Dr. Wendie Trubow explains how genetic testing reveals your muscle fiber type—fast-twitch or slow-twitch—and which sports suit you best. A cyclist with fast-twitch fibers suffered chronic injuries doing high-volume endurance work. A gymnast with slow-twitch fibers became a state champion in cross-country running after switching sports.
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Genetically, you can figure out what your foundational template is for your diet, for lifestyle, and then also exercise. You can now determine genetically what type of sports are you genetically more likely to perform the best in. I have one person I work with who was a professional cyclist, 20,000 miles a year when he was a full professional. Unfortunately, it drove him into chronic disease. He wore himself out, and his fiber type for his exercise genes was fast twitch. He's not a long-distance guy muscularily. He's a fast twitch. He's a sprinter guy. Flip side, another person I know was doing gymnastics from age 3 to 14 until she switched, and she was never good at gymnastics. And then she switched to long-distance cross-country and she became a state champion. She had slow twitch, but in gymnastics you need fast twitch to do like the springing and the jumping and all the rest of it. If people know what their fiber type is and they can match their sport more to their muscle type