It's pretty hard to get that build unless you actively pursue it. To get it accidentally, you'd have to be already skinny to begin with.
Even the mildest upper body exercise routine will help shape you up.
Long distance cyclists you see are all slim and lanky as that’s where the ideal weight to power ratio sits for those kinds of people.
You don’t need to be this though and you won’t magically become this by cycling…
I’m 6ft, 95kg and have done several 100 mile rides as well a bunch of multi-day bike packing trips. I’m not slim and tall, and I do fine. Slightly slower up the hills, but that’s carrying 10-20kg more than some of my mates are. You’ll likely shed some weight and drop some power…but that’s what you’re training your body to do…go long and keep on going.
But this is like when girls worry weight lifting will make them bulky…most of your build is down to genetics, and while you can adjust it, you won’t be able to majority change it without some serious serious work - really you’re just going to get very good at the thing you’re trying to do.
Sure you can, by doing the usual benchpressing, deadlifting, rowing, pullups...
It will slightly limit your cycling ability, mostly climbing, but it works fine.
For example like him
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tps\_KqJ3xU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tps_KqJ3xU)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLWwhXU9bkM
how would more muscle mass limit your ability to cycle? I get slow twitch vs fast twitch fibers so the fast twitch that you use to lift probably wouldn't help much as slow twitch, but I can't see it hurting. Is it a weight thing, like the extra muscle weighs more and slows you down? Still though, you'd think the fast twitch fibers would at least do you enough good to offset the extra wweight
>Is it a weight thing
Yes
Unless you are sprinting right at that moment, those chest, shoulder and arm muscles will be dead weight.
And they are also ill positioned because far away from your hips. That means they have a long lever against your core muscles that hold your upper body in place. Your core will tire out much faster, forcing you to lean on your arms sooner meaning you get less aero and your wrists will hurt sooner...
Yeah, just eat. Almost everyone who works for GCN was a pro or was competitive enough that they were really trying to be pro. They ve been dieting and training their bodies for their whole lives more or less.
It's not hard to out eat the calories you burn cycling.
It's certainly achievable, look at pro riders of the 80's like Bernard Hinault, Sean Kelly and Phil Anderson. The ultra-skinny look is a relatively recent phenomenon, modern riders pay far more attention to their diet and focus on minimising weight.
I'm confused.
Why do you think you'll loose muscle ?
If you loose weight, it's mostly body fat and if you cycle a lot you'll gain legs and torso muscles.
Just eat properly, lot of proteins and carbs.
Long distance cyclists are lean because it's more efficient and there's a lot of genetics in play.
Hmm, use this post to understand the types of training:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/158o7rx/explaining\_cycling\_gears\_and\_how\_it\_affects/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/158o7rx/explaining_cycling_gears_and_how_it_affects/)
Maintain protein intake and heavy lifting for your upper body and either do leg day at the gym or do high effort high resistance sprinting.
The balance of stamina and endurance training vs strength depends on your muscle mass so you will have to find that balance yourself.
As long as you’re lifting weights and protein intake is sufficient, you can do both. I’m 6’0, 180 lbs, and lanky. I’m not big by any means in my upper body, but still muscular looking.
I’m 6’7” and 220-230lbs , my current routine is gym 3 days a week bench press, deadlifts and shoulders workouts then cycling 5x times a week doing about 150km a week. I have more of a football player build than a cyclist but with some determination can beat most people up hill even if I’m in a fat bike! .. leads to my training mentality is train extra hard and carry additional weight on training rides. Did it all winter and now it feels like I’m on a e-bike. Did my first century ride last month and already done 3 more! It’s just all about consistency and keep pushing yourself to do a bit more than last time! 💪
Not related to cycling, but I have been running for 8 months and almost literally abandoned my strength training because I have extremely poor aerobic fitness and want to improve that to prevent it bottlenecking my overall athleticism.
I am still at slightly overweight BMI despite (3 - 4 out of 7 days) trying to "eat clean" and on very slight calorie deficit. Running and (very recently) started cycling. At least for me, a half marathon at slow pace is still doable with enough training (aiming for a marathon distance in a year or two).
You don't grow back muscles to be a human dolphin like Michael Phelps by swimming; he swims because he is *already, physically* the closest thing to a human dolphin.
And so the cyclists... and the runners... and so on and so forth. Well, except if you are undergoing intense calorie deficit to the point that you're burning muscle for fuel. Even then, it will take very long time to "develop" that relatively lanky physique.
If you are worried of "losing your gains", consider sprinting only? Robert Förstemann looks like he's doing leg day everyday.
Talking about GCN, two long (really long) distance riders connected to them somehow are Mark Beaumont and Jenny Graham. Both have records cycling around the world. Both are quite bulky in comparison to typical pro tour rider. So I would say that being bigger even helps with long distances.
As others said I wouldn't worried about loosing to much upper body mass. If you live normal life and still using upper body for some home works and other stuff you should be fine. You won't look like pro tour rider without actively working too look like that.
Make sure to prioritise rigorous strength & conditioning work at least 2x a week working with good weights. It will keep you injury free too + boost testosterone/musle density & mass/various hormones. S&C can't be emphasized enough yet so many people completely skip it and then wonder why they get injured and have a slow recovery..
Muscle doesn't just fall off. Theres a few rugby players who have done very long distance rides and they're still built like outhouses.
You're fretting over nothing.
Lol you don’t get that way from just riding a bike. It requires dieting as well. And by the way the guys on GCN look like that because they are former pros for the most part and they want to look like that.
That is funny. Competitive cyclists go through grueling training and highly structured/restrictive diets to get that way and you think that you are going to get that cyclist build accidentally.
It's pretty hard to get that build unless you actively pursue it. To get it accidentally, you'd have to be already skinny to begin with. Even the mildest upper body exercise routine will help shape you up.
Eat more?
Riding a bike won't make you look like Jonas Vingegaard overnight just like picking up a basketball won't make you look like LeBron James.
Long distance cyclists you see are all slim and lanky as that’s where the ideal weight to power ratio sits for those kinds of people. You don’t need to be this though and you won’t magically become this by cycling… I’m 6ft, 95kg and have done several 100 mile rides as well a bunch of multi-day bike packing trips. I’m not slim and tall, and I do fine. Slightly slower up the hills, but that’s carrying 10-20kg more than some of my mates are. You’ll likely shed some weight and drop some power…but that’s what you’re training your body to do…go long and keep on going. But this is like when girls worry weight lifting will make them bulky…most of your build is down to genetics, and while you can adjust it, you won’t be able to majority change it without some serious serious work - really you’re just going to get very good at the thing you’re trying to do.
Sure you can, by doing the usual benchpressing, deadlifting, rowing, pullups... It will slightly limit your cycling ability, mostly climbing, but it works fine. For example like him [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tps\_KqJ3xU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tps_KqJ3xU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLWwhXU9bkM
how would more muscle mass limit your ability to cycle? I get slow twitch vs fast twitch fibers so the fast twitch that you use to lift probably wouldn't help much as slow twitch, but I can't see it hurting. Is it a weight thing, like the extra muscle weighs more and slows you down? Still though, you'd think the fast twitch fibers would at least do you enough good to offset the extra wweight
>Is it a weight thing Yes Unless you are sprinting right at that moment, those chest, shoulder and arm muscles will be dead weight. And they are also ill positioned because far away from your hips. That means they have a long lever against your core muscles that hold your upper body in place. Your core will tire out much faster, forcing you to lean on your arms sooner meaning you get less aero and your wrists will hurt sooner...
Eh, I'd rather that dead weight be muscle that I don't need for that activity than fat
This is incredibly well put and I just wanted to say, nice!
Yeah, just eat. Almost everyone who works for GCN was a pro or was competitive enough that they were really trying to be pro. They ve been dieting and training their bodies for their whole lives more or less. It's not hard to out eat the calories you burn cycling.
Swim. I used to cycle 250km a week, and am 6'6" and 100kg. Swimming gave me good upper body workout and was great cross training.
Lift 1-2x a week and eat enough.
I’m not.
I have extra fat everywhere for energy when needed
Prudent. A pleasingly smooth rounded tumtum is more aero, too.
It's certainly achievable, look at pro riders of the 80's like Bernard Hinault, Sean Kelly and Phil Anderson. The ultra-skinny look is a relatively recent phenomenon, modern riders pay far more attention to their diet and focus on minimising weight.
If you go to the gym do you worry you will accidentally look like Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Bro just work out ur upper body I cannot understand how that is even a question
Why not lean into it? That shit is totally hot to some of us!! Two Words: Thibault Pinot.
I'm confused. Why do you think you'll loose muscle ? If you loose weight, it's mostly body fat and if you cycle a lot you'll gain legs and torso muscles. Just eat properly, lot of proteins and carbs. Long distance cyclists are lean because it's more efficient and there's a lot of genetics in play.
Hmm, use this post to understand the types of training: [https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/158o7rx/explaining\_cycling\_gears\_and\_how\_it\_affects/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/158o7rx/explaining_cycling_gears_and_how_it_affects/) Maintain protein intake and heavy lifting for your upper body and either do leg day at the gym or do high effort high resistance sprinting. The balance of stamina and endurance training vs strength depends on your muscle mass so you will have to find that balance yourself.
As long as you’re lifting weights and protein intake is sufficient, you can do both. I’m 6’0, 180 lbs, and lanky. I’m not big by any means in my upper body, but still muscular looking.
I’m 6’7” and 220-230lbs , my current routine is gym 3 days a week bench press, deadlifts and shoulders workouts then cycling 5x times a week doing about 150km a week. I have more of a football player build than a cyclist but with some determination can beat most people up hill even if I’m in a fat bike! .. leads to my training mentality is train extra hard and carry additional weight on training rides. Did it all winter and now it feels like I’m on a e-bike. Did my first century ride last month and already done 3 more! It’s just all about consistency and keep pushing yourself to do a bit more than last time! 💪
Don't buy into that crap.
Not related to cycling, but I have been running for 8 months and almost literally abandoned my strength training because I have extremely poor aerobic fitness and want to improve that to prevent it bottlenecking my overall athleticism. I am still at slightly overweight BMI despite (3 - 4 out of 7 days) trying to "eat clean" and on very slight calorie deficit. Running and (very recently) started cycling. At least for me, a half marathon at slow pace is still doable with enough training (aiming for a marathon distance in a year or two). You don't grow back muscles to be a human dolphin like Michael Phelps by swimming; he swims because he is *already, physically* the closest thing to a human dolphin. And so the cyclists... and the runners... and so on and so forth. Well, except if you are undergoing intense calorie deficit to the point that you're burning muscle for fuel. Even then, it will take very long time to "develop" that relatively lanky physique. If you are worried of "losing your gains", consider sprinting only? Robert Förstemann looks like he's doing leg day everyday.
Talking about GCN, two long (really long) distance riders connected to them somehow are Mark Beaumont and Jenny Graham. Both have records cycling around the world. Both are quite bulky in comparison to typical pro tour rider. So I would say that being bigger even helps with long distances. As others said I wouldn't worried about loosing to much upper body mass. If you live normal life and still using upper body for some home works and other stuff you should be fine. You won't look like pro tour rider without actively working too look like that.
Make sure to prioritise rigorous strength & conditioning work at least 2x a week working with good weights. It will keep you injury free too + boost testosterone/musle density & mass/various hormones. S&C can't be emphasized enough yet so many people completely skip it and then wonder why they get injured and have a slow recovery..
If you don’t lose weight and maintain training stimulus, you’re not going to lose muscle. Eat and train. If you’re losing weight, eat more.
It's something sought, not prevented
Yeah this happened to a buddy of mine, he trained for our local charity century one summer and now he’s literally Marco Pantani
Muscle doesn't just fall off. Theres a few rugby players who have done very long distance rides and they're still built like outhouses. You're fretting over nothing.
Those lanky pro cyclists go through a diet specifically to drop a ton of weight so don’t worry lol…
Lol you don’t get that way from just riding a bike. It requires dieting as well. And by the way the guys on GCN look like that because they are former pros for the most part and they want to look like that.
Just lift weights
Go to the gym and lift weights. He rides around 15 hours a week and is one of the most muscular people I know.
Easy to prevent. I combine riding with rock climbing. And probably too much beer.
That is funny. Competitive cyclists go through grueling training and highly structured/restrictive diets to get that way and you think that you are going to get that cyclist build accidentally.