Originally Posted by
burnthesheep
How's the big dude thing work? Why not once you have the mega power drop the pounds and keep the power? Is that not practicable?
I just never understand that, why not go out and eat a lot more, gain power, then drop the weight. That sounds naive, but I really don't understand. As I thought you had to have the heart/lungs to go with it. If a person holds their weight and has reached their normal cyclist leg sizes, gains are in the heart/lungs/mitochondria. It's not growing larger legs. Right?
So that's why I'm confused how a really large dude can make so much power on so little training volume. If someone is into that physiological info, I'd be all ears.
Yeah, this is something I have argu...uh, friendly discussions about frequently with the folks I race on Zwift with. They contend that racing me is unfair because my greater raw W at the same W/kg gives me an advantage on the flats (I'll agree somewhat but W aren't the only factor even on flats, and I have a bigger CdA due to my height and my weight gives me a bigger coefficient of friction), while we're both at the same level on the climbs. I argue that, even if we proportionally have the same amount of increase on accelerations or climbs, the extra 50W that I have to find that they don't for each 1 W/kg we increase has to come from somewhere. Energy ain't free and going from cruising at 330 to hitting 650/700 up the legsnapper vs their 195 to 390 makes me burn more matches for the same burst.
I also don't really get why I can increase a few W with less training than someone lighter than me unless having to carry my bulk around all day every day is a sort of resistance training for my muscles. Training improvement seems to track more with W/kg than W if you just look at bulk training. Could also be that I train very inefficiently, so I have a lot more room to improve than someone at the pointy end. I mean that's definitely true, but I'm not sure how that fits with the whole being bigger means I can improve more raw W than a lighter person at a similar fitness level.
As far as just getting strong big and then losing weight, it was sure a lot faster/easier lose weight in my 20s/30s. After passing 40 a few years back, my metabolism has slowed way down (even though I'm riding a lot more than I did in most of my 30s and probably more than riding + volleyball in my 20s, which was my sport of choice back then) and dropping weight is a lot slower/harder than it used to be.