Fat but Fit!?

MrGeebs

You often see tubby lads cycling round trail centres and the sight of a fatty on a bike is not uncommon, but hats to off to them at least they get out & about, living a bit of life.
I carry a lil bit extra weight, I'm 6ft tall and weigh about 15 stone and a bit, so not too bad,I'm certainly no lard arse. I like a beer and my grub & I get out on my bike a lot so I'm not really bothered about it. Currently I go out for average 3 rides a week, each a minumum of 20 miles and one longer bout 40 on a sunday. I've been riding at this level for over a year now and I love it. I rarely get properly out of breath and I really like to give it some along the roads with high intensity work outs. My mate who I go out riding with is taller than me and more muscular and thinner, a lot but not skinny. I leave him for dead all the time, I have to wait on him. So I'd like to suggest that you can be fat and fit & that being a fatty mtber is no shame, lol.

Matt_as

You can be fat and fit but you can also be skinnier and fitter.

cooldad

You don't have to be a racing snake to enjoy playing with your toys in the mud.

tallmansix

You still need to be fit, but the disadvantages of extra body weight take more or less effect depending on the exercise.

Think of the difference between 7.5 stone and 15stone (me)
1. Walking / running - requires holding and lifting whole body weight on one leg, weight matters.
2. Stair climbing, need to haul your whole body weight, it does matter
3. Cycling on the level, much of your body weight is supported through the bike frame and just becomes extra drag on the tyre rotation, which is the only extra effort a heavy cyclist needs to overcome once moving. Some people are so into saving bike weight, it makes you think it makes a big difference. It does on climbs however where the stair climbing scenario comes into play and big riders will feel their weight. But likewise they will descend faster.

Also extra weight can mean more torque at those pedals for quicker starts.

brindlescoops

tallmansix wrote:

You still need to be fit, but the disadvantages of extra body weight take more or less effect depending on the exercise.

Think of the difference between 7.5 stone and 15stone (me)
1. Walking / running - requires holding and lifting whole body weight on one leg, weight matters.
2. Stair climbing, need to haul your whole body weight, it does matter
3. Cycling on the level, much of your body weight is supported through the bike frame and just becomes extra drag on the tyre rotation, which is the only extra effort a heavy cyclist needs to overcome once moving. Some people are so into saving bike weight, it makes you think it makes a big difference. It does on climbs however where the stair climbing scenario comes into play and big riders will feel their weight. But likewise they will descend faster.

Also extra weight can mean more torque at those pedals for quicker starts.

They wont really descend that much faster, they (OK I) may have a little more mass to push the bike over roots and such, but according to Mr Newton, on a smooth descent it doesn't matter if you are Frankie Dettori or Rik Waller!!

spr wheelie

you can be both fat and fit but its worth remembering there are differnt kinds of fitness. i an no small bloke and am reasonably fit. ish. some times.

for example i can lift more than many of my thinner mates but they can do more press ups/ pull ups ect and although i may be faster than some thinner people i know i'm also faster when im a bit lighter.

so although you can be fat and fit, any fat bloke would be fitter if they weighed a littell less.



happy with my weight just got to reach my target height.

YeehaaMcgee

MrGeebs wrote:

I rarely get properly out of breath

You can definitely carry extra weight, but still be fit, and if you keep riding regularly, the weight will eventually come off.
However, if you rarely get out of breath properly, then maybe you're not actually pushing yourself very hard?

tallmansix

BrindleScoops wrote:

They wont really descend that much faster, they (OK I) may have a little more mass to push the bike over roots and such, but according to Mr Newton, on a smooth descent it doesn't matter if you are Frankie Dettori or Rik Waller!!

I know where you are coming from but a bike going downhill doesn't approximate Newton laws as it is not frictionless.

In the case of doubling the rider weight, if friction caused by the wheels and bike and the air exactly double in proportion to the weight, then yes there is no advantage but I don't believe friction doubles with the weight of the rider and therefore they have a advantage.

YeehaaMcgee

I think what you're saying is that a fattie's inertia overcomes their wind resistance substantially, but a skinny person wouldn't?

Hmm. I'm not sure I'm convinced about that - I smell an experiment coming on!

cooldad

Wind resistance obviously increases substantially when going uphill.

YeehaaMcgee

cooldad wrote:

Wind resistance obviously increases substantially when going uphill.

I know you're being sarcastic, but that does remind me of a ride about a month ago where I struggled into a ~40mph headwind all the way from Capel curig, up Llanberis pass, then actually struggled to pedal down the damned hill on the far side, since the wind was so strong.
I hate days like that.

cooldad

Wind can be scary. I used to live in Auckland and had to go over the Harbour Bridge to get to the office. Sometimes I used to go in by motorcycle, and the crosswinds could knock me a whole lane sideways.
If it was too bad they used to pull all the bikes over and arrange a truck to take us across. Kiwis are nice like that.

YeehaaMcgee

Wow, really? That's amazing!
I don't mind sidewinds so much. My ride home from work goes along the coast, along a more or less deserted road right by the sea. If there's a strong enough sidewind, it's sometimes possible to "tack" using the wind and the whole width of the road.

cooldad

Harbour Bridge, slightly modified.

YeehaaMcgee

Is it modified? I can't tell. Looks perfectly normal!

cooldad

Yeah, darkened up the sea and removed some clouds. Also added in the little boat, as you rarely see any in the City of Sails.

YeehaaMcgee

A yes, I can see the resultant grainyness now that you've pointed that out.

brindlescoops

tallmansix wrote:

BrindleScoops wrote:

They wont really descend that much faster, they (OK I) may have a little more mass to push the bike over roots and such, but according to Mr Newton, on a smooth descent it doesn't matter if you are Frankie Dettori or Rik Waller!!

I know where you are coming from but a bike going downhill doesn't approximate Newton laws as it is not frictionless.

In the case of doubling the rider weight, if friction caused by the wheels and bike and the air exactly double in proportion to the weight, then yes there is no advantage but I don't believe friction doubles with the weight of the rider and therefore they have a advantage.

Agreed, but its very minimal for trail centre and defo road riding etc, unless you were riding through 8" of porridge as I was today on the Evans Liphook ride!

ilovedirt

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

MrGeebs wrote:

I rarely get properly out of breath

However, if you rarely get out of breath properly, then maybe you're not actually pushing yourself very hard?

This, if you're aiming to get fitter, you should be getting yourself out of breath all the time.

That said, I get fitter and less fit depending how busy I am and how much I manage to get out on the bike. Even when I'm at my fittest, I still never manage to get rid of the slight belly I have or drop below 12 stone.

One 80

on the road a fatter person will always beat the skinny guy down hill. and i dont mean a short hill im talking a hill of some distance where the weight has time to build up momentum.provided the skinny guy doesnt pedal,lol

drop a fat guy out of a plane and a skinny guy and the fat guy will hit the floor first. im no scientist though and im not prepared to verify this test.

mintedox

I'm proper skinny and not that fit, fitter than some fat people though.

ilovedirt

Aye, I have a mate who's super skinny, but also super unfit. I'm much bigger/tubbier than him but can out-ride him anywhere. He doesn't ride regularly though, and he smokes (or used to).

andy_welch

Without wishing to offend the OP (obviously I know nothing about their specific situation, they may be carrying a huge amount of muscle for all I know), but it's interesting that nobody has questioned the assertion that 6 foot and "15 stone and a bit" doesn't really count as fat. For most of the population that would be a good three stone above their ideal weight (and about 2 stone above the top of the healthy range). Just imagine what 42 lb of lard looks like and you can see that, whether it's on your arse or not, that's a lot of lard

Cheers,

Andy

Chunkers1980

BMI is utterly rubbish when it comes to people with muscle.

42lb of muscle is a lot smaller than 42lb of fat.

andy_welch

Chunkers1980 wrote:

BMI is utterly rubbish when it comes to people with muscle.

42lb of muscle is a lot smaller than 42lb of fat.

Which is why I qualified it with "for most of the population". Just because BMI isn't useful for highly trained athletes doesn't make it rubbish. The problem is that ordinary people who really don't want to face up to the fact that they are an unhealthy weight will use comments like these to keep their heads in the sand. "OK my BMI is a bit high, but BMI is rubbish anyway".

As I say, this is not directed at the OP. I fully accept that it's quite possible to be fit, healthy and weigh 15 stone (although you'll still get up hills quicker if you lose a bit of weight). But it's hard to see how we are going to deal with the obesity problems if we start thinking that 6 foot tall and 15 stone is normal.

Anyway, this is all a bit off topic and bound to annoy some people, so I'll shut up now

Cheers,

Andy

One 80

mintedox

I would

YeehaaMcgee

That's all muscle

Lemmy316

One 80 wrote:

on the road a fatter person will always beat the skinny guy down hill. and i dont mean a short hill im talking a hill of some distance where the weight has time to build up momentum.provided the skinny guy doesnt pedal,lol

drop a fat guy out of a plane and a skinny guy and the fat guy will hit the floor first. im no scientist though and im not prepared to verify this test.

They'd hit at the same time, the fatty would have a larger mass but that mass would equate to more resistance against the force of gravity and thus would not cause him to fall any faster than the skinny guy. Galilieo figured out this conundrum over 400 years ago.

cat_with_no_tail

Surely body fat % is a better indication of wether or not some is actually fat?

I'm not saying that just because my BMI says I'm fat but my BF% says I'm healthy.... honest

Chunkers1980

Exactly. But actual fat % is very hard/expensive to measure. Bmi is the best proxy