Does not everybody have his/her little genetic polymorphism to overcome?

There is lot of talking about genetic disposition and its implications on our quality of life nowadays, especially after the decoding of the human genome. Genetics have been always used as an excuse for weaknesses, as something one cannot to do anything about, and therefore needs not to feel guilty about. Weaknesses referring back to genetics are/were equal to destiny. This is an attitude that needs to be changed, slowly.
The code of the human genome has taught us a lot, but not that everything is unalterably written into our genes. There is no »the human genome«. Minor variations between individuals contribute to the fact that we are all different, but they don’t make us different.
The same disease can take a total different course in you than in me, you may develop a tumor, another does not, some suffer from allergies others from autoimmune diseases, others again are incredible susceptible to infections, others are not. Our genes have its shares in this game, but also has our way of life, our life style how we eat, how much we move, how we think… Even if one is so unlucky to have a punct mutation in one of his/her genes that does not necessarily mean this is weakness is going to show on the surface of his/her life. The body and its cells have many possibilities to counteract deficits, so it is the case with genetic mutations of many kinds.

Think about it. Life style can really make a difference. There are many options to lead a good life despite genetics telling you another story.

At the end, just a remark to outline the relativity of genetics. Even in a condition of genetic identity like it is the case in identical twins the final outcome can vary considerably, identical twins need not be alike. For long science tried to hide these facts from us not to destroy the omnipotency of the genetic code. But this power scrambles because of the knowledge the Human Genome
Project gave to us. It forces us to change our view, genetics looses
grounds as an universal explanation and excuse.

In the British Journal of Sports Medicine http://bjsm.bmj.com (Issue 22.11.06, Zhou, D Q, Hu, Y, Liu, G, Gong, L, Xi, Y, Wen, L, Lucia, A) I found an article of which I would like to give you a brief summary underneath that stands for a prototype of thousands and thousands of studies that have been performed to demonstrate the power of the genome.

Muscle-specific creatine kinase gene polymorphism and running economy responses to an 18-week 5000-m training programme

The objective of the study was to investigate the association between muscle-specific creatine kinase (CKMM) gene polymorphism and the effects of endurance training on running economy.
102 biologically unrelated male volunteers from northern China performed a 5000-m running programme, with an intensity of 95–105% ventilatory threshold. The protocol was undertaken three times per week and lasted for 18 weeks. Running economy indexes were determined by making the participants run on a treadmill before and after the protocol. Gene polymorphism in a specific region of CKMM was detected by polymerase chain reaction-restricted fragment length polymorphism.
The results showed three different genotypes for CKMM (AA, AG and GG) in the participants observed.

After training, all running economy indexes declined markedly. Change in steady-state consumption of oxygen, change in steady-state consumption of oxygen by mean body weight, change in steady-state consumption of oxygen by mean lean body weight and change in ventilatory volume in AG groups were larger than those in AA and GG groups.
Conclusions were made as follows: The findings indicate that the CKMM gene polymorphism may contribute to individual running economy responses to endurance training.

Don’t forget studies of this kind may wrongly correlate creatine kinase to the variations in performance. But even though, if you had this handicap of your creatine kinase, and this may be the reason for your performance deficit under special conditions, on the other
hand you might have the advantage of another mutation that renders you
less susceptible to infections than others. To pinpoint one thing and disregard the rest may lead to unjustified conclusions.
However, there are mutations that can be overcome or compensated for by training and lifestyle, and there are definitely those gene polymorphisms that put limits to your performance as an athlete. The problems is that up to now nobody will be able to give you the facts in your very specific case.