Honestly, we can not afford Bobby Julich… so his “Battle of the Bulge” is not TriLife Coaching-sponsored article but it is so tempting to pretend that Bobby wrote this after talking to our coaching staff. How else he would know to say such a TriLife “staples” as:
Gone are the days when we used to eat as much as we could at the table because we thought that the more we eat, the more energy we have for the next day’s training or race. The overall goal of every cyclist is to have the best power to weight ratio as possible. A good rider in the peloton has a ratio of 6 watts/kg, a great rider has 6.5 watts/kg and the best can have over 7 watts/kg at threshold. But while being lean is important, riders can go too far and actually start to lose power.
I had a (Ed: coach or team) director that, as you were shaking hands, would grab your arm or waist and do his version of the fat caliper test! He wouldn’t even say anything, but you could tell by the look on his face if he was happy or if you had some work to do.
… the riders who put on more weight often make the mistake of doing ultra-long “fat burning” rides with the hope that they will lose the weight more quickly. I have witnessed riders doing 6-8hr rides at 30kph with little or no food before or during the rides. This may sound like a logical technique, but it does not work very often. This technique can lead to major mental and physical fatigue as well as depression. It takes a very strong head to go from eating whatever it was that made them gain all this weight in the first place to eating almost nothing at all. This is a desperate attempt at a “quick fix” and can lead to bigger problems down the road.
Please read and file away.
