- Diet is so incredibly important for professional cyclists,
it can't be underestimated.
And it's for that reason that World Tour teams
invest heavily in nutrition.
They will all have at least one chef
that travels with the team,
plus at least one nutritionist.
It's pretty clear what a chef does,
but what about a nutritionist?
Well, I am going to find out
by pretending to be a professional cyclist again,
and asking Nigel Mitchell who is Nutritionist
at Team EF Education First,
and also a friend of GCN, 'cause he wrote our book,
The Plant-Based Cyclist.
(door creaking)
(heavy bass)
(whoosh)
I don't think I've ever been so nervous
going into the GCN studio before.
All right, Nigel?
- Hiya Si, I heard that.
There's no need at all to be nervous,
you should know that,
you've known me a long time.
- Well that is true, that is true.
But still, the scales never lie
and I think that's going to be part of this.
- But it's interesting you say that,
because your focus as an athlete is about weight?
- Yeah. - Whereas my focus
as a nutritionist is much broader than that.
My focus is around your general health and performance,
and weight's just a small part of it all.
- [Simon] Right, well, that's interesting
'cause that was going to be my first question.
What does a nutritionist do for a World Tour team?
- Well, that's a question that a lot of people
would like the answer to. (laughing)
No, being serious,
it's really quite a busy and in depth job
and it works on a lot of different levels.
So, there's very much a strategic level,
where what we're trying to do is really develop
a positive culture around food and nutrition
and health and performance.
And so that includes working with the chef,
working with the hotels, with the soigneurs,
also working with the nutrition partners with the team.
And what I believe is, if you've got the right environment
and the right type of culture,
then the riders actually learn from that experience
and that has a big influence
on then how they eat and how they behave.
And part of the work I will do, is I'll always do
individual meetings with riders,
especially at the training camps.
And when we've got a new rider coming into the teams
then I'll do a little one to one induction with them
which is usually between one and two hours,
so it's quite in depth. - [Simon] Yeah!
- [Nigel] And what I'll look to do there,
is really try and understand,
have they got any food intolerances?
have they got any preferences?
have they got any clinical history issues
that relate to nutrition?
Such as iron deficiencies, vitamin D,
things like this, so we may look at some of the
historical bloods what they have there
and how the diet and nutrition can effect that.
Have they got any problems with any particular foods?
Also, talk to them about the philosophy
within the team, what we do with food.
I'll talk about how fantastic the team chef is
and how they'll need to communicate with that chef
around the foods they're being provided at the races.
And one of the other things I always do
is looking at benchmarking where we are
from a body composition point of view.
- [Simon] Okay. So, should we crack on
and have a look then at body composition?
- Well, interestingly Si, what I've done,
I've dug out my notes from you from 2005
when you were a mountain bike rider.
So we've got some historical data,
so we can actually see how you've changed
over the last 15 years.
- [Simon] Yeah, so as well as finding out
what a world touring nutritionist does,
today we're also going to find out
how I've declined over the last fifteen years.
- So what I need you to do is to strip down to your pants.
- Well it's your lucky day isn't it?
(laughing)
(boxing bell rings)
Now, as interesting as it would have been
to have read the comments were I to be sat here in my pants,
I have found some gym shorts,
which I think Nigel probably could be from 2005.
- Yeah I think they could be looking at the fashion.
The other thing is I hardly recognize you
without your GCN hoodie, you've got a t-shirt.
- I have, it's got GCN written on it as well.
I suspect I need to get rid of this though don't I?
- Yeah, so basically, what we do here is
I'm going to be taking some measurements on your body,
and we're going to measure eight sites on your body
and what we do is, we just look at the total number,
we don't work out a body fat equation,
or anything like that,
even though people are often used to having that done.
I don't like to use it because
you have to use certain regression equations
and if you do not use the same equations
you come out with completely different figures.
And it's much more objective in that,
if we've got just a total figure,
we don't say this is good, or this is bad,
we say this is just where you are.
And what we do over time, is we can monitor that,
so we can then look at, you know,
at different stages in the season where the athlete is.
Sometimes we will work on targets
for people who are needing to have specific weights.
But it's as much around protecting the rider,
as what it is about meeting performance goals
because it's really easy to push the weight too far
and then if we push the weight too far,
we have both health and performance issues
with an individual rider.
- [Simon] Okay.
- [Nigel] So, if we're going to start,
need you to take your t-shirt off and stand up please.
- All right.
Woohoo!
(wolf-whistling)
- Right, so first things first,
we need to weigh ya.
- Okay.
- [Nigel] So pop yourself on the scales.
- [Simon] Wow!
- [Nigel] 72.1.
- [Simon] Yeah!
- Now, interestingly, on the eighth of August in 2005,
you were 70.9.
- That was probably my biceps, I reckon,
that have grown since then. (laughing)
I can tense everything Nigel,
but I suspect that's not going to fool you.
- No, in fact I need you to relax.
So all we're going to do here is
I'm using this pair of skinfold calipers,
so these are a scientifically engineered
piece of equipment that's got
a certain gauge on there on the springs
that puts a certain pressure on the skin.
And all we're doing there
is just measuring in millimeters
how much skin and underlying tissue we have there.
And so, the thing that's constant,
the thickness of the skin really remains constant,
it's the stuff below that changes
and it's the stuff below that represents the body fat.
And, as I was saying before,
I would not use this to actually make an estimate
of how much fat somebody is carrying
because it's quite imprecise to do that.
But what it's useful for,
helping us to map changes
in weight of an athlete
so we can get a good idea,
are we losing muscle?
Are we losing fat?
And how we gauge that over time
in helping to protect the rider.
And, so I'm trained to do skinfolds
under an organization called ISAK
and if people are looking at getting skinfolds done,
then really they need to be questioning
the training that people have had.
Now, the way that I'm actually going to do this with you
is not how it is done in the ISAK manual
and this is really just for the brevity of time.
- Okay.
- But the first thing that I'd do is
I would, like, have a look at you, visually,
and I've got a photographic memory for men's bodies
- Oh, that's useful. (laughing)
- So actually, you don't look massively, massively different
back to 2005 to be honest with you Si.
- Whew!
- So, just having a look at you there
I can see that you started to get
that sort of middle aged type of spread
going off a little bit round the back,
round the kidneys there. (laughing)
- Right, okay.
- There's nothing too dramatic,
nothing too dramatic,
so, I always--
- You heard it here first GCN viewers.
The age thing is an interesting one Nigel,
you know, a rider like Valverde,
you know, in his forties, - Yeah.
- You know, is he going to be battling,
and I appreciate we can't talk about specifics,
but is he going to be battling middle age spread?
Like, is it harder for older elite athletes?
- I'll tell you, what I find quite interesting,
I don't necessarily think it's that much harder,
'cause I've worked with people
in their forties, fifties,
and they've been really, really lean.
I think it's the consistency - Right.
- So, I think if people have
maintained themselves like Valverde has,
then it may get more challenging for him each year,
or he may have to adapt things each year,
but he's not, sort of, let himself go,
gained 10 kilos, then he's trying to correct that.
So, he's maintained himself throughout.
So, I do think it can become challenging,
but I think if people maintain,
then it's much easier trying to re-fight.
So, what we always do is
we measure the right hand side just as a,
that's the standard side we'd measure.
- Okay.
- And one of the things that's often
really interesting with bike riders is that
when we're doing on the side,
quite often when they've crashed
they've got a lot of scar tissue,
and so we often have to try
and measure around that scar tissue
'cause that actually adds quite a bit to it.
Now I'm looking at how your bodies distributed,
but I'm also seeing if you're a bit wonky,
'cause if you're a bit wonky,
like a lot of riders are,
then I'll say please make sure you go and see the chiro.
So, we work quite integrated as a team.
And I'm just going to find the mid point on your arm there,
then that's where we'll take a circumference,
and we'll just do those measurements through there.
- Okay.
- So, let me just take this measurement there.
Quick mental calculation.
Okay, so we've marked your arms,
so I'm just going to take the skinfolds with it now.
What I do is I take three different measurements
and basically just take a mean.
So again, under the strictest protocol,
I'd write each single different measurement down,
but again, for time,
I'm just going to take these and measure them.
So, what I'm doing here is
just pulling the flesh off the arm,
let the caliper on, just let it settle,
take it off, doing the same again,
same again, that's great.
(relaxing music)
You can put your t-shirt back on to keep warm.
- You can all breathe a sigh of relief then.
(laughing)
- Then we're going to do your legs,
so I just need you to sit on the chair over there.
Now, 15 years ago you didn't have
such hairy legs, did you?
- No, it's true.
Three months ago I didn't have such hairy legs,
but it's a winter thing.
- It's a winter thing, is it?
So, all I'm doing here is just going
really from the hip to the apex of the knee
and just going for that mid-point there.
And, so this just gives us,
when we're taking the girth,
if somebodies girth increases and the skinfold goes down,
that's suggestive that they're gaining
more muscle on the thigh-- - Yeah.
- If the skinfold goes up and the leg reduces in size,
that means they're gaining more fat and losing muscle,
which isn't what we want. - [Simon] No.
So these type of measurements can be very supportive
for the rider because it's just helping us
to understand some of the changes with them.
- [Simon] Yeah, I can imagine it being actually like
a bit of a marker for training effectiveness, can it?
- [Nigel] It is, yeah.
I mean, a lot of the riders are really keen once they,
the way that we use this,
are really keen for this data to be collected
on a regular basis so they can just monitor
and just see where they are
at different stages of the season.
So when I've got riders who
I've worked with for several years,
who go back and say,
"Ooh, where were I last May Nige?
"Ooh, oh yeah, I were going really (beeps) then."
Or "oh yeah, I were going really--"
And so, they just use it
as part of their matrix with it.
- So, might you do this at a race then?
- Yeah, absolutely!
So races can be really good place
to collect some of this data,
but what's really important with it
is that we're not making really, sort of,
subjective, sort of, calls around it.
It's that we're going okay, this is where it is.
We're not saying this is good, this is bad,
or it's a success, or a failure,
we're just using it as monitoring tool.
But I also find it can be quite protective
to prevent riders from going really too light
and too skinny-- - Yeah.
- And, like, in a Grand Tour, we tend to measure
this at the start, the middle, at the end.
Again, it's really about,
that helps us to understand the energy balance.
So again, the riders are ensuring
we're getting enough calories in them.
I have been at races where riders
have been losing weight too quickly
so we've then been able to put an intervention in,
to help feed them more
and they perform better in the last weeks.
So, you know, everything's around the support
and not the judgment. - Yeah.
I have a hunch that the skinfolds will have gone up
and the muscle mass has gone down.
But, I'll be quite interested.
All right then Nigel, how are we looking?
- Well, what does it all mean?
It's like I was saying before,
I'm not saying whether things are good or bad,
it's just where we are at the moment.
We're interested in what we can do,
is compare this with the data
that you had 15 years ago nearly, and interestingly,
there's not a massive change in weight,
you're only kilo heavier,
but what does that mean as far as your body is concerned.
So, if we just look down this,
then actually, the girths are not massively different,
so they're in, sort of,
within the error of measurement, the girths,
but the thing that's really interesting is
that the skinfolds have gone up quite markedly.
So, back in 2005, the whole seven added together
was 36 millimeters,
and today they're 53.4 millimeters.
- [Simon] Okay.
- So, what does that mean?
- Hopefully not that I'm 80 percent fatter than I was
(laughing)
- It's like I said, I don't do a body fat percentage.
But what it does mean is that
because the weight is pretty much the same,
the girths are pretty much the same,
but the skinfolds are really quite a bit higher,
then that means, really that,
what you've done is that you've lost muscle mass
and you've gained some fat mass.
And when I'm looking at, like, the levels
that you're coming in at here,
then within a team you would probably find
two or three riders in December
that would have similar, sort of,
skinfolds to what you have now in December,
and when they're coming in to the racing season,
they'd be very much like yours were.
So actually, if you look at the timing now,
we're doing this in the winter,
and we did them before in the summer,
it may be that in the summer
these are back down to 36 millimeters.
- Okay, so I'm just six months away from peak condition.
- But to be really honest, you know,
we're not talking about
from where these are at the moment,
that this is something that
is a negative impact on health,
or for the type of riding that you're doing
is going to have any negative impact on your riding either.
So, you're in an okay zone.
- Okay, that's cool, from a personal perspective obviously,
but what I'm really interested to think
is actually that you wouldn't make a judgment
on a rider when they walk in, in terms of like,
okay, we need to sort you out right now
because your skinfolds are higher
than all your teammates.
So, there's none of that, kind of, judgment.
- No, potentially it's quite dangerous,
to make those type of judgments,
and I really try and counsel the riders
away from comparing themselves to other riders.
And I don't really like to make a real judgment
until we've got a series of data
and we've been able to see how athletes
have been progressing.
For sure, if we have a rider that comes in
in December and they're got really high skinfolds then,
you know, we'll say that
we'll be quite honest with them
and say look, you know, for the time of year
where does this normal sit to how you are in the season?
And then they'll normally go,
well actually yeah, I'm a couple of kilos heavier
then where I should be,
and okay, let's support you with that,
so when we see you back in January
this is something to work towards.
So then, again, it's a supportive process,
rather than, you know, you're just really overweight,
go away and sort yourself out.
- Some of those, kind of, methods of getting someone
to start losing a little bit of weight,
I can imagine under, like,
close supervision be incredibly effective,
and after all, weight is really important for a pro cyclist.
But equally, a rider will be on their own,
looking after themselves for a large portion of the year.
I can also imagine it being quite easy
to not only get it wrong,
but to start getting it wrong regularly.
So is part of your work as well, actually,
looking after, you know, nutrition
from that perspective as well? - Yeah.
- Like, disordered eating?
- Yeah, so when we look at cycling,
not just cycling, you know,
I've got experience working with a lot of sports,
and disordered eating is really quite common
in the majority of sports.
My approach and my thoughts really around it
is actually, disordered eating,
so if you think about it, what we're asking
athletes to do is not actually quite normal,
so, you know, if people
are doing something like some faster training,
or they might be going out on
really quite restricted energy for a long ride,
that's not quite normal,
so there's a disorder to that.
But that doesn't mean to say that it's pathological,
and what I mean by that,
is it's when it's becoming,
from an emotional or a physiological point of view,
negative on the athlete.
So, when we're looking at bringing in changes
within the diet and the training
to help support them for performance gains,
then that disordered pattern
is not necessarily unhealthy.
It's when the athlete is driven by emotional aims
and making these disordered patterns
without any real logic from a performance
or a physical point of view,
is then when we start to get into some danger areas,
when people then start to be coming
more in to eating disorders.
And by providing more support around the athletes
then I believe that we can prevent
that disordered eating becoming an eating disorder.
(door creaking)
- Well, I've got to say,
a huge thank you to Nigel,
firstly for easy going easy on me,
I'm pretty sure he lied about my skinfolds,
but anyway, we don't need to know that,
but also for his amazing insight
and knowledge as always.
If you would like to watch a little bit more of Nigel,
and I'm sure you would, why not check out
one of the recipe videos that we filmed with him,
based on the Plant-Based Cyclist book.
If you want to watch one, you can get through to it
by clicking on screen now,
otherwise, please give this video a big thumbs up.