Bradley Wiggins Weightloss = Tour De France Success

If you’ve been following the Tour De France this year (2009) or know anything about British sports you probably recognise the name Bradley Wiggins, he’s won 3 gold medals at the past 2 Olympic Games in Athens and Beijing as a track cyclist.

He's confounded many experts this year with the results he's been getting and naturally caused a few raised eyebrows. However Wiggins has put his new found success on the road down to good old fashioned fat loss!

I know his nutritionist Nigel Mitchell – who is doing a fantastic job.

Wiggins won his cycling gold medals on the track in a race that lasts around 4 minutes, the individual and team pursuit. You have to have a different body shape and composition to excel at that distance than you do a race like the Tour, that lasts for 3 weeks and is up and down some of the highest mountains in Europe.

In the recent reports I've read Wiggins has said that when he won the Olympics last summer in Beijing he weighed 82kg, when he had competed in the tour in previous years he had weighed around 76kg, this year he is down to 72kg and 4% body fat.

He said he lost some muscle mass from his upper body as this is not important to have while racing in the tour, where to do well in the overall standings you have to be able to get up and over the mountains as quickly as possible.

Let’s look at the amount of weight that he has actually lost as this has implications for many sports…

If we just look at the 4kg or 8.8lbs he has lost since he last rode the Tour. Next time you are in the gym or in the supermarket pick up something that weighs 4kg and ask yourself "would this extra weight be slowing me down in my current sport?….Duh of course it would!

It always surprises me that when I work with professional athletes and serious amateurs just how many pay little attention to their body composition.

They will spend on average anything from 10-25 hours a week training to get fit for their sport, always looking to improve, to be that little bit faster, to be able to last that little bit longer but all the while because they haven’t got their diet sorted out they are competing with excess weight strapped onto them. Some people who don't train find it hard to believe that someone can train for as many hours as that and still be overweight.

It's easily done all you have to be doing is eating more calories than you are burning!

Just this last week I had a message from a serious tri-athlete who was telling me that he needs to lose weight and was worried about being in a ‘fat burning zone’ because that would mean that he would have less energy when he is training.

Lets cover some practicalities…

This has implications for all sports so make sure you read it and understand it.

In order to lose fat fast, you first need to deplete your carbohydrate stores (carbohydrate is stored in the form of glycogen which is found in the muscle and liver), when these have been depleted that is when your body turns primarily to fat to start providing energy to keep it going. I explain this in greater detail in 4 Week Fat Loss. If you are an endurance athlete like a marathon runner, cyclist or tri-athlete then when you are going on a long training session you will most likely take an energy bar or drink so that you can keep your energy levels up and keep going at the same pace. That's a good practice if you do not want to lose any weight.

What happens if you don’t consume the extra sugar in the energy bar or drink?

You are going to slow down and find it impossible to keep the same pace because you are now burning fat instead of carbohydrate. Obviously you do not want to be doing this close to a race or a competition (3 days prior would be a cut off). However as part of an overall strategy to lose fat and become leaner it makes a great deal of sense.

What you need to do is to prioritise fat loss as the effect because if you are any type of athlete SHEDDING EXCESS BODY FAT will improve your performance.

What you have to ASK YOURSELF IS THIS - Am I going to go faster in the long term?

By losing 1lb of excess fat and completing this training session at 80-90% of my potential or will getting that extra 10-20% output on this session help me go faster in the longer term.

I know what Bradley Wiggins would say!

Lose the fat first because this will make a bigger difference in your overall performance.

This is what I would advise, if you can afford to lose a significant amount of weight anything over 5 lbs then don’t measure your times and performances for a week or two and focus on fat burning as it is going to make a bigger difference to your results and performances in the longer term.

Matt Lovell is the Sports Nutritionist for the England Rugby Team. He currently works with 4 Premiership Clubs and many serious athletes from a variety of sports. Matt has put together a Fat Loss Program to assist that builds on his experience of working with elite athletes, If you need a program to follow to assist you then grab a copy of 4 Week Fat Loss I go into greater detail about how to lose weight safely and efficiently.