Weight gain from XC?
Hi,
At the end of November when I put my bike in the garage for the winter I weighed 93kg. I have been skiing about 8-12 hours per week (50/50 classic-skate) and which is at least 3-4 hours more on average than I did on the bike. I also think my skiing is more intense than the bike riding was (at least during the fall). I haven't changed my diet in any way. My weight is now 103kg. I notice that certain parts of my quads are much larger now, and my triceps too, and I suspect other places too. Fat is hard to judge, but I think it is pretty constant. Is it common for skiing to encourage the development of bulk muscles? I for some reason always assumed it would be slimming like running. I certainly didn't expect to gain 10kg in 3 months! It dosen't bother me, I am just curious about the development. Joseph |
joseph santaniello writes:
joseph Hi, joseph At the end of November when I put my bike in the garage for the winter joseph I weighed 93kg. I have been skiing about 8-12 hours per week (50/50 joseph classic-skate) and which is at least 3-4 hours more on average than I joseph did on the bike. I also think my skiing is more intense than the bike joseph riding was (at least during the fall). I haven't changed my diet in any joseph way. My weight is now 103kg. I notice that certain parts of my quads joseph are much larger now, and my triceps too, and I suspect other places joseph too. Fat is hard to judge, but I think it is pretty constant. If you are burning more calories, and put on weight, odds are you are eating more. In very rare cases metabolic changes could cause this, but that is not likely. joseph Is it common for skiing to encourage the development of bulk muscles? I Big hills would tend to cause some muscle gain, given adequate nutrition and rest. I doubt fast skating on golf course type terrain would do so. joseph for some reason always assumed it would be slimming like running. I joseph certainly didn't expect to gain 10kg in 3 months! It dosen't bother me, joseph I am just curious about the development. joseph Joseph -- Andrew Hall (Now reading Usenet in rec.skiing.nordic...) |
Gene Goldenfeld wrote:
Well, adding 5kg since the end of last winter bothers me, additional strength or not. Up to two years ago my weight would just drop in late summer. In any case, one's body and mind take some time to adjust to the increased hours of exercise and output of x-c skiing. Also, winter usually means more time indoors and less movement during the course of the day. I find that in any season it takes a certain threshold of hours before my appetite starts dropping. In winter, it takes me frequent racing and/or pace workouts for the same effect. You may be stronger, tho I doubt that much in terms of bulk muscles - not the goal for skiers - but that additional weight has to be carried up every hill. Gene wrote: Hi, At the end of November when I put my bike in the garage for the winter I weighed 93kg. I have been skiing about 8-12 hours per week (50/50 classic-skate) and which is at least 3-4 hours more on average than I did on the bike. I also think my skiing is more intense than the bike riding was (at least during the fall). I haven't changed my diet in any way. My weight is now 103kg. I notice that certain parts of my quads are much larger now, and my triceps too, and I suspect other places too. Fat is hard to judge, but I think it is pretty constant. Is it common for skiing to encourage the development of bulk muscles? I for some reason always assumed it would be slimming like running. I certainly didn't expect to gain 10kg in 3 months! It dosen't bother me, I am just curious about the development. If you have no muscles you cannot carry anything. If you have many big muscles you can carry more and kick harder. -- Terje Henriksen Kirkenes |
Wow, if what you say is true, something strange is going on. You are
talking about putting on over 20 lbs. of lean muscle. Imagine slapping 20 lbs. of steaks onto your body and how much larger you would be. Having you been weighting in every day and using the same scale that you used when you were tipping the scales at 93? Are you over hydrated? Gene, a question; more than carrying the additional weight up the hill, isn't the issue oxygenating the additional muscle mass that larger athlete has to deal with in the hills? I remember seeing a chart somewhere that really broke it down. It seems that it is a mathematical certainty that the smaller athlete will prevail in the hills. Have you heard this thesis? /john |
"jgs" wrote:
Gene, a question; more than carrying the additional weight up the hill, isn't the issue oxygenating the additional muscle mass that larger athlete has to deal with in the hills? I remember seeing a chart somewhere that really broke it down. It seems that it is a mathematical certainty that the smaller athlete will prevail in the hills. Have you heard this thesis? Yes, weight has more drawbacks. I forget where smaller and larger come into play in skiing, other than hearing that taller tends to do better in the sprints. However, off the top of my head it does seem that tall Thomas Alsgaard and Katerina Neumanova have handled the hills pretty well, as have Frode Estil and Anders Veerpalu. Bjorn Daehlie is up there around 6'1" too. Gene |
jgs wrote: Wow, if what you say is true, something strange is going on. You are talking about putting on over 20 lbs. of lean muscle. Imagine slapping 20 lbs. of steaks onto your body and how much larger you would be. Having you been weighting in every day and using the same scale that you used when you were tipping the scales at 93? Are you over hydrated? Gene, a question; more than carrying the additional weight up the hill, isn't the issue oxygenating the additional muscle mass that larger athlete has to deal with in the hills? I remember seeing a chart somewhere that really broke it down. It seems that it is a mathematical certainty that the smaller athlete will prevail in the hills. Have you heard this thesis? /john I tend toward the muscular side. When I was in high-school some guys tried to get me into body building (I declined) with the observation: "You could be a monster! You could be, like, 270!" I am 6'3" so there is room to spread the muscle around, but I guess there must be more fat too. The terrain I ski in has short steep hills which are 1-3 minutes of max hr way over anaerobic threshold, with about 2-3 minutes of recovery before the next hill. In particular when skating I try to have complete leg extension. The amount of force generated by my legs is way more per extension than what I do while cycling, so I guess it makes sense that that type of exercise would encourage bulk I didn't see from biking. I guess I must have changed my diet by some amount, but I really think it is constant. And even though it is winter, I think I have been at least as active otherwise with shoveling snow, etc as I am in the summer. I have used the same scale about 1x per week. As for how extra mass will hurt, it is the all important power to weight ratio. The Holy Grail for cyclists. I think extra mass in the form of upper body muscle isn't as detrimental to sking as to cycling because it helps increase the power output. But in general a larger heavier person will be slower in hills, despite being able to produce more power. They need even more to match the speed of a lighter person. In cycling power to weight is expressed as watts/kg. And this basically defines how fast a cyclist is, and I am sure is the same for skiers. But measuring watts for a skier is much more difficult, but I guess VO2max could be used instead. The extra weight doesn't bother me because I weigh so much anyway that being a tad slower than I already am in the hills is well worth the extra power on the flats, and the extra weight on the descents. Joseph |
Gene Goldenfeld wrote: "jgs" wrote: Gene, a question; more than carrying the additional weight up the hill, isn't the issue oxygenating the additional muscle mass that larger athlete has to deal with in the hills? I remember seeing a chart somewhere that really broke it down. It seems that it is a mathematical certainty that the smaller athlete will prevail in the hills. Have you heard this thesis? Yes, weight has more drawbacks. I forget where smaller and larger come into play in skiing, other than hearing that taller tends to do better in the sprints. However, off the top of my head it does seem that tall Thomas Alsgaard and Katerina Neumanova have handled the hills pretty well, as have Frode Estil and Anders Veerpalu. Bjorn Daehlie is up there around 6'1" too. Gene I think larger folks have an advantage in sprints because wind resistance and friction are only marginally greater than for smaller folks, but their available power is often greater. Power-to-weight doesn't scale linearly for people. So someone who weighs twice another person isn't going to have 2x the power. Maybe 1.5x, so they lose up hill where most of the work goes toward lifting the person's mass. There is probably some sweet-spot for skiers in terms of weight, and another in terms of leg-length for efficient frequency that is somewhere right around where all the top athletes are given the types of courses they all race on. Joseph |
Joseph Santaniello wrote:
Is it common for skiing to encourage the development of bulk muscles? I for some reason always assumed it would be slimming like running. I certainly didn't expect to gain 10kg in 3 months! It dosen't bother me, I am just curious about the development. I remember reading that Carl Swenson had to lose a large amount of weight (~10? lbs difference at 150lb +/-) every summer to be competitive for mountain biking in the summer and had to gain it back in the fall for skiing. |
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Gene, a question; more than carrying the additional weight up the hill, isn't the issue oxygenating the additional muscle mass that larger athlete has to deal with in the hills? I remember seeing a chart somewhere that really broke it down. It seems that it is a mathematical certainty that the smaller athlete will prevail in the hills. Have you heard this thesis? In animals in general, the bigger you are the more of your strength you need just to "hold yourself up" and move your mass. As an animal increases in linear size, the volume and therefore mass increase as the cube, whereas muscle strength (directly related to cross-sectional area of muscle) increases as the square of the linear size. This is why elephants need such large legs, and don't look like directly scaled-up mice. So typically, a "smaller" skiier is usually going to have a better power to weight ratio, and for a given energy expenditure will produce more forward motion up the hill and use less energy simply fighting gravity's pull on their mass back down the hill. Whether that translates into any significant difference in real life is another matter. Cheers, Chris |
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