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