Making contact with a ball requires significant coordination of your eyes, body, and brain. When you’re practicing your kicks at the soccer field or hitting a ball on the tennis court, for example, how easy or difficult do you find it to make contact with the ball?

Your ability to connect with moving objects primarily comes from developing the skill through practice, but some people may have a slight genetic boost in this area. An AncestryDNA^® + Traits test can tell whether your DNA suggests it’s likely to be easier or more difficult for you to kick, catch, or hit a ball.

Accuracy and Keeping Your Attention on the Ball

In order to make contact with a ball, whether it’s kicking a soccer ball or dinking a pickleball, several other traits and qualities need to come together. For example, you need hand-eye coordination and quick reflexes to respond. You also have to be able to focus intently on the ball or other object as it travels and retain your balance as you move to react to it. Persistence in practicing this skill can help, as well as a sense of competition which may motivate you to improve your skill.

This ability has an effect on everyday life, too. Have you ever been at a picnic or across the table and had someone toss an orange or apple your way? Maybe your children are in the toddler phase, throwing anything they can get their hands on. Maybe you find yourself playing object hacky-sack to prevent something you’ve dropped from hitting the floor.

Genetics and Being Able to Make Contact With a Ball

The team of scientists at Ancestry^® wanted to determine the genetic influence on making contact with a moving object. To do so, they posed a simple question: "How would you rate your ability to make contact with a moving ball or other object? (Think in terms of hitting, catching, or kicking a ball that's coming toward you.)" Over 202,000 people responded, and their answers were compared to the respondents’ DNA profiles. This comparison revealed 578 DNA markers connected to making contact with a ball.

Taking these markers into consideration, Ancestry scientists calculated a polygenic risk score. This score is used to predict whether you are more or less likely to exhibit a particular trait (in this case, making contact with a moving object). Based on the data, it's evident that environmental factors, such as regular practice, matter significantly more than genetics. However, DNA differences between people did explain about 8% of the variation seen in their reported ability to keep an eye on the ball and make contact with it.

What Else Do Scientists Say About the Ability to Catch, Kick, Throw, or Hit a Ball?

All sorts of factors can influence how well you can catch, kick, throw, or hit a ball, ranging from visual skills to reaction speed. After all, it's a complex process requiring coordination and skill to execute effectively. Your motor cortex, the part of your brain necessary to plan, control, and execute voluntary movements, coordinates your reaction, allowing you to kick, catch, or hit the ball. Its function plays a large role in whether you actually connect with the moving object or if you miss it altogether.

Of course, practice also matters. A study on young soccer players tested the effects of a 10-week protocol to improve accuracy in connecting with a ball. By participating in cognitive-motor drills requiring executive functioning, attention, and problem-solving, the children who went through standard training were able to perform better than those in the control group.

Interesting Facts About Ball Games

Some of the most popular ball games today range from soccer to cricket, basketball to baseball, and tennis to golf. Ball games in one form or another—fun and casual or serious and competitive—date back thousands of years.

• The Mesoamerican Olmec people played a game with a 10 lb rubber ball. Although the exact rules are not clear, today’s sport of volleyball may resemble how this game was played.
• A game called cuju can be traced back to China in 2,300 BCE. It is a competitive game in which players try to kick a ball through a centralized hoop while not letting it touch the ground.
• In 12th-century Japan a game called kemari was developed. All players work together to kick a small ball in order to keep it afloat and prevent it from touching the ground.
• In classic Western literature, written accounts of ball play are mentioned in Homer's Odyssey, where Princess Nausicaa and her maids are described as playing a ball game.

Ready to see whether your skill with throwing, catching, kicking, or hitting a ball comes from your practice alone or if you have a genetic advantage? By taking an AncestryDNA^® + Traits test, you can learn how your genes compare to others who are skilled at tracking and catching balls. If you've already taken a test and you have an Ancestry^® membership, your results are now available to review.

 

References

"Ball Games of the World." Pennsylvania State University. Accessed July 18, 2024. https://sites.psu.edu/ballgamesoftheworld/ancient-ball-games/.

Ebbesen, Christian Laut and Michael Brecht. "Motor cortex — to act or not to act?". Nature Reviews Neuroscience. October 18, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2017.119.

Mao, Fan, Zelong Li, et al. "Developing integrative practice on basic soccer skills to stimulate cognitive promotion for children and adolescents." Frontiers in Psychology. April 19, 2024. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1348006.

Petrus, Monica. "The Brutal and Bloody History of the Mesoamerican Ball Game, Where Sometimes Loss Was Death." Atlas Obscura. January 9, 2014. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/meso-american-baseball.

"The Most Popular Sports In The World." World Atlas. Accessed July 18, 2024. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-are-the-most-popular-sports-in-the-world.html.