Burning Fat and Building Base in the Off-season

As the cooler weather sets in and most cyclists break out wind vests and arm warmers, a great opportunity lies in the next few weeks to build some solid base fitness while burning off some excess body fat.

Who should consider changing body composition during base season?

While many cyclists are thought to be “skinny” (after all that’s what we see in the pro peloton), a sizeable portion of us are what would be considered “skinny fat”.

That is, while your BMI may be in the healthy range (under 25) and your overall weight is healthy for your height and sex, you’re actually likely carrying a high body fat percentage.

While this is simply a purely speculative guess, over the last 5 years the majority of cyclists I’ve worked with or ridden with who are over the age of 30, tend to fall in the 15-20% body fat range. While simply a rough guess, I’ve gotten to be fairly decent at this over my nearly 30 years in the fitness field.

Of course we would need to do actual measurements in a BodPod or DEXA scan to be both accurate and precise, a simple look in the mirror actually gives us a good indication of where we fall.

Here’s a great infographic from Jeff Cavalier to help you estimate where you are:

Of course these are men (women are different), and these guys tend to lift weights and thus carry more lean muscle mass, but it gives you a rough idea.

Oh, and I hate to break it to you, but your Garmin Scale and other BIA scales (measuring with a small electric impulse) are highly inaccurate and imprecise.

If you fall above 15% body fat, you’ll want to give serious thought to making body composition change this base period. You aren’t trying to get down to the 5% you see amongst the top pros, but getting to the low teens can be a good goal that can improve your performance and health without taking you to extremes.

How to use base period to change your body composition

Believe it or not, changing your body composition and base period should go together.

Base period is meant to be about improving your aerobic fitness, aka, improving your body’s ability to utilize fat as a primary energy source and for your muscles to work under those circumstances.

Oversimplification? Of course. But go with me on this… What this means is that in order to gain these changes and improvements, you really only need to do 3 things:

Ride at your endurance pace for prolonged periods of time. NOT tempo, but true endurance intensity.
Fuel your body appropriately for a slow decrease of body fat as it gets utilized as a fuel source.
Take adequate steps to allow your body the time and energy needed to recover and adapt.

Here are a few important details that can really stack the cards in your favor.

The important details

Here are what I’ve found to be the 3 big linchpins for improved body composition and improved health for longevity:

No eating for 2-2.5 hours when riding endurance. This does not mean fasting rides or not taking on water and electrolytes! It means simply that you’ll eat a small meal of protein, carbs (preferably oatmeal or buckwheat) and a touch of healthy fats (ie: half an avocado or a half a teaspoon of peanut butter). Electrolytes like NUUN which have no sugar, and at the 2-2.5hr mark beginning to eat.
Nose breathing only (mouth closed). A seemingly silly part but integral, as deep, full 360 degree inhalations allow your diaphragm to massage the psoas, and help keep you in your “rest and digest” state as opposed to getting to the fight or flight state.
Strength train 2-3 days a week. No, not intense, but rather with a focus on technique, so you can keep up your ride quality and continually show up for your strength sessions and rides throughout the entire year.

Two of these three, most of you will move to immediately implement, while the strength training you’ll wait “until it gets colder” to implement.

Don’t make this mistake, as the compound interest you’ll earn on the investment will only be delayed, and thus much lower for you for next season.

Conclusion

Many riders tend to “take the reins off” their riding in the fall, either riding without intent or a specific desired outcome in mind. But with a few simple guardrails in place, you can still enjoy the fall with a more “free form style of riding” what will greatly reward you next year, and for many years to come.

If you’d like to dive deeper into this, my recent YouTube video on “Ditching skinny fat” will take you a bit more into the details, and help you earn some fantastic returns.

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