Written by Team MD
01 March 2015

15NN032-GENETICS

The Importance of Bodybuilding Genetics

Shawn Ray, Dorian Yates & Kevin Levrone Have Their Say

 

 

The question posed to these three bodybuilding legends is, “How important are genetics in a bodybuilding competition? Must all champion bodybuilders be genetic superiors, or can hard work and brains overcome average genetics?”  (Originally published in the November 2014 edition of MD)

 Shawn Ray

 In the grand scheme of things, having great genetics gives most athletes a leg up on the competition. However, genetics in and of themselves are not enough to guarantee victory. By that, I mean you still have to put in the work to realize the blessings of superior DNA as it relates to the stage and contest results! Typically, genetically gifted bodybuilders are rarely regarded as “hard workers” in the gym, basically because the “gains” seem to come easier for the gifted ones over the genetically impaired athletes. 

 Case in point: Flex Wheeler has been highly regarded as one of, if not the most, genetically gifted bodybuilders in the history of the sport, right next to three-time Mr. Olympia Sergio Oliva, who was not similar to Flex on any posing comparison, but was equally impressive from every angle. Flex, like Sergio, had very small joints and full muscle bellies, yet differed from Sergio in that it was no secret that Flex in all his genetic blessings was highly regarded as one of, if not the laziest, bodybuilders of modern times when it came to “work ethic.” Still, he went on to win the majority of the contests he entered. The end result of what Flex Wheeler accomplished onstage was credited to his God-given genetics more than his hard work and dieting for competitions. He will attest to the fact that hardcore training was never something he enjoyed engaging in, leaving many of his counterparts to wonder if they could ever train hard enough to beat a guy like Flex. The record shows that most never did. Sergio Oliva, on the other hand, was known for having hardcore, drop-dead workouts with incredible effort dedicated to winning. His three Mr. Olympia titles back that up as fact! This leaves many to wonder, how do they compete against genetic wonders and stand a chance?

 The fact is, on any given day in the sport of bodybuilding, anyone can be beaten, but only by those athletes who don’t buy into the fact that having great genetics is everything. While advantageous to the select few, they are only a formidable advantage if the athlete maximizes those gifts by paying attention to detail. History has shown that many “gifted” bodybuilders reap the lion’s share of the publicity. However, there is also a strong demand for the freaky big and crazy muscular bodybuilders to do well by way of crowd support and judges being fascinated by their extreme development. A few names come to mind in the form of the late Nasser El Sonbaty, Markus Ruhl and Jean-Pierre Fux from the ‘90s. These guys were all hugely muscular but not very gifted in the genetics department, and still excelled during the toughest decade of competition history! 

 In summation, if you’re a bodybuilder weighing your prospects of winning by quantifying your genetic blessings versus the muscle monsters, you’re already finished. It is the athlete that in spite of his genetic gifts trains hard, eats right and has a desire for greatness who the other competitors will struggle to beat. This athlete is most dangerous because he cares only about the final result of his efforts that are systematically put together to cancel any genetic advantage the other competitors may have over him. In the end, gifted genetics, while advantageous, do not ensure victory, as I know all too well!

 Dorian Yates

 Undoubtedly, a certain level of advantageous genetic traits is required to succeed in the highest levels of competitive bodybuilding. Bone structure is first and foremost, as that’s the framework that the physique is built upon. If a man has very narrow clavicles and very wide hips, he’s going to have a natural pear shape to his torso no matter how much mass he manages to build. Any bodybuilder with a great V-taper starts off with wider than average clavicles and fairly narrow hips. Limb length and proportion is also key. You can’t have arms and legs that are either extremely short or long in relation to the torso. Next up, you need to have relatively long muscle bellies that insert fairly near the joints. Otherwise, you have large gaps where there are no muscle cells, and you can’t build muscle that isn’t there in the first place. Many guys with very high calf insertions know this all too well. You also need to have the right amounts of the right types of muscle fibers.

 It should be said that all these qualities aren’t always apparent in an individual before they begin training, or even in their very early years of training. Few who saw me at 170 pounds at age 18 would have thought, “That kid is a future Mr. Olympia, for sure!” Speaking on muscle fiber types again, those with mostly slow-twitch muscle fiber will have a very difficult time building mass, as they are naturally more suited to endurance activities. There’s been a lot of buzz in the last couple years about the myostatin gene. This gene regulates how large muscles can get in an individual, not unlike the governor in some car or truck engines that limits the top speed of a vehicle. Some humans have a rare myostatin deficiency that allows their muscle to grow to extreme size. You’ve probably seen photos of myostatin-deficient bulls, dogs and mice. All are bulging with cartoonish muscles, and obviously they didn’t slave away in gyms with heavy weights to get them! I was curious as to whether or not I happened to share that trait, so a gentleman named Mark Gilbert, owner of the company MuscleGenes, offered to conduct a test on my genetic makeup. Here is what I was found to have as my genotype:

“KK (two copies of the “K” allele): This is easily the most prevalent genotype. Over 95 percent of the population has this. In one study, carriers of the KK genotype were seen to outperform R allele carriers in vertical jump tests (a measure of explosive power), at least in untrained individuals. This has been hypothesized to be linked to a potential role of myostatin in tendon structure (myostatin-deficient mice show 14 times higher tendon stiffness than wild-type mice) although further research is needed to determine this association.”

The RR genotype associated with significantly greater muscle mass, greater response to hypertrophic training and lower body fat levels is found in much less than 1 percent of the human population. So this proves that even though I most certainly had gifted genetics, I still had to work quite hard to build the mass that I was able to.

 As far as being able to beat genetic superiors through intelligence and a superior work ethic, that was something I routinely did throughout my pro career. Few would argue that men like Flex Wheeler, Kevin Levrone and Paul Dillett all had better genetics for bodybuilding than I did, yet none of them were ever able to beat me. Fantastic genetics will only take you so far, and then you need to supplement them with hard work, discipline and dedication. If not, a guy who may not be quite as gifted but works harder than you can make up enough ground to beat you.

 Kevin Levrone

 Let’s take “average genetics” out of the discussion if we’re talking about champion bodybuilders. They all have varying levels of genetic gifts, but each and every one is still very much gifted in comparison to the regular guys in gyms trying to get big and hopefully win a show someday. I happen to feel that being too genetically gifted will make a person lazy, because they quickly figure out that they don’t need to put the effort into it that others do.

 Probably the most genetically gifted bodybuilder I have ever known, in terms of just beautiful muscle shape and full muscle bellies coming off tiny joints, was Flex Wheeler. Before I continue, let me state for the record that I consider Flex a friend (I once even took him to the emergency room and wheeled him in after a Grand Prix contest in Spain when he almost died of severe dehydration), and I was and still am a tremendous fan of his physique. But he was the laziest out of all of us in the ‘90s. That was an era when guys still trained hardcore. Not Flex. I never saw that guy once get under a bench press or a squat rack. Meanwhile, I’m over in Maryland benching 500 and tearing my pec, squatting 600-700 pounds, and pushing up 405 on the military press. Flex didn’t even train himself. He needed Charles Glass to push him through his workouts, and he had an entourage to get his weights and put them away, give him water to drink, even wipe his brow on the rare occasions he broke a sweat! When it came to dieting, Flex was even worse. I was on the road on a few Grand Prix tours across Europe with him. We would all be eating our grilled chicken, rice and broccoli, while Flex was chowing down on pizza and salty french fries. He ate like that because he could get away with it and still beat us! Why? Again, because his genetics were that good. His shape would carry him even when his condition was off, and it did many times.

 But I admit that I too had very gifted genetics. I could make muscle gains in a year that would take most other guys four to five years to make. And I had the ability to stop training for months, losing muscle and gaining some body fat, then whip myself into top shape fast. I would start training again for the Mr. Olympia in July at 225 pounds and 8 percent body fat. Twelve weeks later, I would be onstage at just under 3 percent body fat and 240 pounds. There were spurts in there when I would put on as much as four pounds of muscle in a week. People called me lazy for that. They said, if Kevin was more consistent with his training and didn’t take months of the year off to mess around being a musician, he would be Mr. Olympia. I don’t believe that. I think I would have done a lot more damage to my body if I had been going non-stop for 14 years. Once I started training again, it was full-bore effort and intensity. But I knew after I had my pec tear early in my career that anything I ever lost by taking time off from the gym would come right back. Was I lazy or was I smart? We could debate that. I guess we could also say Flex was smart in his own way too, because he didn’t do more than he had to.

Dorian Yates didn’t have the incredible genetics that Flex and I had. What he did have was the mental genetics to overcome any obstacles. He couldn’t eat junk and get in shape, and he couldn’t lay off training for half the year. He and others like him were true warriors and soldiers who were so determined to win that they did whatever it took. Ronnie Coleman is another good example. If I had to put in as much time and effort before I started seeing success as Ronnie did, I would have quit. Ronnie was out there as a pro competing in tons of shows for years, training and dieting his ass off, before he finally started winning. Guys like him and Dorian did it because they loved it that much. To have the mental stamina and willpower to work twice as hard as the more gifted guys to beat them is something you just have to respect. Dorian overcame every genetic obstacle in his way and beat all of us in his reign of six years. In the end, we all worked with what we had, and we all found our own path.

 

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