David Epstein is getting a lot of press for his new book in which he examines the role of genes and other factors when it come to extraordinary athletic performance. In this interview with Outside Magazine, he talks about some of the factors that will determine your athletic prowess, and takes aim at the notion that 10,000 hours of practice will do the trick. “The 10,000 hours is an average of differences. You could have two people in any endeavor and one person took 0 hours and another took 20,000 hours, which is something like what happened with two high jumpers I discuss in the book. One guy put in 20,000 and one put in 0, so there’s your average of 10,000 hours, but that tells you nothing about an individual.” (Apologies to anyone who is on hour 9999 and expecting a big breakthrough.)