is their such a notion of ideal race weight as a percent of body fat for men and women? Clearly this is too crude a measure as bodybuilders have low body fat but their body types aren’t ideal for the sport.
Any notion or resources regarding this?
I agree, that book made me realize a lot about myself.
jaretj
Me too. I know a lot of people bag on Matt Fitzgerald, but I thought that book was really useful, at least for me.
Id highly recommend not wasting money on any of fitzs work. the answer youre looking for is about 6 to 10 pct body fat for men
How do you suggest the OP reach that goal?
I didn’t love RW, but it gave me a lot of info and a structured way to achieve my goals. I went from 175 to 155 after readin RW and only applying a few principles. Over all, I think the book could just as easily be a 500 word essay and be just as effective.
like every single dieting program, the underlying theme is starvation.
depending on your weight, choose a net calorie loss of 200-500cal/d. i lost 25lbs this year doing that. now im 5’10 and 137lbs.
+1
Burn more than you take in - it is only slightly more complicated then training successfully.
The perfect race weight is the lightest you can be while still maintaining power. It is a very fine line. I would rather error on the upper side of that equation.
Being hungry doesn’t work for me. If my only goal was simply starvation, I’d most likely fail.
Again, not to be a big advocate of RW or Fitz, but he does layout a nice way to limit hunger while creating a calorie deficit that avoids a lot of the muscle atrophy that occurs with starvation dieting.
For triathlon don’t u think it is more complicated due to the swim and run. Let’s say I’m 6’1" 175 4% body fat. I could lose 25 lbs and still be at 4% body fat. How much weight is it worth losing to power lost. What is the methodology for picking the correct weight.
I don’t think it is realistic to lose 25lbs of muscle in a short period of time.
At 6’1" I don’t thing 175lbs is out of the ordinary but 4% BF is too low to hold for a long period of time.
this is a contrast to Fitz. He maintains that large gains of short periods of time are predominately muscle loss and weightloss should be a long term goal to protect muscle atrophy.
the weight that yeilds the fastest time.
I don’t mean lose 25 lbs over a short period of time. Let’s say over the course of a year.
4% body fat at race weight
For triathlon don’t u think it is more complicated due to the swim and run. Let’s say I’m 6’1" 175 4% body fat. I could lose 25 lbs and still be at 4% body fat. How much weight is it worth losing to power lost. What is the methodology for picking the correct weight.
I would say in that hypothetical scenario you wouldn’t normally lose any power at all for triathlon purposes.
It is more complicated. You can only really find out through trial and error. I know for a fact that all weight loss is not created equal.
I think losing 25lbs of muscle in a year is unrealistic too from how you describe yourself.
Maybe 25lbs in 2 to 3 years.
I don’t mean lose 25 lbs over a short period of time. Let’s say over the course of a year.
4% body fat at race weight
4% is too low, makes you susceptible to infections. And once you’re in the 6% territory losing BF is harder than losing water and muscle, so you don’t drop that as “race weight”.
There is no single answer to your question. It’s up to the individual athlete to find out what weight works for him, just like he has to find out what nutrition to use in a race for example. Elite triathlon (or any sport for that matter) is not color-by-numbers where you follow some formulas and succeed.
x2 and I would add to that until recovery starts to prolong and you start getting more nagging injuries. A good sign as well is when you start feeling cold all the time. I am 5’9" and have ranged in body weight for IM’s from 132-150 and PR’d at 150…and that was in Kona.