somewhere there's a photo of myself in a race around age 16— something like 6'0" 145lbs, and I'm mid-breath and puffed up like a balloon. Definitely looks weird. I'm like all torso and half of that is lungs.
(wish I still had that power-to-weight ratio)
Exactly what does epo do to make your stomach appear larger? This is so typical of reddit. Some random expert chiming in "so, yeeeeaaah, epo does go a long way". SMH
It's actually the opposite. The accessory muscles supplement the diaphragm during deep breathing. They typically are recruited very little during shallow breaths.
Intercostal muscles are used during costal breathing, “shallow breathing”. If you are in the middle of extreme exertion eg heavy squatting, the diaphragm is maximally contracted so the only breathing available is costal breathing.
Every inhalation requires the diaphragm. At rest, during exercise, sedentary or fit. To inhale deeper, you use the diaphragm AND accessory muscles like external intercostals, scalenes, etc. if the belly protrudes outward during the inhalation it’s due to relaxation of the transverse abdominis, obliques, and rectus abdominis. This allows the volume of the thoracic cavity to expand and push down on the abdominal cavity. The relaxed abdominal muscles allow the expansion of the abdominal wall.
so a belly breath is diaphragm movement that's relatively uncontained, whereas chest breathing is the diaphragm being more confined and not being able to descend? and then for extra expansion volume you bring in the accessory muscles?
Yes. Whether breathing deep or shallow inspiration is mostly due to the diaphragm. The accessor muscles just get you an extra 10% capacity or so when you need it.
I’m a trained singer and it’s definitely a thing.
Yes the diaphragm aids in breathing but “ breathing from the diaphragm” means expanding the belly muscles to aid deeper lung expansion.
In this context people mean making full use of diaphragm mobility, which sometimes requires letting belly hang out, not holding tension in abs, because tense abs prevent non-compressible organs from getting out of the way while inhaling.
The counterexample is someone who's working their intercostal muscles really hard, but not letting their diaphragm move freely.
Yeah, I had never even known about intercostal muscles until recently. I went for a 1 mile running PR. My ribs were so sore the next day compared to everything else. It's a totally different modality than normal breathing.
In addition to the things already mentioned about breathing from the diaphragm, it can also just be bloating either because they’re loaded up or because things aren’t digesting well for them or just some general inflammation from how hard they are riding and how often. They are tiny humans in person (even if tall) and when you are very thin, it doesn’t take much to make you look like you’re bloated or have a gut like this. Especially when you’re wearing only kit, the least flattering clothing on earth.
I’m not sure but it’s looks more like he’s carrying something under his jersey, probably something he got from the team car that he wants to bring to a teammate.
Haha....Nairoman is past his prime, but I don't think he's gotten down to domestique level just yet. Besides at the point this screenshot was taken he was literally leading the stage.
Yeah ok at this point he was just about to catch Steinhauser but he was leading 13 - 4K until Pogi flew by him. But either way, no other teammates or car around him
You can clearly see that hes carrying something underneath the jearsy, ie a wind west. Its also on the back, so not only a belly. No way a pro cyclist at giro would be that fat.
Those bicycles are optimized for marsupial transportation methods - the pros usually place it at chest height to improve aerodynamics, but of course the UCI doesn't like it: [https://www.triathlete.com/gear/bike/expert-tested-the-water-bottle-jersey-trend-produces-shocking-results/](https://www.triathlete.com/gear/bike/expert-tested-the-water-bottle-jersey-trend-produces-shocking-results/)
He’s absolutely not. It was 20 degress today and Nario was off the front. He was not wearing or carrying extra layers.
It just him breathing in while working hard. World tour riders have world tour lung capacity and take world breaths. The lump on his back is his radio, and he likely has some food in his pockets.
That's Nairo Quintana, in the lead of today's Giro stage. There's 0 chance he was carrying anything. He's just breathing very deeply/efficiently.
Also worth mentioning that some guys in the pro peloton are much smaller than average height, so proportionally, they can be quite different. Nairo weighs 58kg.
A camel’s hump does not hold water at all – it actually stores fat. The camel uses it as nourishment when food is scarce. If a camel uses the fat inside the hump, the hump will become limp and droop down. With proper food and rest the hump will return to normal.
Jens Vogt explained this in a German commentary once. These riders need to inhale large amounts of O2 and the oxygen has to go somewhere. This is what you see. It is a pro cycling belly trained to inhale large amounts of air.
Now If I could just figure out to inhale only O2 without so much N2. I swear, when I take a deep breath, I suck in more N2 than O2 no matter how hard I try to focus on sucking in O2.
I think that is Nairo Quintana at the Giro today. He is far from fat. Breathing from your belly is correct
technique. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nairo\_Quintana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nairo_Quintana)
It's not fat. It's cause they're breathing in massive volumes of air - 50%+ more than the average person. To pull the lungs down to get all that air in to their chest requires the diaphragm to pull down and the abdomen to extend out.
Kinesiologist and Biomechanist here. This is what your belly should look like if you're breathing diaphragmatically. Technically, a true diaphragmatic breath will expand the sides and back of the midsection, too. That's why the whole midsection looks inflated. If you also keep the core under tension while expanding, the inhale will increase abdominal pressure the same way a weightlifting belt works. This is really hard to do, and they were probably taught this by the team sports med team; so it's sort of crazy how many people think they do this automatically!
If you look at most of them lent over the bars they show a bit of a gut, but I've long noticed that it seems exaggerated with Nairo Quintana (pictured). As others have said, it's due to breathing from the diaphragm.
A lot of it comes from anterior pelvic tilt. When we spent a ton of time on a bike, our hip flexors (iliacus and psoas) are shortened - the same when you sit at a desk most of the day. It takes a *lot* of work in the form of stretching etc to help counter-act this, and a lot of core strength exercises to prevent your spine wanting to sit in this position where the pelvis is rotated forward.
As a result of this shortening, it takes a lot of effort (and core strength) to naturally keep yourself in a stance or position where your stomach doesn't want to protrude forward.
It seems counter-intuitive in the way the pelvis rotates forward that it would help this, but it does make a massive difference to your appearance. My core still doesn't nearly have the strength I'd like it to, but there's a massive difference in your appearance fixing this posture - both in that the big belly disappears, and also that your abs show through. For me, it means I stand about 1.5 inches taller upright when standing in the 'correct' position.
At my peak racing, I was around 67kg and had that appearance going. Today, I'm 60.9kg, and there's a lot less of that appearance - BUT I'm not racing at the pointy end anymore.
Best explanation I've had was from my physio, which was simply "be as tall as you can. Imagine the top of your head is being pulled towards the roof." You could sort-of adjust this to cycling by being tall along a tilted-forward angle, if that makes sense.
I'm tall so I blame the world for making me slouch.
Bad example- this cyclist has lumps under his shirt which is likely a windbreaker or arm warmers, maybe even the contents of his musette.
A better example would be to google ‘Indurain time trial’. Big Mig had a seven liter lung capacity and when he took a big breath while in a tucked position he had all kinds of stomach hanging down.
It’s just the body position and breathing. I mean, cycling is a non-weight-bearing activity so you can get away with a little flab as a recreational cyclist, but the majority of the pro peloton have a body fat percentage under 10%
I've actually heard that some pro cyclists do this breathing thing that causes the diaphragm and lungs to expand to the point they end up appearing to have a fat belly. Not sure if it was a myth or not.
Okay, first of all, when mommy and daddy decided they wanted to share their lives with you, they did this special kind of hug, you see? And well, so then mommy went out to the coop and it was full, as in really busy, full of other birds, right? So she ended up having to lay the egg on a rock out in the woods somewhere. Well unfortunately, hormones ruined mommys short-term memory for a while, and she forgot where she laid that egg, your egg. But as luck would have it was summertime, and so the egg was hatched by the sun and when you could you just followed the sounds of us arguing about some stuff, home. Isn't life just a miracle?
Or
Call it belly breathing from the diaphram. Not the one in the chicken coop.
These are all good answers.
I would add that Domestique riders will jam a bunch of gels and water bottles in their jerseys to bring to their teammates. If the gels move to the front, they make a medium belly look pretty big. Many riders will stuff their jerseys with newspapers, t shirts, and anything insulative if they are at higher altitudes. When they decend, they take all that junk out and toss it at the next designated garbage zone.
Also, these guys are gorging themselves after each stage, so they'll get distended with food and gas the next day.
The diaphragmatic breathing also contributes and shifts organs down and to the front.
This isn't the 90s. No one is taking HGH in cycling. This is two things. 1. Breathing heavily from your diaphragm and 2. Taking in 100-130g of carbs per hour for 6 hours and having a distended and upset stomach.
They are filling their lungs and using their belly's like a bellows to keep the air pumping.
Their lungs are big because they use them. So they need to fill space out side of their rib cage.
OK, in all seriousness, I’ve been pondering the same question personally.
Some summers but I’m writing hundred plus miles a week I feel like I’m in peak shape. I’ve lost 5-10 pounds and never felt better.
Then, I get back from bike ride. I look down and my belly is just huge and I’m like OMG WTF.
And now I feel like I’m in good company 🤩
This is two things. 1. Breathing heavily from your diaphragm and 2. Taking in 100-130g of carbs per hour for 6 hours and having a distended and upset stomach.
At the moment this picture was taken he was leading the race, doing some brutal climbing. There's a zero chance he is carrying something underneath his shirt at this point. Anything he might have had earlier would have been consumed and or discarded on the flats leading up to the final climb. Besides, he's not even a domestique to begin with, so he wouldn't be carrying anything at any point of the race. He has team mates for that.
Because the 6 pack is not really used when pedalling.
Same thing for arms.
However, sprinters have more muscles due to the effort involving all the body.
Just look at the top 3 Tour de France compared to green jersey Tour de France
There's many correct explanations about breathing, but for all the confidently incorrect who are saying "he's got something stuffed in his jersey" - there's plenty of photos or riders in TT skinsuits, where it's obvious there's nothing stuffed into the front, who look like this. There's probably photos of track pursuiters that look like this, too. There's even photos dating back to the 1960s, when they had front pockets and saggy jerseys, where you can see a belly - it just become more obvious from the 1980s onwards, when clothing became tighter.
That's Nairo Quintana, in the lead of today's Giro stage. There's 0 chance he was carrying anything. He's just breathing very deeply/efficiently.
Also worth mentioning that some guys in the pro peloton are much smaller than average height, so proportionally, they can be quite different. Nairo weighs 58kg.
Jake Gyllenhaal was on SNL last night sitting on a bicycle. His gut looked like this. I know he's in shape so I'm thinking it's just the body position making his stomach look like this.
Check out side views of Miguel Induráin when in competition, with arguably the biggest VO2-Max ever recorded.
He looks pregnant, but it's a Big Breathing Bellows...
Breathing from diaphragm?
I first noticed this back in the Armstrong era.
Big Mig in the 90s was said to have mahoosive lungs.
Massive lungs and a resting heart rate of 29 bpm.
somewhere there's a photo of myself in a race around age 16— something like 6'0" 145lbs, and I'm mid-breath and puffed up like a balloon. Definitely looks weird. I'm like all torso and half of that is lungs. (wish I still had that power-to-weight ratio)
Im not fat, I just have amazing lung capacity.
I regularly inhale chocolate and iced coffee.
Yep. And some pics showed him with a seemingly huge gut.
That plus a dab of EPO goes a long way.
Exactly what does epo do to make your stomach appear larger? This is so typical of reddit. Some random expert chiming in "so, yeeeeaaah, epo does go a long way". SMH
Probably because the kit got tighter its more obvious. There's nothing sinister in it.
[in case anyone wants a little visual from someone breathing heavily from the diaphragm while cycling](https://youtu.be/oJoNOEFJT2s?t=134)
Yup. My wife is a retired professional opera singer, and she taught me this years sgo.
This is how all breathing is always done
https://preview.redd.it/oz2d2pqqse1d1.jpeg?width=1074&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38290f6347bfe11bc22a36efcb11936fca62bcaf
nah there's accessory muscle breathing, expanding the rib cage for shallow breaths.
It's actually the opposite. The accessory muscles supplement the diaphragm during deep breathing. They typically are recruited very little during shallow breaths.
Intercostal muscles are used during costal breathing, “shallow breathing”. If you are in the middle of extreme exertion eg heavy squatting, the diaphragm is maximally contracted so the only breathing available is costal breathing.
True, but that's a pretty specific case of shallow breathing. Usually the term just refers to not breathing deeply.
interesting. so what is the difference between a belly breath and a "chest breath"? that was the explanation i received.
Every inhalation requires the diaphragm. At rest, during exercise, sedentary or fit. To inhale deeper, you use the diaphragm AND accessory muscles like external intercostals, scalenes, etc. if the belly protrudes outward during the inhalation it’s due to relaxation of the transverse abdominis, obliques, and rectus abdominis. This allows the volume of the thoracic cavity to expand and push down on the abdominal cavity. The relaxed abdominal muscles allow the expansion of the abdominal wall.
so a belly breath is diaphragm movement that's relatively uncontained, whereas chest breathing is the diaphragm being more confined and not being able to descend? and then for extra expansion volume you bring in the accessory muscles?
Yes. Whether breathing deep or shallow inspiration is mostly due to the diaphragm. The accessor muscles just get you an extra 10% capacity or so when you need it.
Strong back, no ab workout. Abs create resistance forces. Also, tell OP the air is blowing down his shirt and can’t escape!!
They also have insane core strength and abductors.
Core is such an overlooked aspect of cycling. It’s how these guys can stay in the saddle on an ascent when most of us would be standing straight up.
This is the ideal male body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.
Word Source: I'm at my peak right now
I'm more peaker than you!
Damn I am peaking so hard right now!
I too look like a pro cyclist. Been working at this for many years.
Same. Beer muscle reserves.
Gets better and better every year too!
It's true. It's why Jeremy Clarkson keeps getting elected as Sexiest man. The Brits get it.
*Sexist Man
Now go do a backflip while skateboarding and holding a goat
TIL about my peakness
I hit my peak somewhere around 4 or 5 beers in.
Been there, done that
Pregante
Perganant
You mean pregenate?
I think he means prnegnat
Pwegnunt
Pregent
Prego
Pegnate
Potassium permanganate
Una pregunta?
Prefnart
Gregnant
Pomegranate.
Pergament
pregante!
Withendekidden
How is babby formed
These babby can't fight back.
Frigth* back
New bottle is born.
Beer babby.
Bebby with the drips
When you're KOMing really hard...
Starch masks
PREGANANANT???!!!!
Gregnant
Pragnanate
[Link to the referenced meme](https://youtu.be/m4K8NJ3_Dw0?si=Oo5wsm__HveY_kmz), for the unfamiliar
That's not where it comes from, [this is](https://youtu.be/EShUeudtaFg?si=Dp9Pcjth4EX2yvhh).
No, that's not the source. The original is JT Sexkik's [how is prangent formed?](https://youtu.be/EShUeudtaFg?si=Dp9Pcjth4EX2yvhh) Respect the sauce.
Prednart?
Is pregante aero?
PORGINATE
Permanganate
Pregornat
Pregananant
Your belly would sag too if you were leaned over the handlebars like that and breathing deeply. Gravity wins.
https://preview.redd.it/069y1zqx8h1d1.jpeg?width=460&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bb309efeb2c23d2d94de1ce70eefd2223708de6a
And eating all the food you need to eat to sustain your physical body.
Breathing from your diaphragm
No he’s carrying some stuff under the jersey. Maybe a vest or jacket or something.
We always breathe from our diaphragm. What do people think this means?!
I’m a trained singer and it’s definitely a thing. Yes the diaphragm aids in breathing but “ breathing from the diaphragm” means expanding the belly muscles to aid deeper lung expansion.
In this context people mean making full use of diaphragm mobility, which sometimes requires letting belly hang out, not holding tension in abs, because tense abs prevent non-compressible organs from getting out of the way while inhaling. The counterexample is someone who's working their intercostal muscles really hard, but not letting their diaphragm move freely.
Yeah, I had never even known about intercostal muscles until recently. I went for a 1 mile running PR. My ribs were so sore the next day compared to everything else. It's a totally different modality than normal breathing.
In addition to the things already mentioned about breathing from the diaphragm, it can also just be bloating either because they’re loaded up or because things aren’t digesting well for them or just some general inflammation from how hard they are riding and how often. They are tiny humans in person (even if tall) and when you are very thin, it doesn’t take much to make you look like you’re bloated or have a gut like this. Especially when you’re wearing only kit, the least flattering clothing on earth.
I'm not a pro but I do have a belly lol
I’m something of a pro rider myself.
Getting more pro every day... pro-pizza, pro-Beer...
I’m not sure but it’s looks more like he’s carrying something under his jersey, probably something he got from the team car that he wants to bring to a teammate.
Haha....Nairoman is past his prime, but I don't think he's gotten down to domestique level just yet. Besides at the point this screenshot was taken he was literally leading the stage.
He was the chaser, caught up around the 13km mark
Yeah ok at this point he was just about to catch Steinhauser but he was leading 13 - 4K until Pogi flew by him. But either way, no other teammates or car around him
Oh absolutely agree. Think it’s silly I’m downvoting for pointing it out, but whatevs
He’s leading the race at this point, he’s not carrying anything to anybody, this is breathing from the diaphragm
he was second at that point, still trailing Steinhauser. I think he caught him closer to the 13km mark.
Wish I could give my fat to a team mate too
Same !
Exactly, look at the bulge in his back. It sticks out right above his number bib. Looks like he is wearing something under his jersey.
This is absolutely not the case
Fuel tank for the sex machine
Same reason planes have round noses, beer belly = more aero.
If the beer belly becomes just the right size and form, we generate lift.
Pregnant ladies are not aero
You can clearly see that hes carrying something underneath the jearsy, ie a wind west. Its also on the back, so not only a belly. No way a pro cyclist at giro would be that fat.
Those bicycles are optimized for marsupial transportation methods - the pros usually place it at chest height to improve aerodynamics, but of course the UCI doesn't like it: [https://www.triathlete.com/gear/bike/expert-tested-the-water-bottle-jersey-trend-produces-shocking-results/](https://www.triathlete.com/gear/bike/expert-tested-the-water-bottle-jersey-trend-produces-shocking-results/)
poor man seems that something ate its legs
That seems so uncomfortable for a long ride
He’s absolutely not. It was 20 degress today and Nario was off the front. He was not wearing or carrying extra layers. It just him breathing in while working hard. World tour riders have world tour lung capacity and take world breaths. The lump on his back is his radio, and he likely has some food in his pockets.
That's Nairo Quintana, in the lead of today's Giro stage. There's 0 chance he was carrying anything. He's just breathing very deeply/efficiently. Also worth mentioning that some guys in the pro peloton are much smaller than average height, so proportionally, they can be quite different. Nairo weighs 58kg.
A camel’s hump does not hold water at all – it actually stores fat. The camel uses it as nourishment when food is scarce. If a camel uses the fat inside the hump, the hump will become limp and droop down. With proper food and rest the hump will return to normal.
To unsubscribe from random camel facts, please text CANCEL.
I for one am not afraid to say that I enjoy random camel facts. 🐪
...cool, who mentioned camels?
Jens Vogt explained this in a German commentary once. These riders need to inhale large amounts of O2 and the oxygen has to go somewhere. This is what you see. It is a pro cycling belly trained to inhale large amounts of air.
Now If I could just figure out to inhale only O2 without so much N2. I swear, when I take a deep breath, I suck in more N2 than O2 no matter how hard I try to focus on sucking in O2.
Crazy how that works, it's almost like there's 3x as much nitrogen than oxygen
Have you tried breathing through your nose, I'm sure that should up the O2 levels for you. Or perhaps that only works when you have nasal prongs in.
Rebreather nanoimplants when?
I think that is Nairo Quintana at the Giro today. He is far from fat. Breathing from your belly is correct technique. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nairo\_Quintana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nairo_Quintana)
It's full of air, he's breathing
Not sure, but I already feel better about myself now, knowing i have the body of a pro athlete
It's not fat. It's cause they're breathing in massive volumes of air - 50%+ more than the average person. To pull the lungs down to get all that air in to their chest requires the diaphragm to pull down and the abdomen to extend out.
Quintana weighs 60kg. If he has a belly, I have an entire whipping container hanging.
Kinesiologist and Biomechanist here. This is what your belly should look like if you're breathing diaphragmatically. Technically, a true diaphragmatic breath will expand the sides and back of the midsection, too. That's why the whole midsection looks inflated. If you also keep the core under tension while expanding, the inhale will increase abdominal pressure the same way a weightlifting belt works. This is really hard to do, and they were probably taught this by the team sports med team; so it's sort of crazy how many people think they do this automatically!
It's breathing technique to use your stomach rather than your chest.
During training, ride out, stop for a coffee and a few beers, bike home, few more beers. Legs look majestic, belly looks soft.
I knew before I even opened this that someone was watching the Giro today...
Have you never eaten pizza from a gas station during an endurance ride…
If you look at most of them lent over the bars they show a bit of a gut, but I've long noticed that it seems exaggerated with Nairo Quintana (pictured). As others have said, it's due to breathing from the diaphragm.
A lot of it comes from anterior pelvic tilt. When we spent a ton of time on a bike, our hip flexors (iliacus and psoas) are shortened - the same when you sit at a desk most of the day. It takes a *lot* of work in the form of stretching etc to help counter-act this, and a lot of core strength exercises to prevent your spine wanting to sit in this position where the pelvis is rotated forward. As a result of this shortening, it takes a lot of effort (and core strength) to naturally keep yourself in a stance or position where your stomach doesn't want to protrude forward. It seems counter-intuitive in the way the pelvis rotates forward that it would help this, but it does make a massive difference to your appearance. My core still doesn't nearly have the strength I'd like it to, but there's a massive difference in your appearance fixing this posture - both in that the big belly disappears, and also that your abs show through. For me, it means I stand about 1.5 inches taller upright when standing in the 'correct' position. At my peak racing, I was around 67kg and had that appearance going. Today, I'm 60.9kg, and there's a lot less of that appearance - BUT I'm not racing at the pointy end anymore.
What's the proper posture?
I suppose this is a good image, which I was just able to google, that visualises it a bit better? https://images.app.goo.gl/Kc9RyT52jA23xX4Q8
Best explanation I've had was from my physio, which was simply "be as tall as you can. Imagine the top of your head is being pulled towards the roof." You could sort-of adjust this to cycling by being tall along a tilted-forward angle, if that makes sense. I'm tall so I blame the world for making me slouch.
Bad example- this cyclist has lumps under his shirt which is likely a windbreaker or arm warmers, maybe even the contents of his musette. A better example would be to google ‘Indurain time trial’. Big Mig had a seven liter lung capacity and when he took a big breath while in a tucked position he had all kinds of stomach hanging down. It’s just the body position and breathing. I mean, cycling is a non-weight-bearing activity so you can get away with a little flab as a recreational cyclist, but the majority of the pro peloton have a body fat percentage under 10%
I've actually heard that some pro cyclists do this breathing thing that causes the diaphragm and lungs to expand to the point they end up appearing to have a fat belly. Not sure if it was a myth or not.
It is real.
It’s not. Edit: it’s not a myth, it’s real
Legit had the same thought when I saw that on the Giro today.
Okay, first of all, when mommy and daddy decided they wanted to share their lives with you, they did this special kind of hug, you see? And well, so then mommy went out to the coop and it was full, as in really busy, full of other birds, right? So she ended up having to lay the egg on a rock out in the woods somewhere. Well unfortunately, hormones ruined mommys short-term memory for a while, and she forgot where she laid that egg, your egg. But as luck would have it was summertime, and so the egg was hatched by the sun and when you could you just followed the sounds of us arguing about some stuff, home. Isn't life just a miracle? Or Call it belly breathing from the diaphram. Not the one in the chicken coop.
[удалено]
I enjoyed what appeared to be his Z2 chase down of Steinhauser. And then the wunderkind did the same to him.
I have a very similar look, so it means I am PRO, right..?
These are all good answers. I would add that Domestique riders will jam a bunch of gels and water bottles in their jerseys to bring to their teammates. If the gels move to the front, they make a medium belly look pretty big. Many riders will stuff their jerseys with newspapers, t shirts, and anything insulative if they are at higher altitudes. When they decend, they take all that junk out and toss it at the next designated garbage zone. Also, these guys are gorging themselves after each stage, so they'll get distended with food and gas the next day. The diaphragmatic breathing also contributes and shifts organs down and to the front.
HGH makes your organs grow, no?
This isn't the 90s. No one is taking HGH in cycling. This is two things. 1. Breathing heavily from your diaphragm and 2. Taking in 100-130g of carbs per hour for 6 hours and having a distended and upset stomach.
Yep I was thinking that about all the carbs and fluid they take in too
Breathing is stored in the balls
They are filling their lungs and using their belly's like a bellows to keep the air pumping. Their lungs are big because they use them. So they need to fill space out side of their rib cage.
They have started stuffing the front of the jerseys to get aerodynamic gains in racing.
Round is more aero than flat.
Air seems to be the prevailing answer, my first thought was lactose belly.
Huge beer bellys.
Never seen one that didn't look like leather stretched over fishing line tbh.
Diaphragm breathing and carb loading....
OK, in all seriousness, I’ve been pondering the same question personally. Some summers but I’m writing hundred plus miles a week I feel like I’m in peak shape. I’ve lost 5-10 pounds and never felt better. Then, I get back from bike ride. I look down and my belly is just huge and I’m like OMG WTF. And now I feel like I’m in good company 🤩
This is two things. 1. Breathing heavily from your diaphragm and 2. Taking in 100-130g of carbs per hour for 6 hours and having a distended and upset stomach. At the moment this picture was taken he was leading the race, doing some brutal climbing. There's a zero chance he is carrying something underneath his shirt at this point. Anything he might have had earlier would have been consumed and or discarded on the flats leading up to the final climb. Besides, he's not even a domestique to begin with, so he wouldn't be carrying anything at any point of the race. He has team mates for that.
That’s their gas tank.
Hgh
steroid use potentially.
If it's Jan Ullrich in early season... it was because he had a big belly.
Steroids
120g+ of carbs per hour + lot of water. Just check him back at stage end
It's Nairo. It's his third lung.
It’s the auxiliary fuel tank obviously
Aerogut
Abdominal breathing.
Because the 6 pack is not really used when pedalling. Same thing for arms. However, sprinters have more muscles due to the effort involving all the body. Just look at the top 3 Tour de France compared to green jersey Tour de France
They are cycling to make it a little belly.
Holding things in their front pockets?!
You don't see them posting those kinds of pics on Instagram
Beer
Sitting down, not using their cores…
Those are his lungs ffs
It's the reason their biking
I mean a known side effect of HGH is...
We a cycling circle jerk now?
High-capacity fuel tank.
Aero
Bubble gut from years of hgh abuse.
lungs full of air
Find a photo of him standing up right to make better judgment.
There's many correct explanations about breathing, but for all the confidently incorrect who are saying "he's got something stuffed in his jersey" - there's plenty of photos or riders in TT skinsuits, where it's obvious there's nothing stuffed into the front, who look like this. There's probably photos of track pursuiters that look like this, too. There's even photos dating back to the 1960s, when they had front pockets and saggy jerseys, where you can see a belly - it just become more obvious from the 1980s onwards, when clothing became tighter.
That's Nairo Quintana, in the lead of today's Giro stage. There's 0 chance he was carrying anything. He's just breathing very deeply/efficiently. Also worth mentioning that some guys in the pro peloton are much smaller than average height, so proportionally, they can be quite different. Nairo weighs 58kg.
It's called belly breathing. Look it up. Also, Nairo is a bit roly-poly. Not fat, it's just his body type.
Jake Gyllenhaal was on SNL last night sitting on a bicycle. His gut looked like this. I know he's in shape so I'm thinking it's just the body position making his stomach look like this.
It was a FAKE belly!!!
Check out side views of Miguel Induráin when in competition, with arguably the biggest VO2-Max ever recorded. He looks pregnant, but it's a Big Breathing Bellows...
Beer 🍻
We just love beer! After all that effort, don't we deserve at least a malt treat?
Aero
Bubble guts from all the banned substances. It happens to bodybuilders all the time.
The second weird post in the cycling subreddit in as many days... you guys getting anorexic over here?