(lively music)
- Welcome back to the Triathlon Training Explained show
powered by TrainingPeaks and this week we're talking weight.
- We are.
We've had loads of questions from the last show,
and also from our other videos,
and there's quite a lot of you asking about weight.
- Certainly, it does.
So this week we're discussing race weight,
watts per kilo, competing as a larger athlete,
and even gaining weight.
- Yeah, both of us have had fluctuations in our weight
throughout our triathlon careers,
but we're not experts on this topic,
so we're also going to be getting some great advice
from a professional nutritionist.
(upbeat music)
- First question is sent in over YouTube by Training Tall.
They've said I'm a big guy at 203 centimetres, 98 kilogrammes.
What are your thoughts and opinions
on larger guys gals training and competing?
Are there weight classes in triathlon?
They'd be really interested in training and competing,
but it seems like being big could
put you at a huge disadvantage.
- Well Training Tall, just start with
there aren't really triathlon classes within the sport.
Not like you have in rowing or some other sports anyway.
But apparently there are a few events
that have a category for the larger athletes,
and these come under the bracket of Clydesdale or Athena.
And the ballpark figure seems to be if anyone
90 kilos or over in the men's category
or over 66 kilos in the women's.
Which I think it's surprisingly low, and it would actually,
you know, class quite a few people
who maybe wouldn't class themselves
in such a category in that, and I mean,
I don't know what - Yeah I'm quite
- You think I was shocked by that.
- Yeah I'm quite surprised.
And like you said, I've never
come across these events before
- Yeah
- Um, so it's kinda good as a guide I guess.
- Yeah so apparently those are out there,
but we've not seen one ourselves.
- Yeah, but Dan's main question, can you compete?
Certainly.
I mean that's kinda the beauty of triathlon,
especially to myself.
I think that for anyone can take part in triathlon.
It's not like going to a swimming Galloway.
You have to qualify to compete in your swimming team.
Anyone can turn up.
It's quite fun as a family.
Some longer events do have cutoff times,
but they're generally quite accommodating
to allow all abilities to take part.
- Yeah well that's why I think it's just so important
you find the right race for you.
So maybe don't do a race that's got a cutoff time
as your first event until you know, you know,
roughly whether you could do it in that time.
But then also, look at the terrain
of the course and the profile.
So how hilly it's going to be,
cause if you are maybe a bit heavier,
but you've got good power on the bike then a flatter course
is going to suit you for the cycle section
and probably for the run as well to be honest.
- [Mark] Yeah I mean if you take a look
at a lot of the top level athletes,
they're all sorts of shapes and sizes,
so it's really a case of playing to your strengths.
- Well following on from this,
we've got a question in from Paul Dischler who asks,
I'm a bigger guy and want to trim down
to a decent race weight race size, any suggestions?
- Okay, so we hear the term race weight
thrown around quite a lot,
basically referring to being at
kinda a prime weight for racing.
For example, you might be carrying a couple extra kilogrammes
over the winter than we'd like to race with,
so we essentially trim down for racing.
We've both trimmed down for racing over the years,
and from my experience,
try not to do this in too big of jumps,
you kind of do it gradually.
Um, losing weight does effect your buoyancy in the pool,
so it effects how you feel as you swim.
Also it can effect your power on the bike,
and actually whilst you run.
So, yeah, try and do it slowly
and allow your body to adapt along the way.
- Yeah I mean I find, following on from you,
that I do fluctuate throughout the season,
but it happens kind of naturally for me
that I tend to always carry extra weight in the winter
just like after the offseason never kind of loses.
But I tend not to panic about it,
cause it tends to come off as the season goes on,
and I think as you just get, you know
the intensity of your training changes,
so I don't necessarily consciously trying to lose weight.
- Also, there is a benefit sometimes to having
a bit of extra weight on you - Well yeah
- in terms of your health immunity,
if you are training in colder climates,
and it can actually be good for increasing your power.
- Well I've definitely needed extra weight for this winter,
cause it's been so cold,
but genuinely, if you've got an A race
that's late on in the season, and I find that on the whole
I've managed to stay fresh throughout the year,
and I think that a lot of that has to do with the fact
that maybe I won't race at my best early season,
but that's not the main goal, so it doesn't matter.
But then on the other hand, I have you know,
got it wrong before, I got really light,
and I'm sure for those people who have got light
have experienced this great feeling running,
but then my swimming just was dropped dramatically.
- If you are trying to lose weight,
then a good way of doing this is to track
your daily food intake and perhaps even your weight.
And actually our partner TrainingPeaks
has a really good function for this.
You can input your daily metrics,
so you can input your weight and track it from day to day,
and perhaps even start seeing
whether you perform better at different weights.
- And you can take it another step further,
and there's an app called MyFitnessPal
which works with TrainingPeaks,
and that you can use to log all the food that you take in
and it actually works out how many calories
and what nutrition you're getting from that,
so it's quite interesting,
but it can also be a really good incentive tool,
and it's something I used years ago
in combination with the nutritionist I was working with.
And then it kinda works as a food diary,
and it was a benefit in the fact
that I could see what I was eating,
but it also made me aware of what I was eating,
cause I was like I've got to write this down.
Oh that little like, those biscuits from the cafe,
I've actually got to write those down.
Now maybe I won't bother having them.
So yeah, it can work in two ways.
- Well beyond diary experience,
because we're perhaps a little out of our depth in this area
in terms on advising on weight loss.
So earlier I went to chat to a specialist.
Alright so we're here with Renee McGregor,
professional and clinical dietician.
You've worked with a number of athletes
over the past two Olympic and Paralympic cycles,
and a number of elite athletes.
So firstly, we'd like to pick your brain on race weight.
So if you think we should be striving for a race weight?
- Um it's a really good question, Mark.
I think race weight's a term that's used continually,
and I think that some people
don't really know what that means.
You get a lot of athletes that say, well I know
that when I'm a half stone lighter, I race a bit better.
So it may be that yes they have worked out,
it's an optimal place for them.
My concern is when you have somebody
who's already probably at a really good weight
for their height, for their training,
they're actually performing quite well
and they then feel they need to drop a little bit more
because they believe that they're gonna be quicker,
or they're gonna have improvements,
and I think you have to be very, very careful
cause it's a very fine line between being optimal
and then actually dropping to a point
where you start losing power and speed.
- And on the flip side of all of this,
someone that is perhaps trying to gain weight,
we've had quite a few people asking this,
and maybe people who've got crazy metabolisms,
so how would they go about this.
- I think you do have to be realistic.
I mean we're all different body types and body shapes,
and some people will just naturally, genetically
not put on as much muscle mass
no matter what they try and do.
But I do know that if you are working
with somebody like that, what you can do is obviously,
you put them into a positive energy balance.
You do need to be mindful about
the types of food they're eating, it doesn't mean
- So not just eating a lot of chocolate
- No, exactly.
You do need to think about, you know,
getting the composition of carbs and protein
is generally the best way of doing it
is increasing carbs, proteins, and essential fats
and just having a surplus energy calorie intake.
And then combining that with
actually really good resistance training,
so probably three to five times a week
you need to do for 12 weeks and you can start
to see some real changes to body.
Again, whether you're going to get
huge amounts of hypertrophy is very genetically dependent-
- Sure
- So I mean that I don't change no matter what I do.
And but whereas some people literally
just need to start picking up the weights
and they do and that is your body type,
so I think be realistic about
what is possible and what's not.
- Okay next question in from John Bicycle,
and he's asked about watts versus power.
He's actually suggested this needs
a separate video all to itself.
I think you're right,
but we're going to try and cover the basics here.
He's asked, I'm thinking about Wiggins and Froome here.
They lost weight, but increased their power-to-weight ratio.
- Well I think before we get started,
we need to just explain what we mean
by power-to-weight ratio.
So it is the comparison of the power
that you can put out on the bike compared to your weight.
And it's measured in watts per kilo.
So to work this out you need to know
what your watts are and your weight.
And then you divide your watts by your weight,
and you get that result.
And it's a good idea to do this
over different durations for your watts.
So for example, you could measure your average for your FTP,
maybe your average output of watts
for a five to ten minute effort,
and then maybe your race duration, whatever that might be.
So you've got different markers
and you can see how your watts per kilo changes
as you progress with your training.
- Well to put this into some context
and explain why watts per kilo is so important,
you could be a 90 kilogramme athlete and riding at 400 watts.
That's impressive, that's some crazy wattage,
but then a 65 kilogramme athlete riding at 300 watts
would actually have a higher watts per kilo,
so they could actually be faster, particularly on a climb.
- Well it's one thing losing weight,
but it's not necessarily going to make you cycle faster
if you lose so much weight that you drop your power,
so you need to at least maintain the power
if you're gonna improve your power to weight ratio.
And to do that, you've got to be careful,
cause if you do it like in the middle of your season,
then it could end up being a little bit detrimental
if you're dropping that power too much.
So again, it's about doing it very gradually,
and making sure that you're still fueled enough
cause if you're not then you're then getting muscle wasted
or you're not able to train to your full potential.
You're not going to get stronger on the bike,
so it's very much about that happy balance.
- Yeah, I've actually got some experience in this area
whilst I'm not sure that it was great experience.
When I came to triathlon, I came from a swimming background,
I was slightly bigger built,
and I was swimming and biking well,
but it was my run that was kinda letting me down.
So I really focused on my running,
I was doing double run days, all sorts.
And I dropped a lot of weight, and my running was superb,
best running I've ever done.
Swimming and biking, not so much.
I lost muscle mass.
I was very lean, and I just lost all that power.
So from my experience, it sorta backs up what Renee said.
Actually trying to maintain your training programme,
just maybe cutting out some of those naughty snacks,
but maintaining your fuel intake required for the training
was far more beneficial,
and actually that has helped shave off
some of those unnecessary pounds.
- Yeah and I mean we've talked a lot here about cycling
seeing that that referenced the question,
but cycling is all about the watts per kilo,
but don't forget, you know, we do triathlons,
so you still need to be able to be efficient
in your running and your swimming.
Well that's it for this week's
Triathlon Training Explained show,
and a really interesting topic,
and one that I find fascinating,
but thanks for the questions that,
you know, helped open this topic up,
and make sure you keep your questions
coming in for the next show as well.
- Yeah and thanks ever so much to Renee McGregor
for stepping in and giving her expert advice
and really fascinating information there.
If you haven't done so already,
click on the globe and subscribe to GTN,
and if you'd like to see our first
Triathlon Training Explained video, just click down here.
- And we obviously been talking about weight loss,
well if you want some tips on how to do that
as a triathlete, there's a video just here.