*** The 2011 Gym Rats Thread ***

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Soldato
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Reason I asked was because I will never be able to be a long distance cyclist, dont have the body type, too stocky for that so was thinking of many going into track cycling as a hobby.

If you actually want to cycle as a hobby, go for it, not going to do you any harm and your legs will most likely grow. If you just want big legs, squats and oats. Simples!
 
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So do you just want to look like that or do you want to be able to cycle (vaguely) like a pro cyclist?

No harm in being both lol , If I was putting in the work, then why not go for it, doubt I could be pro because of my age, but would deffo going to try it out, might as well, tracks not that far away for Wigan.
 
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Apologies then, I thought you were trying to describe how to emulate a pro cyclist there. Although it's worth noting an interview with Sir Chris Hoy where he says his gym work is mainly heavy squatting for the strength - although I appreciate that if you're just going for the 'look' that leg pressing may be mechanically more suitable.



That was pretty much my point although it may have been I misread Psycho Sonny's post.



So do you just want to look like that or do you want to be able to cycle (vaguely) like a pro cyclist?

if hoy is doing mainly heavy squatting for strength, im then assuming that a lot of their cycling is uphill, i dont know much about cycling, but if i was a professional cyclist i would train:

heavy for uphill.
explosive for everything else.

or maybe their legs are so strong and fast from cycling that they only need to focus on strength to help them with uphill parts, as i would assume that is the hardest and most tiring part of cycling.

damn this cycling is quite a complicated sport once you get into the mechanics of it.
 
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impossible, no.

extremely difficult, yes.

tbh his physique looks stupid to me, he is the exact opposite of a bicep monkey, he is all legs

Do1Ng.gif why does he need big arms, all the do is steer.









I hope you are being sarcastic


if hoy is doing mainly heavy squatting for strength, im then assuming that a lot of their cycling is uphill, i dont know much about cycling, but if i was a professional cyclist i would train:

heavy for uphill.
explosive for everything else.

or maybe their legs are so strong and fast from cycling that they only need to focus on strength to help them with uphill parts, as i would assume that is the hardest and most tiring part of cycling.

damn this cycling is quite a complicated sport once you get into the mechanics of it.

Yup, knowledge is power, I am only a member on here and bodybuilding.com fitness wise, maybe I need to look into a better forum, seeing as its all bicep boys in here ;)

I mean they must work out like 100m blokes but when you look at Bolt, hes a freak tall not massive yet unbelievable fast, 100m bloke are just legs and power, is Hoy a freak?
 
Soldato
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Do1Ng.gif why does he need big arms, all the do is steer.

I hope you are being sarcastic

I dont think hes saying he needs big arms, more that his physique just looks strange like that. In the same way half of my gym consists of people who only bench and do bicep curls, they have no legs and look stupid, but legs dont impress 16 yr old girls so why train them?
 
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im bein serious, he is out of proportion.

you have to look at the picture as a whole. cyclists dont need big arms just big legs. if he had big arms and big legs he would probably fail at cycling. this is a very leg dominant sport and all the top world class guys are going to have huge legs, ripped bodies and out of proportion bodies (small top half to their huge bottom half).

im trying to think of a sport which is the exact opposite, arms and top body dominant, the only one i can think of is arm wrestling, which imo isnt a real sport, almost all sports use a combination of top and bottom half i would say.
 
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if hoy is doing mainly heavy squatting for strength, im then assuming that a lot of their cycling is uphill, i dont know much about cycling, but if i was a professional cyclist i would train:

heavy for uphill.
explosive for everything else.

or maybe their legs are so strong and fast from cycling that they only need to focus on strength to help them with uphill parts, as i would assume that is the hardest and most tiring part of cycling.

damn this cycling is quite a complicated sport once you get into the mechanics of it.

Sir Chris Hoy (and the rest of the cyclists in the photo that cheets64 posted) are mainly track cyclists - that's not to say they couldn't hold their own in a road race but essentially they're very, very good at going round a velodrome exceedingly quickly. A velodrome is a banked oval so there is an element of uphill to it I suppose but most of the banking up and down the oval comes from forward speed so from what I know of it the main part requiring power is that the bikes are a "fixie" - that means one single gear and no freewheel (different from a road bike) and the gearing is pretty high to cope with the fact that these guys will be going from nought to somewhere in the region of 40mph with it. Maybe a reasonable approximation would be to try and start an exercise bike on the hardest difficulty setting - that's vaguely in the magnitude of what these guys are doing and then keep it going for 1km or whatever and get it to register 30mph+ most of the way along the distance.

Now depending on the race it might be a steadily increasing speed or it might be more tactical with sudden bursts of speed - it's an interesting sport to watch if you get into the tactics of it.
 
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I dont really see the point, the legs are the engine, the arms are the steering wheel, like saying why are f1 cars so powerful yet the wheel are just tiny and rubbish.

look at tour de france cyclist they are so tiny, they have to be for endurance but can put in the power when they want.

byCxn.jpg

vomit

Look at the legs on endurance cyclist, not for me.
 
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Caporegime
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Sir Chris Hoy (and the rest of the cyclists in the photo that cheets64 posted) are mainly track cyclists - that's not to say they couldn't hold their own in a road race but essentially they're very, very good at going round a velodrome exceedingly quickly. A velodrome is a banked oval so there is an element of uphill to it I suppose but most of the banking up and down the oval comes from forward speed so from what I know of it the main part requiring power is that the bikes are a "fixie" - that means one single gear and no freewheel (different from a road bike) and the gearing is pretty high to cope with the fact that these guys will be going from nought to somewhere in the region of 40mph with it. Maybe a reasonable approximation would be to try and start an exercise bike on the hardest difficulty setting - that's vaguely in the magnitude of what these guys are doing and then keep it going for 1km or whatever and get it to register 30mph+ most of the way along the distance.

Now depending on the race it might be a steadily increasing speed or it might be more tactical with sudden bursts of speed - it's an interesting sport to watch if you get into the tactics of it.

oh right, i thought these guys were outdoor cross country type cyclists, what you stated about the gears and the sport makes perfect sense then, its all about strength and endurance. training for this would be lift as much as you can for as many reps as you can.
 
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I dont really see the point, the legs are the engine, the arms are the steering wheel, like saying why are f1 cars so powerful yet the wheel are just thing and rubbish.


He's talking about his shape in regards to normal aesthetics. PS has stated he understands why he is out of proportion, he is just saying that if you stood him next to other people that have spent time in a professional sport he would look add with his legs being so dominating compared to the rest of his frame :)
 
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I think we are missing the point and trying to belittle people, famous or not and their sports.

I have got some info and we will leave it at that, lets move on.
 
Soldato
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From what i've read of track cyclists, their upper body work is focussed on bike stability. When you're springing, you need to get power through your legs into your bike and the more upright you can keep the bike the better.

The banks have very little "uphill" element and as usually used to shave off speed (you'll see this in the team events when they swap position).

A lot of the sprint track riders will train weights in very much the same way that track runners do, although often the will focus a lot more on unilateral lifts.
 
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I asked about info I made a mistake in my post, got ignored, corrected it got labelled "gay", then a user said I should have done something years ago, thanks for that captain hindsight.

Notice this a lot when posting in here.

I notice the clique on ocuk, I will do it on my own done it so far, trail and error, peace out *****
 
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I asked about info I made a mistake in my post, got ignored, corrected it got labelled "gay", then a user said I should have done something years ago, thanks for that captain hindsight.

Notice this a lot when posting in here.

I notice the clique on ocuk, I will do it on my own done it so far, trail and error, peace out *****

Jesus who pee'd all over your cornflakes, you asked a question it sparked some debate God forbid we have a bit of discussion on the forums.
 
Caporegime
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I asked about info I made a mistake in my post, got ignored, corrected it got labelled "gay", then a user said I should have done something years ago, thanks for that captain hindsight.

Notice this a lot when posting in here.

I notice the clique on ocuk, I will do it on my own done it so far, trail and error, peace out *****


Sometimes I wonder why so many people help random members of the forum when you post things like that.
The amount of times someone ignores advice or is abusive about the advice, yet still posters in here offer them more should they request it, is crazy. They dont deserve more help yet people spend their time doing just that, helping them.

Never mind though, if you cannot see all the encouragement and help that gets given in here then it is you who is blind, it's not us being unhelpful or ignorant.
 
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