Training & Nutrition - Anyone ride here that has a muscular body?

Just curious if any of the members here who ride a great deal on there bike have muscular body. Like 5'9" - 6'2" and weigh about 175-220lbs <15% body fat and with you know... muscles.

Does biking completely take away any "large" muscles you have? Is it like the oposite of going to a gym and pumping iron? Just curious what everyone opinion/feedback is and if anyone has any information on this. Thanks

I don't believe it does.
I am 5'10.5" and weight 181 # and find that bicycling actually defines the muscles more and bicycling will work different muscle groups. {ex** calves, if you include different weight routines + the cycling it splits the calf muscle by that I mean it is like two different muscles instead of presenting just one, more of a definition.
Spring and summer I ride about 4-5 days a week and will lift 1-2 days and work only 1-2 muscle group that week depending on the routine.
Winter I will lift 2-4 days a week and ride two days do to time and weather situations.
I have a tendency to bulk up in the winter do to heavier lifting,and then have to work harder to tone, this winter I will just do more reps andwork lighter weights

As long as you continue to lift weights and operate at caloric equilibrium or greater, I can't see why you'd lose muscle.

--Steve

No. But you won't be helping to build them by doing endurance work. Focus on sprints, intervals, and short fast rides(<1hr) and you will continue to build muscle. For example, look at these guys.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2004/may04/WTC04/day4/img_4640big.jpg
http://www.ijs.si/~mleskovar/atene97_1.jpghttp://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/MultimediaFiles/20060315_JAMIE_STAFF_01.JPG

Just curious if any of the members here who ride a great deal on there bike have muscular body. Like 5'9" - 6'2" and weigh about 175-220lbs <15% body fat and with you know... muscles.

Does biking completely take away any "large" muscles you have? Is it like the oposite of going to a gym and pumping iron? Just curious what everyone opinion/feedback is and if anyone has any information on this. ThanksMuscles will be as large and as strong as necessary to deal with the loads imposed on them. I was very muscular from playing soccer for 13-years and after 10-years of cycling, the muscles are smaller, but more toned. Weight remained about the same.

What are you asking? What is your goal? Do you want to stay muscular? Or are you trying to slim down? Or worried about it?

I think a lot depends on body type. If you're naturally thin & trying to build up, cycling won't help. If you keep the cycling moderate & keep up the weight lifting I don't think you'll lose ground; & depending on the mix you may still be able to add bulk.

For natural mesomorphs (like me), I don't think cycling will cause a loss of muscle mass ( all other things being equal) unless you get over 100-150 miles a week. If you're a competitive bodybuilder, you'd probably want to stay under 50 per week.

Just my take from experience.

What are you asking? What is your goal? Do you want to stay muscular? Or are you trying to slim down? Or worried about it?

I was just curious. I am currently 6' 275lbs so Im not muscular lol. It was just something I was wondering. I am cycling to lose weight.

I was just curious. I am currently 6' 275lbs so Im not muscular lol. It was just something I was wondering. I am cycling to lose weight.
Then I don't think you need to worry about losing muscle mass unless you're doing mega mileage.

I was just curious. I am currently 6' 275lbs so Im not muscular lol. It was just something I was wondering. I am cycling to lose weight.Well, there will inevitably be muscle-loss that accompanies fat-loss due to the mileage and numbers of calories being burned off. But then you build back up the muscles that you want to stay buff. If you do mega-mileage like ultra-endurance events, then yes, you might end up looking like a marathon-runner. But unless you're doing more than 300-400-miles/wk, you don't have to worry about losing that much muscle. Just eat sufficient carbs on rides to prevent bonking and you'll be fine.

As you get into better shape (with sprints & intervals), your body & muscles will be more efficient at generating power at any given speed. You'll then be further away from your max and you'll burn a higher percentage of fats. This will reduce the potential amount of muscle lost as well.

If you do mega-mileage like ultra-endurance events, then yes, you might end up looking like a marathon-runner.
LOL. I didn't even look like a marathon runner when I was a marathon runner. Its all about body type.

Then I don't think you need to worry about losing muscle mass unless you're doing mega mileage.


Basically this is correct. A recreational rider won't suffer a great deal of atrophy from gym gains iif they maintain their resistance program as well as cycling.


Ramp it up to 800-1100km a week and it's a different story.

I'm 5'10, 175lbs, 10.5%. I have a big butt, can't climb worth a lick, but I'm pretty good on the flats. Even when I was doing 200 mile weeks and hadn't lifted anything heavier than an infant, I couldn't get below 166. It's all about body type.

It's all about body type.

+1

It's very hard for a genetic mesomorph to change body type (i.e., into an ectomorph.)

I'm the rec-runner mentioned in this article in Running Times magazine (3rd paragraph from top):

Mileage Madness by Kevin Beck (http://www.runningtimes.com/rt/articles/?id=5839&page=2&c=85)

Even when I was running 100 mile weeks, I never looked like a Kenyan or Ethiopian marathon runner. In fact, I didn't break 145 pounds at 67 inches tall until I added active dieting to lots of running.

Here's a couple of articles about height vs. weight for runners:

Getting it right: weight relative to height in distance running by Frank Horwill (http://www.serpentine.org.uk/advice/coach/fh01.php)

If you want to win some more races, lose some weight by Frank Horwill (http://www.serpentine.org.uk/advice/coach/fh02.php)

It would be very difficult for me to meet the criteria in these last two articles without experiencing harmful health related side effects.

It's all about body type.
Sorry bro, but I gotta disagree, anyone can get powerful and muscular, it just takes dedicated training. You think Bruce Lee was born that way, he worked his ass off (no pun intended) to attain that level of physical fitness. I couldn't do proper push-ups last year and until 2 months ago I couldn't do pull-ups when I was 40% body fat (250 at the time) I would have laughed at anyone who said I could do pull-ups, I'm not gennetically predisposed to that I would say. Experience has changed all that. I'm probably around 15-20% now, losing more fat by the day.

Sorry bro, but I gotta disagree, anyone can get powerful and muscular, it just takes dedicated training. You think Bruce Lee was born that way, he worked his ass off (no pun intended) to attain that level of physical fitness. I couldn't do proper push-ups last year and until 2 months ago I couldn't do pull-ups when I was 40% body fat (250 at the time) I would have laughed at anyone who said I could do pull-ups, I'm not gennetically predisposed to that I would say. Experience has changed all that. I'm probably around 15-20% now, losing more fat by the day.

Yes, but to be specific we were talking about folks who were naturally disposed to be muscular and who were trying to be skinny-Minnies.

Sorry bro, but I gotta disagree, anyone can get powerful and muscular, it just takes dedicated training. You think Bruce Lee was born that way, he worked his ass off (no pun intended) to attain that level of physical fitness. I couldn't do proper push-ups last year and until 2 months ago I couldn't do pull-ups when I was 40% body fat (250 at the time) I would have laughed at anyone who said I could do pull-ups, I'm not gennetically predisposed to that I would say. Experience has changed all that. I'm probably around 15-20% now, losing more fat by the day.

Yes & no. Depending on the goal, it takes body type & dedicated training. You won't get anywhere without the training, but no matter how much training some people do, they will never look like Arnold or Bruce Lee, & conversely some can never look like an Africian marathoner no matter how much they run. Similarly, anyone who is world class in a particular sport has a great deal of dedication, but they still wouldn't be world class without some genetic gifts. On the other hand there are a great many (probably most people in some respect) who have some natuaral or genetic gift which hasn't been taken advantage of by the application of hard work.

Does biking completely take away any "large" muscles you have?Yeah, biking takes away big muscles and give them to the easter bunny. Why do you ask?

I have some anecdotal evidence to losing muscle.

First photo is in early April after a winter in the gym training my whole body. I'm the rider on the far left in the grey jersey. Notice how big my upper arms are in the photo. Second photo (rider in red/white in the middle) is in late May after I completely stopped lifting and was packing on the miles. Note the upper arms again.

By the end of the season, I really didn't have much upper body left because I wasn't maintaining it in the gym. This season I think I'm going to cut back on the upper body to only once a week, just to stay balanced. I don't think carrying around all the extra bulk in the early season did me much good.

While you're locked into your body-type, there's still a wide variation-range within that. NoRacer's time-lapse photos over the years will show what can be done with training. When I played soccer, I had 26" thighs and 15" arms. Later after 10-years of bike-racing, I had 22" thighs and 13" arms. Weight is the same, so I'm not sure where all that muscle went.

No. But you won't be helping to build them by doing endurance work. Focus on sprints, intervals, and short fast rides(<1hr) and you will continue to build muscle. For example, look at these guys.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2004/may04/WTC04/day4/img_4640big.jpg
http://www.ijs.si/~mleskovar/atene97_1.jpghttp://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/MultimediaFiles/20060315_JAMIE_STAFF_01.JPG


track racers spend zillions of hours in the weight room and like 2 seconds riding(comparitively speaking), they didnt get that way riding I assure you, nobody does

I spend hours a day 5 days a week sprinting on a trackbike slinging packages and I look like most endurance people, lean, very lean, and so do the rest of the messengers I know

NoRacer's time-lapse photos over the years will show what can be done with training.

If you haven't seen this in other 'weight loss' threads on this site, already, then this is what Danno is referring to (during my marathon training period, but third shot is when I dieted -hard-):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v285/NoRacer/contrast3.jpg

But, I only got down to 'high school' weight - 145 pounds.

I wonder about that track rider photo on top. I suppose his highly aerodynamic helmet is perfectly offset by his massive wind-whipped goatee! :)

I wonder about that track rider photo on top. I suppose his highly aerodynamic helmet is perfectly offset by his massive wind-whipped goatee! :)


Eadie grew it on a dare from Arnaud Tournant....he wasn't going to shave until he was world champion.



When he was, Tournant got the clippers out on the podium and went to town on it.

I've been doing both for years. I'm 6'1.5" - 215 to 235 (summer/winter wts.). I'll ride 10 to 30 miles to my club, lift for 1 to 2 hours and ride another 10 to 30 home. I've been a member of the 400 club (bench), can comfortably do 30 pullups, curl 90 lbs. with one arm and maintain 20+ mph pace. I only do one muscle group (arms, back, chest, shoulders, legs) each workout and ride for the joy of it; chasing cars et al. My biker friends call me Wideload and Man of Girth. Obviously, I lose some upper body muscle girth during the warmer months (upstate NY) and gain during the cooler months. I'm not interested in miror muscles, but I do enjoy the expression on the faces of the 20+ers when a 55 year old guy passes them. Just lift and ride. You're not building a church...

i'm not quite like bikerbill, but i'm 5'10, 178, slightly muscular build... altho I've only been riding a month and a half or so, I haven't noticed a decrease in either size or strength. In fact i've been geting leaner, my endurance has been going up, and my lifts have been going up. Part of it is that I maintain the activities that I used to do before I picked up cycling while starting to cycle now. I lift 3-4 times a week and I play ball 3-4 times a week... and now i'm starting to cycle 2-3x per week... and yes, there are days when i lift and ball, and days when i lift and cycle... and yes, i'm always sore or tired, but it feels... so... GOOOOOOD...!! :)

I've been doing both for years. I'm 6'1.5" - 215 to 235 (summer/winter wts.). I'll ride 10 to 30 miles to my club, lift for 1 to 2 hours and ride another 10 to 30 home. I've been a member of the 400 club (bench), can comfortably do 30 pullups, curl 90 lbs. with one arm and maintain 20+ mph pace. I only do one muscle group (arms, back, chest, shoulders, legs) each workout and ride for the joy of it; chasing cars et al. My biker friends call me Wideload and Man of Girth. Obviously, I lose some upper body muscle girth during the warmer months (upstate NY) and gain during the cooler months. I'm not interested in miror muscles, but I do enjoy the expression on the faces of the 20+ers when a 55 year old guy passes them. Just lift and ride. You're not building a church...

nice stats. pics?

i'm bufftastic. you can call me hunkules. have the full 8-pack, defined arms w/ heavy tricep muscle. lots of back muscle. thick calves, thick thighs.

okay, maybe that's a little overboard. i have a light chest, though (nothing i do requires heavy chest exercise). i kinda look like a heftier abercombie & fitch model... one with a lot more back + shoulder muscle... and with much stronger legs... and covered like a yeti in fur.

get the legs from biking
get the back from lawn cutting
get the arms from softball + biking + lawn cutting + maintaining trails

i have an extremely small and light frame. i weigh next to nothing and look really thin, but i have very little fat and enough muscle to throw my little weight around.

6'
215 lbs

I used biking this summer for my cutting phase and did see new definition. I started the spring at 225, and the summer at 220. So I'm glad to be down to 215 and hoping for 193 sometime this year ... wish me luck.

I've got fat to burn but I spent a lot of effort building some muscle this past winter. I'm back doing weight training at night and running at lunch. Speaking of which ... gotta run!

Biking alone won't build upper body muscles. You need weight training for that. Biking won't strip existing muscles if you nourish properly. Keep the weight training, eat only protein, add the biking.

I'm working on getting a good muscular physique. I'm still at a relatively high BF of around 19% at 5'10, 195 lbs. I don't bike too much though, 50-120km/wk on average. It hasn't affected my ability to lift weights anyhow, in fact I recently started seeing faster than normal gains in my squat which went from 1RM of 235 to 1RM of 285 in about 5 weeks. The only problem is that I'm having trouble keeping my carbs low since the biking seems more sensitive to that than my lifting.

I haven't lifted weights in years but as I lean out during the peak part of the season, my arms and shoulders definately get more definition. I use my upper body alot more than most cyclists as I tend to stand alot to work those particular muscle groups and I do alot of sprinting and other power type intervals that require me to push/pull on the handlebars. I could stand to lose a bit more weight (approximately 10 pounds).

Well...

Track sprinters need to have very strong upper bodies, since they are using it in conjunction with their massive leg power to propel themselves as fast as possible around the track.

I'm not too sure about mountain bikers, but strength is a big deal in that category, so I can't imagine that there aren't some people who fit those specs racing.

Road bikers, on the other hand, need to shave as much weight as possible, and at least have a very strong lower body along with a strong enough core to support it. This usually leads to cyclists with lots of leg muscle, but not a lot of upper body muscle.

I'm sure that there are bodybuilders and muscular people on bikes, but depending on which route they want to go in the sport, compromises have to be made.

In my case, cycling helped significantly in trimming a lot of weight (I'm anywhere between 155 and 160 pounds at 5'9"). It, along with calisthenics to improve upper body muscle, toned me up a LOT, though I have lost a lot of strength in my upper body. I noticed this when I played baseball the other day with family; I could run really fast, but my throw is weak. It used to be exactly the opposite.

Sorry bro, but I gotta disagree, anyone can get powerful and muscular, it just takes dedicated training. You think Bruce Lee was born that way, he worked his ass off (no pun intended) to attain that level of physical fitness. I couldn't do proper push-ups last year and until 2 months ago I couldn't do pull-ups when I was 40% body fat (250 at the time) I would have laughed at anyone who said I could do pull-ups, I'm not gennetically predisposed to that I would say. Experience has changed all that. I'm probably around 15-20% now, losing more fat by the day.

So far as I know, isn't body type (i.e. mesomorph, ectomorph, etc) determined largely by genetics? I know that I can gain a lot of muscle mass, but I can also gain a lot of weight very quickly. Even through cycling 100+ mi/week, I couldn't get below 155 and I look like a (muscular) stick (sort of).

Yes, genetics are huge when it comes to basic body type. When you're dealing with Olympic level athletes, although they do train their rear-ends off, you can also be assured that they were born with the ideal body frame to go with it. No amount of training will give you that if you weren't born with it.

That said, most folks can afford to trim some (or more) extra fat and gain some muscle. Unless you're lean and mean already, don't even start to blame your body type for your racing woes - you've got a lot more work to do.

I'm more of a runner, but in the last 2 years, I ramped up my running from 30 miles a week to 100 miles per week peak season. (Yes, that's running, not biking miles). I was lean to begin with, but don't look like a slender endurance athlete, and even after the megamiles, still didn't look like one. I was lean and muscular, but still way too thick and stumpy compared to the elite level athletes - and at 100 miles per week, I was running equivalent or more miles than most of them. You have to be born that way AND train a lot to look like that.

I think that Lance Armstrong actually changed body shape because of his illness. I'm sure that in his book he said that his post illness shape was a lot better suited for winning the Tour.

I'm now 158 pounds at 5'11" - down from 176 pounds about 8 weeks back. Mostly done by watching my diet and cycling hard. I'd say that I now have a trim well shaped body (thin arms/thick legs). I think that the heaviest I've ever been is 185 pounds a few years back. But I was 120 pounds when I was 21 years old - but very weedy.