical tests. We applied a battery of some of the commonly employed procedures (Ergojump, Wingate, maximal accumulated oxygen deficit, excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, and delta lactate concentration) to a group of 32 Caucasian male twins, 8 monozygotic and 8 dizygotic pairs, who had similar environmental backgrounds. Results were studied using a heritability index (HI). Zygosity was determined using the identity of erythrocyte antigens, protein and enzyme polymorphism and human leucocyte antigen serologic types between co-twins. Significant HI values (P< 0.05) were found in the following tests: maximal 5 s power (HI = 0.74) and total power in a 30 s interval (HI = 0.84) in the Wingate test, maximal lactate concentration (HI = 0.82) and delta lactate concentration (HI = 0.84) in the maximal progressive test, as well as in the 2nd (HI = 0.93) and in the 3rd min (HI = 0.92) of recovery after the deficit test. In this study, the most relevant findings were: firstly, significant HI values for many of the variables studied; secondly, the HI values of the parameters used to evaluate explosive power were higher than those of lactic acid capacity and thirdly, the HI of certain variables from different tests measuring, in theory, similar qualities, were different.

Intrapopulational variation in the standard metabolic rate of insects:repeatability, thermal dependence and sensitivity (Q10) of oxygen consumption in a cricket

“…To address this key question, which is a second step directed towards addressing adaptive hypotheses of physiological traits in insects, researchers should attempt to answer the more specific question: is standard metabolic rate heritable? Studies in vertebrates yielded mixed results (Calvo et al, 2002;Nespolo et al, 2003) but the fact that metabolic rate appear as important determinant of fitness in some species of cricket (Crnokrak and Roff, 2002) along with the results of this paper suggest that insect metabolism could be of selective importance.…”

Evidence for Higher Heritability of Somatotype Compared to Body Mass Index in Female Twins

“…Standard descriptive measures were used (mean and standard deviation). Differences between measures of monozygotic and dizygotic pairs of twins were assessed by the F value, calculated as the dizygotic variance divided by the monozygotic variance (Rodas et al, 1998;Calvo et al, 2002) after the normality assumption was verified with the Shapiro Wilk Test. Associations between variables were investigated with the Pearson Product-Moment coefficient.…”

Anaerobic performance in masters athletes

“…Later muscle biopsy studies on MZ and DZ twins identified that a major contributor to anaerobic performance, the relative percentage of fiber type, was 99.5% (men) and 93% (women) genetically determined [87]. Similarly, other factors that may affect anaerobic performance including muscular strength and power [28,50], peak blood lactate [82], and the anaerobic enzymes PFK and LDH [22] appear to have considerable genetic significance. Later work using different methodologies has suggested that many of the above factors that contribute to anaerobic performance are highly heritable including aerobic capacity (47%) [20], 10-and 90-s maximal work outputs (44-92%) [19,135], 30-s work capacity (86%) [83], muscular strength and mass [74], sprint running performance lasting less than 20 s [21], as well as the trainability of the anaerobic energy systems [19].…”