One of the unfortunate societal pressures we all face to differing degrees is the demand to be thin and beautiful. In cycling, this manifests itself as an obsession with minimizing body fat at all costs. Just how important is it for cyclists to be as lean as possible, and what are the tests we can use to measure body fatness?Here in Canada, we just celebrated Thanksgiving, which unofficially starts the off-season string of gluttony that leads through Christmas and possibly all of winter. With that in mind, those already thinking about 2016’s cycling season should start planning their training AND nutritional strategies for the coming months. A good way to start is with Anne Guzman’s excellent article a few weeks back on nutritional transition.In addition to adjusting our balance of training and nutrition, the other component is to consider periodically testing or otherwise keeping tabs on our body composition over the off-season.Body Image BluesBody weight and body image is one of the trickiest topics to broach in sports, whether as an athlete, teammate, coach, or parent. Some sports, such as gymnastics and figure skating, impose huge aesthetic demands on its female athletes to be as small and light as possible, leading to a high prevalence of eating disorders. Other sports, such as rowing, boxing, and wrestling, impose its own unwritten demands of losing as much weight as possible immediately prior to weigh in in order to compete within a certain weight category, leading to dangerous dehydration practices.Cycling is certainly not...
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