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Chris Froome says he has lost 2kg in recent weeks and he believes that weight loss will make him competitive at Critérium du Dauphiné, which starts tomorrow.
The British rider has really struggled since his comeback
after his crash during the Dauphiné two years ago. Worryingly, while he
finished the Vuelta last year, that did not bring about any significant improvement.
He claims he has been carrying extra weight due to his rehabilitative exercises. And in a new video diary, below, he explained he has focused on losing that weight at the altitude camp he is just coming out of on Mount Teide in Tenerife.
Froome says he arrived at the camp at 71kg and targeted losing 2kg and getting below 69kg, something he says he has achieved. He also wants to lose another 1kg before the Tour de France.
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He has set out how he targets weight loss on days when he trains hard; riding "flat" for two hours after a high intensity session. The Israel Start Up Nation rider explains his routine for one day late last week at the altitude camp in the video below.
"We did, in total, about just over two hours of intensity
in the 6½ hour ride,” he said, explaining the high intensity efforts were between
five minutes to 30 minutes on a ride with 5,000 metres of climbing.
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“Then at the end of the ride, the second objective was to
target a bit of fat burning and really burn into the glycogen stores,” he
added.
“Once we were empty from all the intervals, we did another two hours basically just on water at the end of the ride.
“Basically, when you're already flat, tired, and empty, to push on and do another two hours at a very low intensity. But up here at over 2,000 metres, you still feel it quite a lot."
Froome also outlined what he ate on the same day as his long training ride, saying: "From a fueling point of view today, we started the day with a full carb option breakfast with probably about 300 grams of rice and an egg-white omelette for some protein.
“And then during the ride; topping up every 20-30 minutes with more carbs - bananas, rice cakes, gels, energy bars, as well as carbohydrate drinks on the bikes.
“So it’s a full carb option while we were trying to do
the quality work and then backing off once all the quality was done and just finishing
the ride with a couple of hours low carb, on water, just to really engage that
fat-burning capacity."
He added he would finish a day up to 2½kg lighter, but most of that was down glycogen storage and fluids rather than weight or fat loss. After a long ride he said he focuses on consuming good quality vegetables and proteins for dinner, rather than carbs.
The comments by Chris Froome are set out here to offer insight into how top athletes prepare and how Froome is progressing in his efforts to get back to the top of the sport. The remarks are not published here to encourage weight loss. It should also be noted that many riders, at home and in the pro peloton, have spoken out recently about how focusing on weight, and being too thin, completely undermined their ability on the bike and caused them problems away from cycling.
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