ofajen

Mmmm.... doughnuts!

Homer

Drew Eckhardt 

Sure you can. They just won't be big.

Everyone has a 4 to 12 pack depending on how many tendinous intersections they were born with. An eight pack is most common.

Fat just hides it.

Cycling doesn't build muscle once you progress a bit beyond couch potato.

At even just 30 reps per minute out of the saddle the workload must be too low for hypertrophy and strength.

Track cyclists have huge muscles because they squat a multiple of their bodyweight in the gym.

Robert Förstemann maintains his 28 inch quads hefting 650 pounds:

cycler56

Thank you everyone for your cool reply.

Trakhak

Genetics, then (missing caption reads "Thanks for almost everything, Dad."):

Troul 

you'd likely seek an abnormal diet to support a hardcore workout. my gut feeling is that, unless your are willing to make a lifestyle change, the effort may not be sustainable for the end result.

02Giant 

Pics or it didn't happen.

rosefarts

I realize that there are a range of body types out there but for a presumably adult man, of any nationality, this doesn't make sense.

A skinny man with a BMI of 20 will usually still have a 28" waist. And is probably built such that a lifestyle of Twinkies, BBQ, and beer wouldn't raise the waist much over 30".

Is it possible you're converting from CM to inches incorrectly?

As a 28er myself, pants are an eternal struggle to find. If you're truly that skinny, what are you wearing?

So many questions...

SalsaShark

The only excercise i partake in anymore after my knee surgeries is cycling. When i am in my best shape, and putting in high mileage weeks of high effort riding, i develop a pretty defined abdominal section. I ride lots of hills in the saddle and can feel those muscles working while riding - it can be done.

rydabent

I started cycling again when I was 40. I am now 82 and have one big ab. We recumbent cyclist call it an aero belly.

Erzulis Boat 

Do you think she did this exercise a few times to illustrate, and the sequence is a loop? Or, did this poor girl keep doing this for hours? I swear I see little variances (shirt wrinkles, ankle position etc.) if I leave this on for a while.

63rickert

Look at old school bike racers. Greg Lemond, Bernard Hinault, Francesco Moser, Sean Kelly. They were built like tree trunks. Waist as big as the chest or hips. Massive core strength. This was back in the day when a racer raced minimum 150 days a year and 200 was common. That strength was used to keep them on the bike. Get out of alignment and then you are subject to injuries. Live on the bike and core strength will come. The old guys did not do gym work. It was all from the bike.

Most of us just don’t live and perform that way. Even modern pros do not develop that kind of core.

If I am doing intensive ab work then I can feel the abs engaging when climbing and it definitely helps. If I lived where climbing is important I would work the abs harder.

If attempting to learn sprinting core work is required. Back injuries happen from sprinting. Be prepared.

The second exercise posted by LeMond 85 is very good. Prescribed for me by a therapist long ago and it works. Keep your core straight and motionless while doing that one. Make it harder by doing it in slow motion. Make it even harder with wrist/ankle weights. Not personally familiar with that first exercise from same poster.

Some level of ab work will promptly and noticeably help most any cyclist.

burnthesheep

There's a grain of truth to this because a person over a certain body mass, no matter the ab exercises, the abs won't "show up".

Like, "strongmen" have crazy strong abs. But you just can't see them. You "see them" by being skinny.

There's only a reasonable level of "ripped" in a gym you can work on if it isn't your biggest hobby to make them "show up".

wolfchild

Visible abs doesn't mean strong abs., visible abs only means that your bodyfat percentage is low...Cycling won't build a strong core no matter how hard you ride or how much you ride. If you want to have a strong core you need to lift some heavy objects regularly and perform rotational core exercises such as swinging a heavy sledge hammer or swinging some other heavy object.

CaptMike

P90X - Ab Ripper X.

qwaalodge

It's possible if you do a lot of riding standing on the pedals.

I remember one time I did 10 minutes straight climbing out of the saddle, my abs are very sore some time after the ride and I did get flat abs riding without sitting on the saddle for a cumulative time of 30 minutes in every ride.

But I don't ride like that anymore. It felt dangerous enough if anything goes wrong in the drivetrain when you're out of the saddle.

If I feel like working on my waist, I just mash the pedals at high gear while sitted. It doesn't seem to work the abs but works the waist muscles quite nicely.

qwaalodge

The main difference is the old pros are mashing big gears back in the day and they don't sit in front of a computer for long periods. I used to do off bike core training exercises with and without weights.

But ever since I incorporated big gear / low cadence intervals in all my rides, I no longer needed any off bike core exercises and my core is stronger than ever.

The right posture also helps. The arched lower back posture is easier on the core than trying to keep it straight and also opens the hip angle. It's a quite powerful position, not to mention, it's very comfortable once you get used to it. Lots of pros assume such posture including Eddy Merckx and it's the natural / relaxed form the body would assume if you're pushing big gears. Ironically, recreational riders are often taught to keep their backs straight when riding when that posture is harder on the core muscles and spine and more prone to injury. Such posture is OKAY for spinning and normally taught in spin classes. But not when you have to push hard in a big climb.

63rickert

Nice pic of Thevenet. It illustrates your point well.

I don’t know where the idea old school were big gear mashers comes from. Yes, they climbed in relatively large gears. Otherwise they turned the pedals much faster. Peter Post still has the record for fastest Paris-Roubaix, top gear of 52x14. Sean Kelly won hundreds of races sprinting on 52x15.

Flattest back I ever saw was Greg Lemond. When he climbed his position did move towards what your photo shows. Pretty much everyone gets lower in front and bends the elbows more when the pace picks up. All get low, some bend at hip not waist and get flat.

Track riders who never climb but do ride a lot develop the same thick midsection as roadies. These days track is beyond specialized and the competitors get their bodies in the weight room. Six day riders of old looked just like roadies. The tiny indoor tracks usually had gear limits. On the bigger tracks with no limits few used more than 46x14 and the speeds were high.

When you push down on the pedals the pedal moves down. On a big gear, on a limiting climb, it would make just as much sense to push down and watch the riders torso move up. Even riding fast on the flat it would make sense to push down and watch the riders torso move up. The downward force on the pedal is much greater than rider weight. And much greater than the portion of rider weight that might be resisting the downward force. What keeps you in the saddle is core strength. Core is used all the time when riding. 5 year old children learning how to ride use core strength.

Old school raced 200 days a year. Extremists as Merckx raced 250 days a year. No gym work was done. Merckx in particular was known for using the rollers daily even when racing. Rollers are zero resistance training and the whole object is to keep pedal speed high.

The reason to do core exercise is most of us are not Merckx or Kelly or Thevenet. Training the quads for big power is relatively easy. Core strength to match comes slower. Best way to build core is to just plain ride a lot. Strong riders who have no chance of being on the bike 20,000 miles a year need to do specifics for core.

High gear work for core? Maybe. It is an interesting notion. Did old school get some of their core from the high gear climbing? Maybe, and again I think you are proposing something interesting. But riders who rode flats only and geared relatively low ended up with same core.

qwaalodge

The smallest gears used by classic pros is still high in today's standards especially in application to climbing. I suppose in this way, classic pros trained regularly in high gears.

That and the curved back posture I suppose was the best core development I ever had. It did require a change in bike fit however, one with less reach. I incorporate it in intervals in multiple training sessions per day. I previously tried planks, deadlifts with weights ofc, squats with weights, etc but weren't as good.

That technique took a while for me to learn. You're actually slamming your torso down in that technique to impart additional momentum from your torso into the legs. By the time the torso is slammed to the lowest position, you should be pushing the pedal down real hard. The downstroke then pushes the torso back up so you can slam it down again. It's like a dance. Needs a good sync of torso and leg movement. If a poor dancer like me, it will take a while to learn!

I still see many current TdF racers do it especially when facing the most difficult climbs.

GhostRider62

No idea if cycling builds ABs or what that even means but try loaded bike touring for a couple months in the mountains riding 8-12 hours per day. At the end of the tour, you will be able to do thousands of sit ups and that plank thing will be a joke. And, the fat will be gone and all your viens will be popping everywheres.

Troul 

for a couple of months at half those hours, an abdominal targeted workout could yield a very solid & strong core. That would take a lot of dedication when factoring in general life's day to day things though.

rumrunn6

this guy seems to know something about abs
https://www.youtube.com/c/athleanx/search?query=abs

qwaalodge

"Pulling" the pedals up with the hip flexor muscles works out the abs. But the force is not usually that big unless you're climbing with big gears or doing track sprinting.

Roadies and road racers are not required to have strong abs because they don't usually pull the pedals hard enough because to pull the pedals hard, you would have to push the pedals much harder to even things out. Endurance training sacrifices peak torque. Less pulling, means less abs workout.

GhostRider62

But I'm more interested in type 1 muscles.....not the puffy, showy muscles.

Troul 

In theory, it would be far more efficient to devote the hours in the gym to achieve the end goal. The reality is, if a person is more likely to ride a bicycle than go to a gym or do physical fitness at home, then using a bicycle would be in their best interest in achieving such fitness.
As the saying goes, there are many ways to skin a cat. Which way you go about it might be your best way about it.