How Quickly Should Cyclists Drop Body Weight To Improve Power-Weight Ratio?

Today, we explore how quickly cyclists can drop body fat without compromising performance.

May cyclists aim to reduce body fat to improve their power-weight ratio. In return, they take their watts per kilo to the next level.

We've previously covered how to approach this objective best and discovered that there are three components needing to be considered:

1. Your current body fat percentage and body weight.
2. Your current training load and demand.
3. Your current training phase – What's most important right now?

For a thorough overview, please read our full blog article HERE.

If you've deemed it necessary to improve your power-weight ratio by dropping body fat, how quickly should you achieve your weight loss target?

Ultimately, body fat loss occurs when fewer calories are consumed than expended. Therefore, there must be a match between the energy we obtain from food and the energy we expend through daily movement and exercise.

From experience, athletes will diet too aggressively by cutting too many calories, ultimately impacting performance, health and well-being. Therefore, a calorie deficit is needed, but we must find the correct balance between eating enough calories to support performance and health but few enough calories to reduce fat mass.

A study by Garthe et al. (2011) identified key findings which have guided our practice in this area.

n their study, they recruited elite athletes from a variety of Olympic sports and placed them in one of two programmes:

• Fast fat loss = 1.4% loss in body fat per week (Large calorie deficit).

• Slow fat loss = 0.7% loss in body fat per week (Moderate calorie deficit)

Without any surprise, both groups dropped body fat with 'fast fat loss' dropping more body fat within the same time frame.

I.e. the larger the energy deficit, the more body fat will be lost.

During this study, they also tested 1RM strength in bench, pulls and squats whilst measuring their 40m sprint times and vertical jump (CMJ).

• The fast fat loss group maintained sprint and jump scores but improved strength scores by ~4-8%.

• The Slow fat loss group slightly improved sprint times, significantly improved CMJ and added between ~10-14% onto their 1RM strength.

Although the elite athletes tested weren't cyclists, we can still draw firm conclusions that are applicable to all athletes:

1. If you're strong and fit enough to meet your sport's demands but need to drop body fat more progressively, you can follow a larger calorie deficit.
2. If your strength, power and fitness don't meet the demands of your sport and you still need to progress in this area, then I recommend you approach this more conservatively by following a smaller calorie deficit. NOTE – this aligns with what 'group 2' experienced in the cycling study we discussed HERE.

As a rule of thumb, the FTR coaches recommend that cyclists drop on average 0.5-1% loss in body weight per week via fat loss. I.e., 0.4-0.8kg for an 80kgh cyclist.

During this period, it's essential to monitor your key performance indicators, as an energy deficit can degrade them. The KPIs we recommend you track are:

1. Physical and mental performance
2. Acute and chronic recovery
3. Energy levels/freshness
4. Hunger/cravings
5. Libido
6. Quality of life/enjoyability

These KPIs can be used as guard rails to determine whether we can dial fat loss rates up or need to back down.

For every issue, there's an intervention, and more times than not, poor scoring KPIs can be restored to healthy levels with more calories, therefore minimising the energy deficit.

We must monitor and adapt accordingly based on progress and feedback. Are we in the green, and can we push? Or are we in the amber or even red where we need to apply the brakes and maintain?

Fat loss isn't a linear process, and view this as a long-term strategy to enhance your body composition as part of your long-term physical development plan.

- Coach Chris