The demands of cyclocross mean Wout van Aert gains weight because he gains muscle mass, and he must lose that weight again to win races on the road, his coach has said.
Jumbo-Visma coach Marc Lamberts said Van Aert would need to shed 2kg in the next five weeks to be in the kind of shape required to win a classic. This weight loss would be done in a controlled manner and under the supervision of experienced coaches.
Lamberts told Het Laatste Nieuws
that while Van Aert was at a very high level after the cyclocross season –
during which he won the World Cup and took silver at the Worlds – he needed
more base miles.
He added Van Aert was now halfway through a training camp
in Tenerife and that the very specific efforts of cyclocross resulted in a
muscle mass gain as Van Aert gained muscle very easily.
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"There’s still some work to be done. Otherwise Wout could already have started racing and he wouldn't have to sit on a mountain for three weeks. He knows what he's doing and he's making progress; I can already see that. He is good enough to ride the finales but not to win.”
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Lamberts said some of the physical gains achieved during
the cyclocross season would be undone by working on the roads at the training
camp in Tenerife.
"The countless sprints, the uphill climbs, pulling on the handlebars and balancing with the body means he now has a muscular upper body again. He gains muscle mass very easily and he can't just get those muscles off," he explained.
In all, he had 2kg to lose but the nutritionist on Jumbo Visma would ensure Van Aert still ate the food types, and quantities, he required and that the process of shedding weight would be slow and not at the expense of recovery or training.
"Two kilos, that's 7,000 calories or a little more
per kilo. That's 15,000 kilocalories. That is a lot and it takes
time,” Lamberts said.
“We will also take that time. Training hard on top of the Teide and following a diet do not go together. Little by little we are bringing his weight down.”
The comments of Van Aert’s coach are set out here as an insight into how top athletes prepare, and to show how Van Aert – a top pro rider - must balance his cyclocross and road careers. The remarks are not published here to encourage weight loss. It should also be noted that many riders, at home and abroad 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. Stickybottle will return to some of those issues shortly.
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