If your loosing weight, can you be gaining power?

JimboPlob
JimboPlob Posts: 397
edited April 2013 in Training, fitness and health
This may be a daft question, but assuming one is already very lean (approx 6% BF), and they are loosing weight (due to increased activity/better diet), can they also be gaining power?

I know from weight lifting days, that its impossible to try and add muscle whilst in the "cutting" phase i.e. reducing weight.

Comments

  • Tom Dean
    Tom Dean Posts: 1,723
    I don't know, but I'm not sure that a diet that resulted in weight loss from a starting point of 6% body fat could be described as 'better'.
  • danlikesbikes
    danlikesbikes Posts: 3,898
    I'm not sure but will have a try at answering.

    Would expect that you should if careful be able to loose weight but maintain our power, which is a good thing as the same power with less weight well you can do the maths yourself but it works out in your favour.

    As for increasing power (cycling specific) generally would suggest that this can be do through exercise of which a byproduct would be if eating healthy a reduction in body weight. However you have added in the fact that you have relatively low body fat so assume you possibly might be carrying around extra weight that your looking to loose possibly from another sport. If so then yes you can loose that and it should not effect you.
    Pain hurts much less if its topped off with beating your mates to top of a climb.
  • SBezza
    SBezza Posts: 2,173
    Yes, as long as you are sensible and try and make sure the weightloss is mostly fat rather than muscle. I always think if you eat enough protein to support muscle repair then the muscles you use most will not catabolise anyhow.

    If you are extremely low in bodyfat terms, as you say you are, it will be very very difficult, and you WILL lose muscle from parts of the body not being used but it is possible, just needs to be done very very carefully, as mentioned above wether the diet is "better" is open to debate I suppose. If you eat enough calories you will not lose that much anyhow, unless you still run a deficit but with bodyfat that low you haven't really got much fat to lose without the possibility to start getting ill if you are not careful.
  • james_oregon
    james_oregon Posts: 9
    yes you can if youre losing fat and keeping your lean muscle and you should also gain a better power/weight ratio
  • Pokerface
    Pokerface Posts: 7,960
    It's LOSE weight FFS.
  • Fatamorgana
    Fatamorgana Posts: 257
    It's "you're" (short for you are)
    not
    "your" losing weight (very different meaning).

    Wasn't Mr Wiggings 4% body fat going into the Olympics?
  • grazza_e
    grazza_e Posts: 36
    Depends how exactly are you defining power? Weightlifting is a much more about muscle mass and growth. In cycling terms power brings in factors such as your anaerobic thershold which is a completely different matter.

    I didn't bother to google about, but my simplistic answer would be yes you can improve your threshold power while losing weight but depending on how much you are trying to lose and how quickly it could be quite hard.

    Completely non-scientific answer, but it's based on my own experience where i've lost several kilo's and during same period improved my threshold power.
  • dawebbo
    dawebbo Posts: 456
    6% BF is seriously low - unless you're a pro why would you want to get even skinnier? Putting potential health issues aside, it's not a good look...
  • richa
    richa Posts: 1,631
    For sure.

    Firstly, the main aim of losinbg weight is likely to reduce your fat%.

    Secondly, even if there were muscle loss (and this is likely to be very limited if you asre eating/dieting sensibly and copntinue to train/use the relevant muscles)then muscle mass is unlikely to be the constraint on cycling 'power' for endurance rides.
    Rich
  • Setarkos
    Setarkos Posts: 239
    Short answer: yes of course.
    Exampple: put a body builder with 6% body fat on a bike for a few weeks and for all durations exceeding 10min he will increase his power while losing loads of upper body muscle weight possibly even increasing body fat percentage and nevertheless losing weight while increasing power.

    However we would need more information about you to answer your question sensibly.
    6% body fat is very low - professional cyclists can get down to about 4% but only for a few weeks without drastically losing form (and most likely not in fully natural ways...)

    My first question would be what power you're referring to: threshold power? maximal power? ...?
    What's your goal? What are you trying to achieve?
    How did you measure your body fat %?
    Blog ---- Excel Training Planner
  • edten
    edten Posts: 228
    At 6% body fat, unless you have a coach/ dietician etc looking after your interests your just going to risk screwing yourself. I lost some weight last year, down to about 62.5kg, felt great at first, and absolutely flying but after 4 weeks i started getting ill and continued to for some time after putting the weight back on. I'm not saying you shouldnt but just highlighting you have to be really careful when you're heading into the extreme. Without the correct knowledge loss of muscle mass and performance is very likely.

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