Road Bike Racing - Losing muscle mass. Fo' reals.

Dudes and ladies,

I've always been the stocky sort. Wrestling in high school in combination with my genetic predisposition towards easy muscular gains meant that I put on a good amount of muscle mass in the upper body, particular the back and shoulders. Never did a lot of weight lifting; mostly "natural" lifts consisting of push-ups, pull-ups of many varieties, etc. Strong but light was the ticket. I was very, very strong, capable of bruising flesh with my grip, one arm pull-ups, whatever.

But, times have changed. I'm a cyclist now, and "two tickets to the gun show" is not the name of the game. It doesn't matter how well I fill out a shirt or how I look at the beach. I need and want to be slender, and lose some muscle mass.

So, aside from riding and abstaining from any sort of upper body activity, what else can I do to promote the loss of muscle mass in my body? I've heard of some crazy all-fruit/smoothie diets, but quite frankly, that would seem to promote vicious bowel movements, and low energy levels.

Edit: I am not a massive, hulking beast of a man. I'm 5'7" and 142lbs. I'd like weigh around 135 next year.

Less protein and really long rides this winter.

i've read that testicular cancer apparently works a treat.

I think it's actually the chemotherapy. So really you don't need the cancer at all.

drop the weight over time. if you try and drop it too fast you will lose strength and speed. Im having same problem as i was heavily into bodybuilding for a while before cycling. im still at a solid 185 pounds, but ive been told by trainers (and makes sense) that my lungs and body will conform to providing oxygen to the excess muscle, then when i start to drop (or at least move to legs ;) ) i will have that much more performance. sounds good anyway ;). Ive started to do only bodyweight training for upper body and weight training for legs/core along with a ton of cycling.

I think it's actually the chemotherapy. So really you don't need the cancer at all.

outstanding point.

Start running.....

Atrophy is the only way to go.

I've got same build, just a few more years of it and probably heavier legs. I'm often surprised at how fire hydrant-like I look on the bike in photos, when I know that I'm all of 148 lbs. and wear size S clothes.

You've got some genetic pre-disposition, so you'll only get so small before it becomes detrimental to you're health and athletic performance, at which time your body will start hanging onto itself.

Tried and true calories expended > calories taken in is really the solution. www.fitday.com is useful in this, and eliminating liquid calories helps too.

fwiw - I always gain weight at the tail end of race season (now), and drop lbs during Jan/Feb/March, even though my volume is pretty similar. I think it's due to the type of efforts, endurance miles, tempo and sweat buckets workouts in winter, and more VO2Max/anaerobic/NM power and racing in summer.

Run... lots. That's how I accomplished these transformations.

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

/...200 pounds.../...150 pounds.../...145 pounds.../ @ 67 inches tall

Today, I weigh about 15 pounds more than the middle phase.

EDIT: Dude! I just read your edit. Jeez, I wish I was at your current weight.

Try a couple 4-6 week cycles of wearing a full upper body cast this off season.

DoK - if your FTP is 350W. Your w/kg is currently 5.43.

If you lose 7 lbs - and maintain your W/kg - you get 5.71.

If you stay the same weight and increase your FTP to 368W - you get the same ratio.

What's easier - increase of FTP by 18W or decrease of 7lbs? I'm guessing you want both [putting you right into 6W/kg category].

smart not wait until dec/jan to do this. gives body time to acclimatize to new weight. I lost 20 last winter and lost a ton of power on the flats. It's taken better part of Summer to get that power back.
lol @ "tickets to gun show" :)

I think I have what you're looking for. 5'7", 130lbs. down from 185lbs. ~3 years ago. Although, I've never had much of a chest to speak of. Now, if I only had your legs.

smart not wait until dec/jan to do this. gives body time to acclimatize to new weight. I lost 20 last winter and lost a ton of power on the flats. It's taken better part of Summer to get that power back.
lol @ "tickets to gun show" :)

After some of the upcoming races, particularly DG this weekend and our state RR championship, my season is effectively over.

I'll be buying a mountain bike and a set of headlamps for it, and putting in lots of 3hr rides at tempo pace, and hopefully some long mountain bike races should there be any available.

I think it's actually the chemotherapy.

No, cancer itself can cause wasting (cachexia).

Low protein diet. I'm thinking I may need to go that route again as my bodyfat is about as low as I've ever seen it, yet weight is higher than in years past. Dunno, we'll see. I just want a damn velodrome nearby so I can let nature take it's course :lol:

EDIT: I ate a vegetarian diet from ~May 2005 until mid 2007, and have gradually muscled back up. Not a bad thing for asthetics at all (my phone number/date/tomfoolery frequency has tracked pretty linearly with the muscles actually...), but it's ballast on the bike.

if you put on muscle easily, mountain biking will not be the way to slim down your upper body.

if you put on muscle easily, mountain biking will not be the way to slim down your upper body.

Taking the 29er out to the rails-to-trails in IL is like riding on the velodrome.

One doth steer with his hips, there no hills, and it is good. Amen.

(Essentially a railroad bed covered with ground up limestone...60+ miles long...I ride my road bike on it when it's already dirty)

You do want to lower peak intensities over the winter (which builds and maintain muscle). Eat a low-carb diet so you won't have full glycogen supply at beginning of rides. Then do LOTS of riding at the bonk-threshold. Don't eat until 2-hrs into the ride and eat just enough not to bonk. Riding at the low-glycogen/pre-bonk point will cause your body to disassemble muscle for fuel. Then don't eat immediately after a ride, thus having your body take apart even more muscle to replenish depleted glycogen stores. Did I mention low-carb? Don't have the typical 4:1 carb-protein recovery mix.

You can easily lose 5-7 lbs of muscle and 10-lbs of total body-mass over the winter this way. However... you WILL lose A LOT of strength and your FTP will go down. You'll have to balance the weight-to-power ratio after this. I've found a lot of times, it's a negative benefit. That is, your lost-power goes down faster than the equivalent weight. So a 5% weight loss may be accompanied by a 7% loss in power and the over weight-to-power ratio is actually less than before.

What's your body-fat %? Is it possible to lose more fat? The other thing you've got a handle on is to reduce upper-body workouts, but I've found that you really do need strong arms and back to yank on the bars in a sprint to counteract the leg muscles.

Danno: As an endurance athlete, or just a person in general it is substantially harder to eat a low carb diet than it is to eat a reduced calorie and or low protein diet. To add to that, the line between low carb induced ketosis and diabetic ketoacidosis isn't one that I'm comfortable flirting with.

That's pretty extreme Danno. Bet it works.

I just like nailing two hard (preferably group) rides back to back with only salad in between.

other than not exerting your upper body, there's nothing you can do. Running will lean you out, but so will cycling.

I took May off for an injury and come June, my pecs and arms were noticeably bigger: Riding restricted upper body muscle development.

142 lbs? Please shut up!

I weighed 215 when I was in undergrad and playing lacrosse. Just when I start to feel good about 180...:notamused:

http://www.professionalcycling.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/rasmussen.jpg

A guy can dream, can't he? A guy can dream....

Danno: As an endurance athlete, or just a person in general it is substantially harder to eat a low carb diet than it is to eat a reduced calorie and or low protein diet. To add to that, the line between low carb induced ketosis and diabetic ketoacidosis isn't one that I'm comfortable flirting with.Yeah, low-carb can be dangerous when combined with endurance events. Certainly would be easier to take your existing diet and just make it smaller. :)

I'm built like the OP, was a wrestler in HS along with playing lots of football (not American) and it's hard to get away from that build after decades of that type of activity. I just found it easier to lower body-fat% rather than losing total body-weight. It's also hard to lose muscle in certain areas and not others. When you run out of glycogen while cycling, the body actually consumes muscles closest to the areas that need the energy. So you end up losing more leg-muscle mass than upper-body mass. I found I just lost way too much strength and speed that way, even though I weighed less.