Originally Posted by
PoorInRichfield
I do find it odd that top cyclists look like they don't have a single muscle on their entire bodies, yet they are crazy-fast. Must be the whole "slow twitch" vs "fast twitch" muscle type thing?
No, it's the fact that road cycling is a primarily an aerobic sport, the upper body muscles aren't the primary drivers and that, other than the core, they're also not heavily relied upon for position.
Originally Posted by
PoorInRichfield
Then again, sprinters look like they have muscles.
That's because they're doing the opposite of what you're doing - they're not pushing themselves up, they're pulling up on the bars. For the most part, pedaling force is a lot less than that of the cyclist's body weight. The exception is something like sprinting, where the pedal force can significantly exceed the rider's weight, which means that the whole body needs to provide the platform to push against, with the arms and trunk anchoring against the bike via the bars.