Genetic information will soon be a standard part of sports, used to customize training, personalize nutrition, and even to identify talent. Over the last few years, DNA analysis firm Athletigen and elite track and field training facility Altis have been working together to explore and develop that future.
Through collaboration, both Altis and Athletigen have been hoping to gain a head start in this race, learning what genetic information is important and how to convert that into actionable insights. A new product launched by Athletigen on Tuesday, the Altis Sport Performance Report, is hoping to bring some of what the two organizations have learned to consumers, both pro and amateur.
Altis’s athletes have been the lab rats that Athletigen can study, a population of highly fit individuals who closely follow training and nutrition protocols, generating accurate data that give context to the results from genetic testing. John Godina, a three-time Olympian who founded Altis in 2013, describes his organization as something between a training center and an educational and research institute. “[Altis] is a great science lab,” he said. “It gives us a chance to do stuff in a controlled environment that can benefit all kinds of different people.”