Upper-body training for cyclists

[Cance > TheRest]

Re:

As a rationalist, I think it's important to keep facts and figures in mind. Here are the BMIs of a few noted GT men:

*Bradley Wiggins: 19.8
*Chris Horner: 21.6
*Nairo Quintana: 21
*Steven Kruiswijk: 20.8
*Rafał Majka: 20.7
*Esteban Chaves: 20.1
*Alberto Contador: 20
*Joaquim Rodríguez: 20
*Vincenzo Nibali: 19.8
*Fabio Aru: 19.7
*Chris Froome: 19.5
*Domenico Pozzovivo: 19.5
*Alejandro Valverde: 19.5
*Thibaut Pinot: 19.4

Fixed this for you. Wiggins was down to 71.8 kg when he won Le Tour. The number you used were after he started gaining.

 

[Brullnux]

Wiggins' BMI at his best for GTs was 19.1 (1.90 height and weighing 69kg) maximum. Grooms says he weighs 71 but at his best I think he gets down to 66kg.

Funny though, all these guys are healthy weights. Wiggins @ 23 is almost overweight.

@cance and the rest
Wiggins was 71.4 in 2014 IIRC, now he is 83. In 2012 he was maximum 69, maybe less. He says at times he was 66/67, which gives a BMI of around 18.5, the limit of being a 'healthy' weight

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Re:

Wiggins' BMI at his best for GTs was 19.1 (1.90 height and weighing 69kg) maximum. Grooms says he weighs 71 but at his best I think he gets down to 66kg.

Funny though, all these guys are healthy weights. Wiggins @ 23 is almost overweight.

@cance and the rest
Wiggins was 71.4 in 2014 IIRC, now he is 83. In 2012 he was maximum 69, maybe less. He says at times he was 66/67, which gives a BMI of around 18.5, the limit of being a 'healthy' weight

I do believe you. He was really really skinny around 2012-2013. No wonder he dropped out of the Giro as soon as it started raining a little bit. It's also interesting that he was as great as ever in the time trials in those seasons

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

Re:

As a rationalist, I think it's important to keep facts and figures in mind. Here are the BMIs of a few noted GT men:

*Bradley Wiggins: 23
*Chris Horner: 21.6
*Nairo Quintana: 21
*Steven Kruiswijk: 20.8
*Rafał Majka: 20.7
*Esteban Chaves: 20.1
*Alberto Contador: 20
*Joaquim Rodríguez: 20
*Vincenzo Nibali: 19.8
*Fabio Aru: 19.7
*Chris Froome: 19.5
*Domenico Pozzovivo: 19.5
*Alejandro Valverde: 19.5
*Thibaut Pinot: 19.4

so many on thet list are wrong:

wiggins is totally wrong. wiggins was 69 kg bij 1.90 when he won the tour

also quintana is wrong. I assume you take his weight of 59 kg bij 1.67 which is wrong. he is 167 and 52 in topform, at the end of a gt, 51-50 kg

chris horner is wrong. I think you take his wrong height and weight as 180x71 when he really was 178x63

 

[Libertine Seguros]

As great as ever? He was by far at his beset in TTs in 2012. He won every long one he entered and was 2nd in almost every prologue (Romandie the exception). He had never been that good even as a more powerfully-built ITT specialist, even with Garmin who were a team all about the time trials.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Re:

As great as ever? He was by far at his beset in TTs in 2012. He won every long one he entered and was 2nd in almost every prologue (Romandie the exception). He had never been that good even as a more powerfully-built ITT specialist, even with Garmin who were a team all about the time trials.

I think I mis-used the expression. What I meant was that Wiggins was at his absoulte best, hence the "interesting". So I agree with you on everything you said.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

now if you want a strong bmi from a tour contender, look no further than botero with a bmi of 24.5

 

[memyselfandI]

Re:

As a rationalist, I think it's important to keep facts and figures in mind.

lol...right. You lead by example so grab a bike and foremost racing license. Please go ahead and show something for us (bar UCI-calendar races, French dn1 minimum)

 

[staubsauger]

Aru was down to 59 - 60 kilos during last years Giro. Which means a BMI of ~18.4!

Pro cyclists lie about their weight like teenage girls. Just exactly the other way around. They apparently make themselves up to 5 kilos heavier to not seem too anorexic, nowadays.

Rasmussen for example peaked no-way at 59 kilos. He weights 56.5 Kilos nowadays after retirement. That should mean he nearly certainly down-peaked at those 55 Kilos which were rumored at the 2006 Tour when his infamous picture was taken. While his height is 1.74 that means a BMI of 18.2 during his prime years. Including at least some leg muscles. He was lucky to have very thin legs due to tiny bones and muscles. Still, pre AICAR, chicken did an incredibly strict diet to reach his optimum weight! That was pure suffer for sure.

 

[DFA123]

Re:

Aru was down to 59 - 60 kilos during last years Giro. Which means a BMI of ~18.4!

Pro cyclists lie about their weight like teenage girls. Just exactly the other way around. They apparently make themselves up to 5 kilos heavier to not seem too anorexic, nowadays.

Rasmussen for example peaked no-way at 59 kilos. He weights 56.5 Kilos nowadays after retirement. That should mean he nearly certainly down-peaked at those 55 Kilos which were rumored at the 2006 Tour when his infamous picture was taken. While he's 1.74 heigh that means an BMI of during his prime years.

It's incredible that he could even grip the handlebars with such little mass, let alone be one of the best bike handlers and descenders we've ever seen in the peloton. Just imagine how fast he could fly around the corners if he had forearms like Popeye - he'd probably break the sound barrier.

 

[CheckMyPecs]

Re: Re:

The BMI list I posted earlier proves there is no real correlation between BMI and GT success. Some guys have won GTs with a BMI of 19.5, others with 21.6 and still others with 23. A smart rider would therefore use this margin to bulk up his upper body and reap the numerous benefits large upper-body muscles have to offer.

It's incredible that he could even grip the handlebars with such little mass, let alone be one of the best bike handlers and descenders we've ever seen in the peloton. Just imagine how fast he could fly around the corners if he had forearms like Popeye - he'd probably break the sound barrier.

That's not what the facts say: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzeknUUhRoE

 

[meat puppet]

CMP should consider consulting for pro teams and demand high fees. Plenty of very low hanging fruit up for grabs it seems.

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

The BMI list I posted earlier proves there is no real correlation between BMI and GT success. Some guys have won GTs with a BMI of 19.5, others with 21.6 and still others with 23. A smart rider would therefore use this margin to bulk up his upper body and reap the numerous benefits large upper-body muscles have to offer.

It doesn't work that way. Maybe you should start by comparing mean BMI of all riders to mean BMI of GT podium riders in the last years.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

The BMI list I posted earlier proves there is no real correlation between BMI and GT success. Some guys have won GTs with a BMI of 19.5, others with 21.6 and still others with 23. A smart rider would therefore use this margin to bulk up his upper body and reap the numerous benefits large upper-body muscles have to offer.

It doesn't work that way. Maybe you should start by comparing mean BMI of all riders to mean BMI of GT podium riders in the last years.

Or perhaps he could even stop using something as worthless as BMI as a means of trying to show anything. What is this, the 1970s?

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

The BMI list I posted earlier proves there is no real correlation between BMI and GT success.

No it doesn't, because most of them were wrong

Using Wiggins' current weight, 16kg heavier than his TdF weight, to help back up your point is a bending of the truth most politicians would be proud of. Your argument before at least had some professionals backing what you're saying (albeit all writing to recreational cyclists, or amateurs) but now you've included made up facts, and by doing so discrediting your own argument.

 

[Red Rick]

I get the feeling CMP is waiting for one of us to ask for selfies lol

 

[Gigs_98]

I just noticed that the thread was started by CMP because he wanted to show that riders should have more bulk and now he wants to prove that by saying Wiggins also had a high BMI in 2012 when Wiggins looked like this:

So if I understand him correctly he wants that the riders look exactly like they do on the first pictures he posted

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

Re:

Aru was down to 59 - 60 kilos during last years Giro. Which means a BMI of ~18.4!

Pro cyclists lie about their weight like teenage girls. Just exactly the other way around. They apparently make themselves up to 5 kilos heavier to not seem too anorexic, nowadays.

Rasmussen for example peaked no-way at 59 kilos. He weights 56.5 Kilos nowadays after retirement. That should mean he nearly certainly down-peaked at those 55 Kilos which were rumored at the 2006 Tour when his infamous picture was taken. While his height is 1.74 that means a BMI of 18.2 during his prime years. Including at least some leg muscles. He was lucky to have very thin legs due to tiny bones and muscles. Still, pre AICAR, chicken did an incredibly strict diet to reach his optimum weight! That was pure suffer for sure.

rasmussen also wasn't 174. he was more 1.79 or 1.80

 

[staubsauger]

That's what he's officially listed. The cyclingnews arricle about his 2005 Colnago bike states 1.75 meters and 60 kilo.

He's smaller than Contador who's listed as 1.76 meters! http://multimedia.pol.dk/archive/00618/Contador_k_rer_gade_618334a.jpg

 

[CheckMyPecs]

For the sake of transparency, I work with publicly available weights and heights. If any of you is privy to top-secret insider information, you are more than welcome to share it so I can update the list, but remember to link to your sources.

 

[CheckMyPecs]

Re: Re:

It doesn't work that way. Maybe you should start by comparing mean BMI of all riders to mean BMI of GT podium riders in the last years.

That would introduce a plethora of confounding variables —VO2 max, the fast-twitch-to-slow-twitch fibre ratio, haematocrit levels, different training regimens and objectives...

By limiting the comparison to the same category of riders (GT men), you eliminate confounding variables and can focus on the one variable that really interests us, which is BMI.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

When the routes of long-form stage races become less conducive to victories by wispy, frail escaladors, the frames of the riders who win those races will go up. Even if we go by the stated heights and weights you've used to get your BMI figures, it's no coincidence that the highest GT winner BMI on your list is the guy that won the most TT-biased GT in a decade. On current GT routes with multiple mountaintop finishes - and many of them seeking out the steepest climbs possible as well - and very little time trial mileage or rouleur difficulties, there is little need for a GT contender to have a muscular upper body, and if you wish to change that to return the physiques of the riders at the front to the Armstrong/Botero/Ulle template, the courses need to be changed to suit that; increasing the time trial mileage, and more long and grinding climbs as opposed to inconsistent hell-slopes (in this development the Vuelta is particularly notable, with more gradual climbs being eschewed in favour of a hunt for a new Angliru) that will suit that type of rider over the minuscule grimpeur.

Your argument as presented is based on cherry-picking, choosing guys who are on the cusp of eating disorders like Jani and Ras and comparing them to riders who have an entirely different specialization, such as Sagan. You have to compare like for like. If you want to say that cyclists are getting too thin and using scrawny climbers as the comparison point, then you have to compare them to scrawny climbers of the past. Since being tall is a key factor in this as the taller grimpeurs are the ones that look most spindly as they're less naturally compact so look most underweight, a comparison to relatively tall climbers of the past is more appropriate. Take Chava Jiménez for a late 90s comparison, because he's the kind of rider who would be more of a contender on a modern course than he was in his time. For a more recent example you could use Andy Schleck.

 

[Red Rick]

Re: Re:

It doesn't work that way. Maybe you should start by comparing mean BMI of all riders to mean BMI of GT podium riders in the last years.

That would introduce a plethora of confounding variables —VO2 max, the fast-twitch-to-slow-twitch fibre ratio, haematocrit levels, different training regimens and objectives...

By limiting the comparison to the same category of riders (GT men), you eliminate confounding variables and can focus on the one variable that really interests us, which is BMI.

So no control group. Aight.

 

[nogav1ca]

Re: Re:

It doesn't work that way. Maybe you should start by comparing mean BMI of all riders to mean BMI of GT podium riders in the last years.

That would introduce a plethora of confounding variables —VO2 max, the fast-twitch-to-slow-twitch fibre ratio, haematocrit levels, different training regimens and objectives...

By limiting the comparison to the same category of riders (GT men), you eliminate confounding variables and can focus on the one variable that really interests us, which is BMI.

Says a guy who posted pics of Cipo and Sagan...

EDIT: and yes, also of Armstrong (post retirement).

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

It doesn't work that way. Maybe you should start by comparing mean BMI of all riders to mean BMI of GT podium riders in the last years.

That would introduce a plethora of confounding variables —VO2 max, the fast-twitch-to-slow-twitch fibre ratio, haematocrit levels, different training regimens and objectives...

By limiting the comparison to the same category of riders (GT men), you eliminate confounding variables and can focus on the one variable that really interests us, which is BMI.

So no control group. Aight.

Very scientific