stick thin

stronginthesun

from reading on this forum the way to climb faster is to lose weight ( from bike and body ) im not overweight but if i went below my ideal weight ( from the way bradley looks hes done it ) would i climb faster ? or would it just leave me with less power ? and ill health .

milese

I guess you want to get to the point where your body fat % is at the lowest it can be without hindering your power output or health. That would presumably be your ideal weight, not a figure you read on a generic chart.

IE, make sure you focus on losing fat without sacrificing muscle.

Make sure you eat enough, just watch your saturated fat intake.

Ands

Milese wrote:

Make sure you eat enough, just watch your saturated fat intake.

Wiggins also went gluten-free and alcohol-free.

neeb

What do you mean by your ideal weight? You're unlikely to get into the "underweight" category on the BMI if you are cycling seriously - even if you have almost no fat, the weight of the leg muscle will probably still put you into your "ideal weight" range. Of course the BMI is of limited use in this context.

Unless you are a pro you will get no real advantage by getting close to being undernourished. Of course the pros don't benefit either from being undernourished, it's just that for them the marginal benefits of 1 or 2 kilos in terms of seconds on a climb mean that they can be right on the borderline. For the rest of us the difference between being 60kg and 62 probably isn't going to make a massive difference even if you are racing, so you want to have as little body fat as possible while still erring securely on the side of being properly nourished.

I guess with experience you get to know when you are starting to cross the line into being "underweight" in a negative way, as you simply stop getting faster due to lacking energy. Once you know what that weight is you can make sure you stay on the right side of it. The other thing to bear in mind is that the closer you are to being borderline undernourished the more important it is to eat the right things - what you DO east needs to be healthy and balanced otherwise you will risk being deficient in particular vitamins, minerals, amino acids etc.

acebobby

What would be a sensible body fat percentage to set as a weight loss goal and how many percent can you expect to lose in say a month?
I read that a 6 pack is only visible on guys with less than 8 % body fat, is there any truth in that?

dmch2

It depends where your body puts its fat. Body fat measurements usually check at 4 locations to account for this.

i think 14% is the recommended healthy level. I was down at 8% when i was really fit doing 11 sessions a week at uni. No way could I do that and have a job!

acebobby

dmch2 wrote:

It depends where your body puts its fat. Body fat measurements usually check at 4 locations to account for this.

i think 14% is the recommended healthy level. I was down at 8% when i was really fit doing 11 sessions a week at uni. No way could I do that and have a job!

Yeah having a job sure does take up alot of your useable time!
How fit are you now in comparison to when you were really fit at uni and what sort of body fat percentage do you find easy to maintain with a job and all the other distractions of life?

DCowling

Ands wrote:

Milese wrote:

Make sure you eat enough, just watch your saturated fat intake.

Wiggins also went gluten-free and alcohol-free.

Not sure I would want to climb the hills that fast

rick_chasey

Best way to go uphill faster is to train lots!

You only need to really focus on your weight once you're already at a decent level of fitness.

More power is always good!

amaferanga

Unless you've been training hard for a while then proper training will probably make more of a difference to your speed up hills than losing a bit of weight. Have you been doing any threshold intervals?