I thought that he said that he was going to be doing all his bike training on rollers and in the drops so that he learns to handle in the wind and at effort.

Unless he's just trying to maximize his bike fitness in anticipation of the indoor competition he's going to be doing in a few weeks?

He's always looked like that. But I agree, he looks like an leaner version of Conor McGregor.

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Ummmm NO.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/mma/2017/04/16/ufc-kansas-city-flyweight-champion-demetrious-johnson-freak/

I’m missing it. What’s your point? That he’s not as muscular as DJ?

That he does not even remotely look like an MMA fighter.

A Sanders body/critique thread

The S.T Sanders fan boys just reached a new level!

He just looks like an elite athlete should. He's lean, he's not overly jacked. He just doesn't look like shit...*looks down at gut*

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I was waiting for that. But isn’t it reasonably to wonder what else he does besides Swin, bike and run since he is making videos about his workout regime? I still contend that he needs to be doing weightlifting to get those muscles.

Nah, you don't have to lift to get big muscles if you have a mesomorphic body type. I swam with 3-4 guys in college who were as muscular as body builders but it was mostly from swimming. Sure, they did 3 hours of weights per week before p.m swim workouts, but they were also swimming around 20 hr/wk. You just have to eat enough to pack on the muscle if you have mesomorphic tendencies. Obv, these guys were all sprinters who died on anything over 100 yd/m.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I don't follow Lionel that closely, but does he ever say he does weights? If he doesn't, my guess might be that he actually doesn't but would be a great question for him regardless. I can say for sure those muscles can come without weightlifting and if anything Lionel actually looks less muscular than previously. It might be possible he actually got more efficient swimming and thus doesn't need to rely on strength as much and maybe had some atrophy. Regardless some athletes have the longer, more slender ITU frame, other athletes don't. Lionel is definitely one of those that doesn't

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This guy is jacked way bigger than the stereotypical long distance athlete and he did pretty good. Doubt he did much weights

Lance has done some weights but yeah there are some beef-cake Triahletes out there no doubt.

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If you think the pros are not pumping iron...I have some news for you...they do.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xXOvz2MzpPc

I'm surprised and impressed. Are heavy weight workouts standard for pros like Brownlee and Froome though? Is it mostly genetic or lack of lifting? Also, I could imagine just as important as strengthening the muscle it releases a lot of growth factors ( test, hgh, etc) that help in recovering from aerobic work that drops those factors?

And stress the muscles with progressive overload which you casually overlooked. Muscles grow and you get stronger by stimulating the muscle tissue through external load and adapting to that stress. With endurance type exercise such as swimming (or triathlon) doing long bouts of lower intensity work (even high intensity swimming) is directly opposite of strength. The adaptions of endurance training come at the expense of building strength.

You overlooked the fact that i said all of these guys were sprinters, not triathletes, and they were much more muscular than Lionel. In swimming, sprinters swim sets like 8 x 100 yd on 8 minutes so that they have essentially full recovery between repeats. Or, for a little more endurance emphasis, 10 x 100 on 3 minutes, which gives a lot of recovery since these guys would be coming in around 50 sec for each 100. For ultra sprint emphasis, all-out 25s on 4 min rest. To get faster, you have to "progressively overload" your muscles; this is the very essence of interval training. So, yes, you can build pretty good sized muscles from just swimming, if you eat enough. Also, one other point: multiple studies have found a very strong correlation between sprint speed in a 50 free and max force on one pull of a spring-loaded force measurement device. Thus a swimmer's "one rep max" for pulling is crucial to swimming very fast.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Got it, so they rarely swim over 800-1000 yards per session?

Can you point me the the studies, I would like to add them to my collection.

Alexandre Popov generated less force than his competitors yet was the fastest at the time. He used to do lots of easy cruisy swimming to hone his stroke. He did probably have the best physique of a sprinter though, but was not the 'strongest'.

He addressed this in a comment on FB:

Was using them to try and correct snaking and head bob. Rode them for a year with no improvement. Now, I'm back in front of a mirror. Found I saw a reduction in power due to spending so much energy focusing on not falling off. Time and a place for everything though, and definitely made me ride a much straighter line, and feel more competent on the bike.

Also found this info on nutirtion:
Will do a training camp in Kona in August and get a much better nutrition strategy in place.

Photos can be VERY misleading, and often 'increase bulk'.
This is particularly noticeable in the climbing world, where someone can look like a ripped incredible hulk on a route and then when you meet them they are a skinny little thing.

They certainly don't look like they do! The video I posted of Lance was dated 2010, which would have been when he was over 35 and trying to make his comeback. We could speculate that the weightlifting was more important for him as an injury prevention strategy given (a) his age, and (b) that he was trying to get back to competing at the elite level after having been out of it for a few years.

There a lot of example of pro athletes doing gym work. One name to rule them all: Patrick Lange. You can see on his Instagram that he does weight lifting, he even partecipate as a guest to a conference where one member of his team was presenting results of weight lifting for endurance athletes
Gym work doesn't necessary mean bulky muscle; it depends on work scheme and nutrition.

You got it.
Sanders, IMO, does not necessarily look as if he has lifted a day in his life. Although he may have and may be. He may look muscular to some of you guys, but in the gym world is near anorexic looking. There are drug-free working women/mothers at my gym far more muscular than him. Almost any hard training athlete with low body fat can have the appearance that they may use weights. There are those who are in the Clydesdale class of cyclists that have naturally muscular builds or even bulky builds and have never lifted and happen to be pretty decent at endurance events as well. I have several roadie friends like this that have legs even bigger than mine and have never done a day of lifting in their life.

When I competed at a higher level in bodybuilding in the lightweight class people would often guess me to be up toward 200 lbs. as I got leaner and lighter to make my weight class. There were many competitions where I won my class and then stood on stage with the other weight class winners. Because of my appearance and being lean I sometime looked bigger than the middleweight class winner.