How did you 5w/kg+ riders make it there?

Training
975

Your w/kg doesn’t need to improve for you to get faster though. Greater total power at the same w/kg will mean you’re faster.

Every GC rider is training at the gym now. Strength training is integral to any successful cyclists programme (especially in the off season).

I’m really not trying to do you down, but your weight is so far below the normal range for someone of your height, that I truly believe that a gain of 10kg would result in greater speed, power and durability on the bike. Look at Jonas Abrahamsen, as an example of a rider who gained a lot of weight intentionally, and found greater success with it.

I’d point out also that Pogacar is 1.78m and 66kg. He isn’t exactly heavy-set in his physique and there isn’t anyone that climbs faster than him or does higher w/kg.

As a final point aside, I would also encourage you to think of an additional benefit of higher bodyweight as greater resilience in times of severe illness. Around 20 years ago, one of my wife’s best friends (who had always been remarkably thin) was taken ill with severe colitis, which ultimately resulted in her having her large intestine removed. She came very close to death (in her mid-twenties) and having minimal body mass meant she had nothing at all to fall back on.

Either way, as much as I absolutely love cycling, I do think that the single-minded pursuit of w/kg isn’t necessarily healthy or indeed productive for going faster on a bike.

976

I was reacting to this. I agree that if W/kg stays the same it is certainly worth the effort. I understand the benefits. But it is not like I was intentionally holding back when eating or something. I feel like I sometimes eat too much if anything. Should I be trying to reach W/kg by shedding some weight then the concerns would be really valid. But I am just training hard and eating a lot. Maybe not enough to gain weight. But for me, only eating is not enough to gain weight and you have alluded to it as well. It must be coupled with strength training. Right now my strength training is more of a rehab process for my ankle and hip. Once sorted, I’ll get back to the big lifts.

Severe illness is also something I have on my mind and is probably my only worry with this weight. But please, don’t make me look like a dieting teenage girl :wink: The only time I don’t eat enough is when I catch a stomach bug!

977

Until you start gaining weight you don’t know that you are eating enough. You are possibly still in calorie deficit and at risk from RED-S.

978

In theory you are right. But I am improving, don’t have any symptoms of RED-S, my weight is stable for 20+ years (I’ve actually gained 2 kgs in the whole time when first doing gym), sleep well, recover well (for the age), don’t have any hormonal problems, well-being problems and I am less sick than my peers (but don’t have children). I know my weight causes concerns but I am just fine,

979

Ok, we all need to take a moment to listen to what @Dostring is saying.

He has had a stable weight for 20+ years. He doesn’t feel bad. He has no medical issues.

Some people are genetically skinny. Not because of a crazy metabolism or magic, but because they subconsciously eat less and/or move more than others. Eating less does not mean eating too little, it just means eating less compared to the general population. Just as some people eat way more than the general population.

Food drive and hunger are genetic predispositions. Some people are way less interested in food, get full faster, and get hungry less often. Those people will be lighter than those with a greater food drive and hunger; not because they are intentionally under eating, but because their homeostasis manifests differently than for larger individuals. If someone has little food drive and a high NEAT (also genetic), they will be even lighter. It sounds like @Dostring fits that description. When he says that he eats to hunger and does not intentionally try to stay light, he means it. I agree that strength training will improve anyone’s health, including @Dostring, but I don’t agree that he’s at a larger risk for RED-S, illness, or any such ailments because of his weight. Swaying from homeostasis puts you at greater risk for all of the above, but it would be impossible to maintain a bodyweight that puts you far outside homeostasis for 20+ years without experiencing severe physiological and psychological maladies, which @Dostring does not exhibit.

980

I agree with some of what you are saying, but I believe that in the case of @Dostring that the homeostatic point at which he has found himself is as a result of never having provided the stimulus to alter it.

I was a total beanpole until I started lifting weights. I’ll admit that I always had a great appetite, and my training load with cycling, running and taekwondo in my teens was huge. I didn’t gain any strength, but I was ludicrously fit.

As soon as I started to lift weights, I gained muscle really quickly, because it was a stimulus that was new to my body. I went from 77kg to 101kg in about 2 years, and I was still incredibly lean at 101kg. 101kg is a standard BMI of about 24.5 for me.

Now I’m not suggesting for one second that Dostring should gain 25 odd kilos. It would be quite a shock to the system. I do however believe that by absolutely any metric (with the inclusion of weight training and a diet that support it) he would be healthier with an additional 10kg of lean mass.

He has alluded to having been close to 5w/kg FTP, which is superb. But that’s only a little over 300w. To maintain that same FTP at 10kg heavier would be in the region of 360w. A 50w increase for a 10kg muscle gain seems modest.

The healthy BMI range guidance exists for a reason, and irrespective of sporting endevours or not, being severely underweight is much more unhealthy than being overweight. Additionally, the BMI scale becomes less reliable with taller individuals (Dostring is 190cm, being significantly above average height), and the healthy range value actually increases.

This resource is a calculator for tall people, and gives an adjusted BMI value of 16.5 for 190cm and 63kg. I have an adjusted BMI of 22.4, with my 203cm and 101kg.

Either way, what do you have to lose? Incorporating strength training into you programme is only going to make you healthier. If you find that you don’t like the extra weight, you can always back off the resistance training and slim back down, but again, I’d bet the house that you’d only see benefits.

981

Your aproach is something I could learn from I guess. I’m in ma late 50-ties and after few years of health problems I’m trying to get back to shape and it’s not easy. At 52 and at 82 kg (175 cm weight) I was in the gym on regular basis deadlifting 100-120 kg for 6-8 reps and riding fast group rides with ex riders. Though I was never able to sustain more than 38 km/h average. I would survive at 40 km/h for 20 minutes max. Fast forward few years and I’m 85 kg with much more fat and less muscle and I struggle to go over 30 km/h with my 2 buddies. We did 31 km/h one day, but that’s the max I could go right now. I know that if I’m riding 32-33 with them, I can keep up in fast amateur group rides around here.
I have to lose 5 kg at least and probably I will but I completely can’t find motivation to do weight training. The biggest problem is recovery. I can’t go 3 days on, 1 day off anymore. More like one day hard, one day light two days off.

Chat GPT suggested creatine to improve my recovery and this is what I’m going to try. I never did any structured training, I just rode group rides or rides with my buddies. Th weather is my coach. If it shines, we ride :slight_smile: I observed that mixing road riding with mountain biking in the woods helps my motivation and improves my road riding as well.
My average month is 40-45 hours. August was 45h.

982

It’s interesting what you wrote. Do you have any links or some more info regarding Abrahamsen training?
My son is a 21-year old competitive cyclist and next season might be his last. He struggles to get the results and power numbers.
He has V02Max over 80 but the power is not there. Everything has changed over last few years. Now you need 6.0 W/kg for 20 minutes in UCI 2.1, 2.2 and U23 races and around 6.2-6.3 on a 10 minute climb to get to TOP10. His max power from the races is 5.5 for 20 minutes and 5.9 for 10 minutes. He is 183 cm tall, his natural weight is 73 kg. He lost weight for 2024 Tour de l’Avenir to 70 but it didn’t change anything. Though his power didn’t drop at the weight. You have to face a bunch of doped Colombians, Portugese, Spanish, Italian and Eastern Europeans. It was easier for him to get good results 2-3 years ago than it is now. Doping in Conti and amateur teams is widespread. They’re not tested out of competition so they can use EPO, testosterone, HgH and so on. It is very depressing for a clean rider to compete against a bunch of dopers.
We wonder what to do in his last try to get to Pro Teams. If he should drop the weight to 68 to get to 6.0 W/kg or to go Abrahamsen and Pedersen way and try to develop bigger power numbers.

983

Here you go:

Tour de France unsung heroes: Jonas Abrahamsen on gaining almost 20 kilos to go faster - Velo

Your son sounds like an interesting case. The whole thing with Abrahamsen is going from trying to be a climber, to more of a powerhouse.

Pedersen have always been a naturally “bigger guy” (in cycling terms - I’ve been next to him at even that is surprisingly small..). He said himself that he gains weight just looking at food, compared to his teammates.

984

I am now popular I see! Thanks for standing up for me. But I really am used to people giving me advice about my weight. To correct you on point, I don’t think I eat less than others. At my work, the guys, all of them younger, active (though just active, not doing sports like me), no one skinny and I eat certainly the most of them. When there is a cake, I’ll eat the left overs no one wants. While I have felt bad about people telling me how skinny I am, more and more I appreciate how lucky I am that I can eat anything and don’t care about weight.

@JonInSweden I’ve been going to gym for a couple of years with a coach and then alone. Three times a week while cycling (and sometimes also running). I’ve done 100 kg deadlift for reps. I know it must seem almost funny to you but it wasn’t my main sport ever. I’ve stopped the gym because of time restrictions but want to get back to it since then. For now I am trying to solve some long standing asymmetries that caused some serious pain on the bike and also while lifting. I thought that compound lifts will take care of everything but that was not true for me. It is taking time (more than a year of focused work) but it improves. Once that is sorted I want to get back to proper lifting.

Also, @JonInSweden I don’t agree and wrote that already, that muscles are a limiter. Certainly not for W/kg but even for absolute watts it is not straightforward. Once you have the muscle, you still have to get O2 in and waste out. That takes time to build. And then you have heart and lungs which might be a limiter already.

@JonInSweden as for a healthy range of anything - I am not convinced. Population averages say only that. Average. Anyway, I acknowledged the risk of severe illness and I also see the benefits of strength training so there is no disagreement. I certainly won’t try to gain weight to be in a healthy range of whatever.

@JonInSweden Calculated the breakfast calories for this morning (I say this morning because fruits are changing and today were more of the calorie slim ones :smiley:). Total was 1500 calories so that’s not nothing. If anyone is interested in my recipe, I’ll gladly post it including weights and calories!

985

@BikerJens linked to a relevant article.

Also, consider that your son is 21 years old. 5.5w/kg for 20 minutes is very good, and although it is (absurdly enough) a far cry from 6w/kg+ needed to compete with the best, you need to consider that he’s still developing. You didn’t specify when he started training and how long he’s been at it, but chances are that the riders at higher w/kg have simply been at it for longer. There is compelling research showing that starting early is not an advantage in regards to the highest performance achieved over a career, but only an advantage in how quickly you get there. Obviously, no one starting endurance sports 30 years old will be in the world tour, but a rider that starts when they’re 10 years old does not inherently have a physiological advantage over a rider that starts when they’re 15 years old. The one who started younger will be faster at every given age, but they will both eventually reach their genetic ceiling. The one who started at 10 y/o may reach that point when they’re 26 y/o while the other may reach it at 31 y/o. With this said, while there is perhaps not a physiological advantage to starting very young, there is a institutional advantage. The structure of cycling as a sport makes it so that being good at a young age gives you more opportunities. This will make the journey for a rider who started later in life more challenging, but not impossible.

If your son has a natural set point at 73kg where he recovers well from training and displays no symptoms of low energy availability, there is likely little value in gaining weight. Jonas Abrahamsen did not naturally settle at 60kg – he forced himself to stay there. He had several symptoms of LEA, including low testosterone, low bone density, delayed puberty, low sex drive, and impaired recovery. His “natural weight” was what he ended up at when he gained 20kg.

986

Well, you eat at calorie balance, regardless of how you get there. If you ate more than you expended, you’d be gaining weight. It doesn’t matter if you expend more calories through NEAT, EAT, or if you simply get full quickly, there’s no magic involved. Your BMR is not double that of someone else at your body weight.

I’ve worked with quite a lot of people who “can’t gain weight” during my coaching days in powerlifting, and you’re a very good example. I don’t say this to be demeaning in any way, I’m just trying to illustrate my point. You say that you eat as much or more than other people, but you don’t see what they eat when they’re not at work. You’re also not aware of how many calories you expend though NEAT as the very definition of NEAT is non-exercise activity of which you’re not aware. You can eat whatever you want and not worry about weight because eating “whatever you want” means something different to you than it does to people with a greater food drive. You won’t understand how that level of hunger feels because you’re not genetically predisposed to having it.

You simply have a lower body weight set point than most other people your height. There are genetic outliers in all aspects, and you’re one of them. There are Nigerian teenagers that have never touched a weight in their life who are more muscular than many caucasian people could ever become with any amount of training. They simply have genetics that manifest in a muscular phenotype. You have genetics that manifest in a very slight phenotype.

However, if I were to remove you from homeostasis, you’d experience the same issues in maintaining that as other people do. If you lost 5kg, you would no longer be able to eat ad libitum and not gain weight. If you ate ad lib, you’d quickly regain those 5kg. Likewise, if I forced you to gain 5kg of fat through overfeeding, you’d likely lose that weight very quickly as soon as you returned to ad lib eating. If you gain muscle, the likelihood of altering your set point is much greater, which is why @JonInSweden has been able to maintain his weight for so long without stuffing himself to the point of feeling sick after every meal. You’d need to maintain your new weight with the added muscle for a longer time period in order to make it happen, and during that time, you’d feel very full, very often.

Summarily, whether consciously or not, you either eat less or move more than people heavier than you. There is no magic involved here. If I were you, I wouldn’t worry about it. You don’t sound like you’re unhappy at your weight. Keep training, eating good, and enjoying life. Don’t manufacture a problem where there is none in the first place.

987

That’s precisely what I try to do. I prefer to solve problems and get rid of them. For my later years in life some muscle might be useful which is the point @JonInSweden is trying to hammer.

988

Yup, agreed. I think you should weight train. Muscle mass is one of the best predictors for longevity. However, I don’t think you need to force feed at the same time. Eat to hunger and see what happens. My hunch is that you’ll gain weight gradually and find yourself stronger and more capable at no cost to life quality, enjoyment of food, or cycling performance.

989

A pro’s watt and w/kg. Always fun to have a quick look inside.

990

Here’s a higher resolution image for those power numbers.

Also, we all had a fun discussion about how hard it is to hold 5w/kg for an hour. This dude does it for 2 hours🙃

Screenshot 2025-08-29 at 12.54.14
Screenshot 2025-08-29 at 12.54.141266×1408 152 KB

991

You can only start from where you are.

I started with 150w rides for 45min back in April – that’s what I could do at a HR of 110. I also have’t done much over an hour. You put the time in and do what you can do.

I find that it’s easiest to cut calories at dinner. I eat enough to fuel my training and my brain as I teach. I cut my 500 or so calories in that last meal. So far, so good – I’m back at 75kg, and 73-74 would be a realistic healthy weight.

992

I have a powermeter in my son’s bike. Tarmac SL6 Pro. Not in mine, old Roubaix SL3. But I guess my power is also around 150 when riding 30 km/h. I can use his bike but I find it too stiff. I usually do 3-hour rides with my buddies or alone. Either road or mountain bike. 65-85 km on a road bike. I could do 100 km but it would be over my current comfort zone. If there is 3-4 of us 100 in a nice weather is ok. My average HR for a 70 km ride at 30 km/h is around 122-128.
Looking at my recent improvements, I know that losing 5 kg and doing some weight training would bring me back to 32 km/h.
I still have some marginal gains I could pull out. Like shaving legs :wink: getting aero socks and narrower handlebar, taking last 1 cm of spacers under the stem and gettin aero jersey or aero suit.

993

You are right, it requires a ton of hard work. But it seems that choosing the right parents helps a lot for a Nobel price, just like ftp:

Science Nobel Laureates: Parents Who Were Teachers or Academics

A detailed study by Berry (1981) and Rodriguez (2021) found that:

  • 31.4% of parents of Physics laureates were teachers or academics

  • 20.2% for Chemistry laureates

  • 21.5% for Physiology or Medicine laureates

For non-scientific Nobel categories:

  • 20.3% for Economics

  • 15.8% for Literature

  • 11.5% for Peace
    G

These numbers significantly exceed the general workforce proportion—teachers and academics represent only around 3–5% of the population in many developed nations—highlighting a strong overrepresentation among Nobel families.

994

Following up on this.

Since then, life happened. We ended up moving to a new city for work and I am doing additional work/academic training now. Because of that I’d only been riding maybe 8h a week for most of the year and really no structure at all.

Despite that I actually hit and an all time best FTP of ~4.7w/kg this year (20min test protocol giving 348w for FTP, at just under 74kg). VO2 estimate from Garmin this year dropped though from low 70s to high 60s, which isn’t unsurprising with the drop in volume.

But I don’t think I have the motivation or time to keep riding the volumes needed to keep progressing beyond that anymore, so this is likely the end of that journey for me. Other things in my life are more important now