ilovecycling

So everywhere I look, I see videos and photos of guys that literally look unhealthy. Their resting heart rates are below 40, they have great endurance, and so on..BUT are they really healthy people? To me, they look like cancer patients on the bucket list. They have no muscle mass on their upper bodies, their eyes are sunken in, and their skin sometimes looks saggy and wrinkly like girls with anorexia or bulimia. Having a low RHR and good endurance doesn't mean you aren't putting stress on the other systems and functions of your body.

A few of the elite don't look quite as bad, like Lance Armstrong for example. This guy has broad shoulders, six-pack abs, and looks like he has a healthy body type overall. From what I understand, he does some serious strength training when he's not on the bike. This has been a key part of his success, no?

So why do so many "weight weenies" really think that the aerodynamic benefits of having the upper body of a cancer patient outweigh (no pun intended) the benefits of having total body health and a stronger upper body and core? To me, it almost seems like a cycler's disease that's equivalent to anorexia with teenage girls.

What do you guys think? I personally don't believe that you need to look sick to be a great cyclist, or even the best cyclist in the world.

ADSR

ADSR

ADSR

10 Wheels

Post a Pic of you on your bike.

Tunnelrat81

Removed to avoid confusion. =)

Shuke

I'm 6'2" and weigh 143 pounds. Are you calling me fat?

Andy Schleck and I have the exact same build.

ADSR

ADSR

kleinboogie

Well, you're talking about the elite. This is their job. At some point someone said, "Listen. You can do what you love to do all day, everyday and we'll pay to fly you around the world and enter the most elite races riding the best bikes (our sponsor) has and pay you a salary to do it. We just need you to train hard and eat right. You in?" And they said, "Yes!"

HigherGround

Of all the pros you could have chosen, that's a rather ironic example.

max power

No. you forget he retired for three years and started doing weights just to look good. He admited himself that all his upper body mass was nothing but a hindrance towards his comeback. Johan said it best, "his muscles are good for when he's at the beach, no good on the bike" Compare pictures of him from 2009 (fresh out of retirement) and 2010 and he'd been able to shed most of the useless upper body muscle mass

just because the recent tour contenders have been climbing specialists doesn't mean "all elite cyclists" look like that

baribari

You might as well as if there are any tennis players who don't have playing arms bigger than their non-playing arms.

Being freakishly thin is more or less part of the game.

Even the sprinters still have body weights much lower than typical athletes of their heights, and they're "large" by cycling standards.

OTOH, I think Japanese keirin racers look a lot healthier because they don't have to climb hills.

max power

"i have seen many skinny riders, but not many TDF winners" Jan

revchuck 

Well...no.

When Armstrong went through his cancer and the treatment for it, one of the side effects was a loss of upper body muscle mass. This was widely regarded as an unexpected benefit. The reason elite cyclists look like they do is that upper body muscle mass adds weight that doesn't help them on the bike. Note that from the waist down, it's a different story. When Armstrong retired, he went back to being a generally fit guy, rather than just a cyclist, so he added muscle all over.

If you see a buff cyclist, he's probably either a triathlete (upper body strength needed for the swim) or a just a buff guy who uses the bike for his cardio work.

gsteinb

there really is more than one kind of cyclist

gsteinb

"why don't pitchers throw complete games every three days anymore?

Thulsadoom

I know what you mean, but you're looking through a pretty narrow scope. These people are extreme athletes. They get paid to ride well, and they do a ton of specialized training.

Most of what you see on tv is when the athletes are peaked for a specific race. The races are hard, the athletes look like hell, they have to survive. A couple of days after the race they look like a whole different person.

scirocco

I think this shows how confused you are. One body type is not inherently healthier than another. You can be carrying excess fat or not on the body you're born with, but light-framed guys in particular can't do much about their muscle mass. Your criticism of skinny cyclists makes as much sense as complaining that NBA players are excessively tall. The body type naturally selects the sport; the sport doesn't change the body type anything like as much as people think it does. Michael Rasmussen would have looked like a chicken whether he was a professional cyclist or ate at Burger King every day.

StephenH

I wasn't aware that extra muscle mass was a sign of overall health. How many 100-year-old people do you see with a lot of muscle mass? It seems to me that muscle is entirely a function of what you do, and if you spend a couple of hours a day pumping iron, you're going to look one way, if you ride a lot, you're going to look another way.

I remember a weight-lifting book many years ago. It pointed out that in a body-building competition, the average audience member was actually healthier than the contestants, due to the steroids and other drugs that the contestants had to use to look the way they did.

WHOOOSSHHH...

kenji666

Men naturally lose muscle mass as they get older. My 80 year old father has lost 20 pounds in the past 20 years. He's 6' tall and 140 pounds. I'm trying to get him into cycling, but he's not into it.

ilovecycling

Thanks for all the replies so far guys. I just wanted to get some insight on what other people think about the "ideal cycling physique."

I was not suggesting that you need to be "buff" to be good on a bicycle. I was merely suggesting that it might be possible to overcome any aero and weight advantages that might be gained from having no upper body mass by having stronger arms, shoulders, chest, etc that would fatigue less quickly and provide an overall "synergy" effect on the bike.

I also wasn't implying that cyclists starve themselves like anorexic people. I obviously know how much cyclists need to eat just to maintain their "normal" appearance. I guess I was talking more about the sometimes obsessive desire to look like the "pros." I don't think there's anything wrong with dedicating a few hours a week to weight training and eating a little more protein. Maybe it's a matter of vanity, but I personally would never want to look like those guys that look unhealthy.

Finally, I understand that body type does not determine overall health. Someone could look like a Greek god and die the next day of a heart attack. Again, this was more about cyclists looking unhealthy, not whether or not they actually are.

Thulsadoom

Well, as I posted earlier, I know what you mean. And I agree with most of what you are saying.

I guess to put it in a nutshell, unfortunately, most elite pro cyclists, and I assume we're talking about grand tour and stage race cyclists, don't have what most of us regular folks would consider a healthy looking body. Mostly because they carry very little upper body muscle. Cycling is predominately a lower body and aerobic based activity. Upper body muscle is just extra weight that will slow you down on a bike, especially going up hills. I guess that's just something that cycliing fans have to accept.

A pro cyclist doesn't need to do a lot of manual labor to get through his/her day. It benefits them to have the highest power to weight ratio possible, in order to win bicycle races. Consequently, they look wasted and sunken, sometimes much like someone who is sick. Especially to those of us who lead lives in which a little upper body, and full body, strength and leverage comes in handy from time to time.

But not all of them look that bad, and not all the time.

gsteinb

fandom aside, Lance didn't look anything like that when he was winning the tour. He looked kinda like a refuge camp victim.