Nature Vs Nurture In Sports

The perfect athlete is made up of three components; talent, ability and motivation. But which is more important? The question that I am researching about is “Is your performance as a professional volleyball player affected more by genetics or by the way you were raised?” This is a very interesting and age-long debate between professional health nutritionists and scientists. Some, such as Mauro van de Looij, argue that nurture and personal characteristics, such as discipline and sacrifices, are more important in the making of professional athletes. Also, he argues that hard work beats talent and that working hard to achieve your goals will get you further than if you have already have everything made and planned out for you. On the other hand,

Also, she states that our genetic make-up accounts for at least 50% of variability in base performance. Apart from these two scientists, many other experiments and researches have been conducted in order to finally begin to understand and solve this debate of nature versus nurture. So, many different opinions have been bestowed upon this topic since many different researches and results point in different directions as to what is more important in the making and succeeding of professional athletes, and more specifically volleyball players.

Nature versus Nurture

A lot of research has been conducted in order to try to prove which is more affective and important in maximum performance in athletics, nature or nurture. One researcher and writer, David Epstein, states that, after seeing and examining Olympic level athletes, nature is very important in succeeding in sports. He says that some people are specially designed and have the genetic potential to succeed in sports from the time that they were born, due to their genetic inheritance and muscle structure. But, he also concludes that without nurture, nature is

This has happened because, as young athletes dream of becoming the best, they are deteriorated at points due to the excessive thought of others being better, but only due to their natural build. For example, I went through such a “stage” last year when I was told that, although I was doing everything right concerning nurture and hard work and nutrition, that I may not have a chance at becoming anything truly great in volleyball since others are “born for the sport” and their genetic makeup was superior to my nurture and lifestyle. This is a growing problem for many young athletes since their dream of pursuing their sport is ruined and crushed by others just “being born for it”. A small portion of the overall population is affected by this, but a great amount of athletes of all levels and skills are being affected by this ongoing debate, causing more stress for the high school or college level athlete than ever before, only adding to that of everyday life, school and the ever growing push towards deciding what they will do concerning their future. The local statistics for volleyball are not compared to those on a global scale due to the fact that volleyball is not as big as a sport in Greece as it is in other countries