What do you mean by this? Is this universally accepted in endurance sports?
Idk if it is generally accepted in endurance sports. In eccentric exercise it is pretty much generally accepted and many cyclist get their „winter intensity“ from such eccentric exercise.
And what exactly does it mean? I’m curious to know the link between being lean and recovery.
I think it is a general reference to adding dietary stress to already high levels of exertion. Someone with a lean baseline might not experience any stress related to dropping weight, whereas others might have devastating (at least from a training standpoint) consequences from trying to drop weight.
Extremes are difficult to condone. Gaining 20-30 lbs in the offseason is likely a bad idea (for some, again YMMV), but putting on 2-3% total body weight in the offseason might be a good idea to cut your body some slack for a few months.
When multi-year training plans are the consideration, the off-season becomes more and more important. Short-term gains with rapid weight loss and high intensity can’t be denied, but you are borrowing from the future to spend today so to speak.
+1 for Greg Doucette, the only YouTuber worth listening to
But isn’t gaining weight also a type of stress? Surely, from a stress perspective, maintenance is probably the best balance for a number of reasons. I’m not sure gaining weight, either fat or muscle, is “cutting your body some slack”.
I can understand continuous weight loss/caloric defecit hindering recovery, but the OP suggested that simply being lean was not conducive to recovery… If you are naturally lean then wouldn’t maintaining that weight 1) be the least amount of stress and 2) save you the stress of having to lose weight pre-season?
To point out the obvious - this is N=1 and my own observations, so please take them with a grain of salt 
Gaining weight is complex. Gaining weight as a function of eating bunches of fried and processed food, yeah that’s probably stressing your body. Gaining wait as a function of avoiding a caloric deficit with whole foods and sufficient macronutrients, probably reducing stress. For year-to-year training, it is unrealistic for some individuals to maintain weight as a constant. Leading to an A event, I would plan to lose 3-8 lbs over a couple of months leading up to it to coincide with reduction in TSS to be as light and powerful/rested as possible. Maintaining that weight long-term is not in my body’s best interest. Coaches have said it several times - Fitness ends where racing begins.
For those without distinct periods of base/build/specialty and no A events, I think it would make sense to maintain a consistent weight and consistent performance. One of the beautiful aspects of cycling is how different each person’s plan and goals can be. Making it to nationals is a vastly different but no less lofty or difficult goal than maintaining a healthy lifestyle and long-term health.
Agree with a lot of what you say.
I am not talking about making marginal gains over a season consisting of „off season, build period“, specification period, taper, event (and then likely start over at build or specification, depending on time between events). If the aim is to stay fit all year around, you would likely not want to cycle your body weight.
One of my main points however, is that a caloric surplus is used in strength training (to improve progress) and strength training then again, is part of many cyclist‘s base phase. It makes a lot of sense for me at least…
…and Dylan Johnson.
+10
My experience with winter weight gain (5-10lbs when in the 150s-160s) is that I did not see significant power or recovery improvements at those times. If I tried to drop the 10lbs too quickly in the spring I would see negative impact to workouts and sustainable power / FTP. I also don’t try to hit a ‘race weight’ as that also has negatively impacted power and workouts as I probably had too great of a calorie deficit.
Also as I’ve gotten older I find it easier to gain weight and more difficult to loose it. Maintaining a leanish body composition throughout the year is what I do now and find that works well for me with being able to hit workouts with high quality and maintain a high FTP (for me) year round.
You make an interesting point about weight gain / strength training / base phase. Many cyclists use the base phase as an opportunity to loose weight as the volume is higher and intensity is lower than a build phase. I have noticed that my hunger feels much greater during build phases and after high intensity workouts when compared to base phases even with roughly the same caloric burn. My personal opinion is that a lot of strength training techniques and advise don’t translate that well into endurance sports such cycling.
I’m not sure about the science (again, N=1), but this is exactly what I usually do. I gain about 10-12 lbs in the offseason with increased volume and strength training + plentiful macronutrients and caloric surplus. Interestingly, with the high kJ output, my body fat rarely changes, rather it is muscle mass and probably blood plasma. My body feels subjectively stronger, is objectively stronger, and it is easier psychologically/physically to put in the high TSS weeks required for base strength and metabolic training. I then start to cut back on the strength training gradually to maintenance, balance caloric intake with output, and work on specificity as events approach. To avoid impacting workouts, it is super-gradual, something like 1 lb every couple of weeks on average.
From listening to Coach Chad, it also depends on what type of strength training you are doing. I do low rep, low speed, high resistance exercises to improve strength and joint/bone health without a bunch of hypertrophy, which isn’t important to me. I suspect the converse would yield bigger weight gain numbers, but IDK about that.
Just curious, if your body fat is the same at the higher weight, why do you lose weight? cutting muscle just for the sake of cutting weight and not to get leaner seems like a missed opportunity. If you could keep the muscle and get leaner you might be able to have your cake and eat it too.
It isn’t an intentional goal, it kind of just “happens” as I cut back the frequency and change the intention of workouts. In base phase months, I do 3x/week strength training with goal of increasing 1-rep-max. Approaching events with increasing cycling workout intensity, I do 2x/week with goal of maintaining the strength gains. When I have tried to cut calories with intention of getting leaner, I very predictably get sick within 2 weeks and have to rest.
As a side note, testing these limits has shown me just how amazing pro athletes are. Regardless of the sport, the ability to push repeatedly and develop those abilities without breaking down is a true gift and fun to watch
During the Giro Dan Lloyd queried Ganna’s weight listed on procyclingstats as it had him in the 70’s
I think Dan flat out asked Ganna or Ineos what it was and it came back as 83 I think. Check procyclingstats as it should now be correct.
You are getting a lot of the right advice here, but deliberately trying to influence your weight in this way can ultimately lead to some pretty harmful/dangerous behaviors from my perspective, both physiologically and mentally.
Please don’t focus on deliberately altering your weight for performance gain. Instead, a great place to place your energy and attention can be in fueling your workouts and recovery, nourishing yourself, and staying body positive if you fluctuate throughout seasons. Lots to look up in our nutrition archives, but heres my favorite thus far:
I would say if is beneficial to maintain a relatively low body fat even in the winter/off season. Gaining excessive body fat will eventually lead to the need to drop that body fat and while doing that you run the possibility or even likelihood of dropping beneficial muscle mass and even losing power. Now I am not saying that you should not enjoy yourself to a reasonable degree but it is not worth going overboard as the needless weight gain will only have to be lost later and the time spent doing so would be better spent improving power output and performance
Think the fundamental problem is that you can’t ‘cut’ without affecting your energy levels, which in turn will affect how much volume you can do. If your cycling discipline is mostly short and power based (track sprinting maybe, or downhill), you could probably drop volume and weight shortly before the event (as long as you carb up directly before). Or if weight is a major factor, like in short hill climbs. But for anything that needs long rides in the build up, there will be a very find balance between enough energy to complete sessions and a the calorie deficit to drop weight.
…at least that’s what I think, it might be exactly the other way round!
Although the general notion here is, that cutting is more costly, than „bulking“ is beneficial, I am yet to be convinced.
If I can’t get to race weight without inflicting stress on the body and without losing muscle, how can I hold race weight all year and Build muscle/ not inflict stress on the body… doesn’t really make too much sense for me.
And yes, Racing in the high alps, I do have a Race weight.
Assuming that W/kg are the deciding factor on long climbs, I can easily manipulate my FTP by +0.2 or 0.3 W/kg, which would take months of training to achieve when maintaining the same weight.
That is the thing though- you can go from “normal weight” to race weight, but can you go from “bulk weight” to race weight?