I Tried Getting HEAVIER To Ride Faster Will It Work

This is me last year. I was 68 kilograms and at 185 centimeters tall, that meant I was really, really skinny. Now, at that kind of body composition, I was decent at going up long climbs. I could do five watts per kilo for 30 minutes, but I was rubbish at pretty much everything else, things such as sprinting, not getting dropped, and opening jars. I've spent most of my adult life trying to be as light and as lean as possible for cycling, but upon turning 40, I started to think differently. I realized that this probably wasn't optimal for long-term health or just all-around health, and that by putting on more muscle, I could potentially be a better cyclist and just a healthier human. In part, inspired by Lloydy's fitness journey and riders like Jonas Abrahamsson, who reportedly gained 20 kilos to become a stronger cyclist, I want to find out what happens if I put on muscle. Will I become a stronger or slower cyclist? How easy will it be to build muscle while still doing loads of cycling and cardio? Will I become Mattia van der Poel? Probably no to the last one, but well, let's see what happens. Throughout many subcultures in the world, there exists body dysmorphia. Spend five minutes on Instagram and you'll see it, from teenage girls right through to gigantic bodybuilders. It's something that definitely exists within cycling. If I'm honest with myself, it's something that I've definitely had in the past as well. If I look back at pictures from a year ago, I'm surprised at the way I looked. I think being a hardcore cyclist myself, there's been a tendency to aspire to a certain body type and to try and be as skinny as possible. I've been really dedicated over the years and I'm immensely proud of the level of cycling fitness that I've been able to achieve despite being an amateur training around a full-time job. As you get older, you lose muscle mass. Statistics show that at a population level, this is closely linked to long-term mortality and just other health outcomes. If you don't have much to begin with, it doesn't bode well. Poor bone density can be an issue too. You might be a super fit cyclist, but unless you combine that with resistance training in some form, you might be compromising your health in other ways. On the morning of the National Hill Climb Championships, I weighed myself and I was 68.8 kilograms. That was the 26th of October 2025. I was proud with my performance that day. I managed seven watts per kilo for nearly three minutes, which is good for me, but I could barely do a pull-up. Straight after the hill climb, I hit the gym. I started going to the gym about two or three times a week and I've been pretty consistent at maintaining that since I started. My goal was to just build all-round body strength. Some exercises that will definitely help me on the bike and help improve my lower body strength, but my upper body as well. I've still been cycling, but I've been cycling a bit less and I've replaced some of the cycling that I did with gym work. The results have been incredible. Sorry, sorry, couldn't resist. These are actually some silicon muscle pants that I bought from a fetish website in Romania. Now, there hasn't been that big a change, but I am heavier now and I am stronger. I've also graduated from size small to size medium arm warmers. Result. Now, I could bore you with all the weights and numbers and how I've improved across all different exercises around my body, but instead, I'm going to do something far more entertaining. I'm going to take two prime physical human specimens, humans that have represented their respective nations at the highest level of sports, Si and Conor. Seriously, they have. Despite representing their nations at the highest level, Conor was even the national champion. Neither of them have done much in the way of strength training, so I want to see if either of them can do even one pull-up. Right, guys, amongst fitness people, a general consensus is that if you can do five to eight pull-ups, that's good. That's a good level of fitness. Let's see what we can do. Conor, you're up first. How many do you think you can do? Well, I'm normally happy with one. You're going to be happy with one? Yes. You see how big I am? Yes, that's a good level of fitness, mate. That's a good level. Yes. All right, you ready? Yes, mate. Yes. Two. That's what I got. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, it's up here. Oh, that was amazing. There we go. When I started, I could just do one. I don't know what I can do now because I've not tried to do just like max to failure, but I'll have a go. See what we can do, all right? What are you aiming for? I don't know. Don't know at all. Five to seven, surely? Yeah, if I can do five to eight, that's good. See if I can do more, I don't know. Okay. All right. Oh, he's going for another one. Oh, that was a shame. Oh, fair play. Good job, mate. So Conor could do one pull-up and Si, zero. The other thing that people where you do for good all-round strength is a push exercise, so we're going to do bench press, right? Because this is, I think, the cyclist's worst enemy, okay? Now, a good benchmark for the bench press is considered your body weight, right? But most people should be able to bench half their body weight, okay? So for you, that would be- 45 kilos. 45 kilograms. And for you, about- 25 kilos. So you weigh 50 kilograms. Okay, so we'll see what we can do, all right? First on the bench was Conor. At 90 kilograms, he started first at 40 kilograms. Yes, mate. That's good. Keep it over the chest. Come on, Conor. Yes. Yes. One, two. Here we go. Right. Come on, Conor. That's good. Oh, that's good, mate. You good? Yes. We're going to another. Next up, Si started at 20 kilograms. It's a bit wonky, but yeah. All right. You got another one? Si managed 40 kilograms, which is just over half his body weight. Having done 70, admittedly, not with the best form, I then tried my body weight, 75 kilograms. Oh, my God. That's good work, mate. I must say, this is a very strange experience. Quite sure what to make of it all. Do you feel like a gym bro? Yeah. It's like an alternative world where Ollie didn't get a chemistry PhD and became a gym bro. Doing strength work, though, is hard. Doing it around cycling training and the job where you travel frequently is harder still. It's also hard on your ego, which is partly why I wanted to try and embarrass Si and Conor today in the gym, because regular viewers of the channel will have seen that in quite a few videos recently, I've been dropped. Without sounding like I'm delving into the big book of cycling excuses, this has largely been down to the fact that I've been cycling less. When I have cycled, I've been fatigued and my legs have just felt completely destroyed. Despite that, I do feel good and I do feel stronger. To find out how much stronger after four months of strength training and eating more, I went to get a DEXA scan. I hadn't really weighed myself up until this point. A DEXA scan is considered the gold standard when it comes to body composition. The plan here is to get this one as a benchmark and then get another one in a few months to see if I can improve further. What were my results? They were better than I expected. I'm 76 kilograms right now and my body fat came out at 14%, which is much lower than the average for my age, which in the UK is around 28%. For context, 14% to 17% is considered really good and it's representative of really fit, active people. It's something that's considered sustainable year-round if you want it to be, whereas 6% to 13% is typical of athletes. I've put on seven to eight kilos. Some of that is fat, that's understandable, but a good proportion of it is lean mass, which I'm pleased about. As a comparison, here I was probably around 10% fat, but with much less strength. To be honest, I feel really good so far. Yes, I'm a bit heavier and I'll be a bit slower up long climbs as a consequence, but anaerobically, I'm much stronger. I've got much more zip. I've just got a lot more high-end power. I just feel like I have more energy in general. Something I've noticed, which I think is a big change, is that last year when I was, say, training and in a calorie deficit often, there'd be a lot of training sessions that I would just fail to complete. I'd start them with the best will in the world, but I'd just feel really tired and just bin them off after the first interval. Whereas this year, touch wood, this is metal, I've not failed a single training session or interval session that I've tried to take on. I think that is a big thing. I can now do over 1,000 watts, which I know is going to sound really unimpressive to a lot of people watching this, but for me, that's a lot. I've never been very good at sprinting, so it's significant. Although being a bit heavier will make me probably a bit slower on some longer climbs, I do feel stronger all around. I've got a lot more punch now and I can generate far more torque through the pedals, which helps me just accelerate quicker, even seated. I know that this is going to be really useful if I need to close gaps or if the wheel opens up in front of me, I can close it quickly and recover. I know this is going to help me hopefully not get dropped as often. We'll see. Now, over longer efforts, threshold 20 minutes and above, my watts per kilo is lower than it used to be, but my raw power is higher across pretty much every duration, which feels really good. Best of all, I can now open jars. It's taken me a while and I have had to suck it up while I've got dropped many times. I do not have the minerals today, but I do feel that it's difficult blending strength, work, and cycling. It's starting to come together now. I'm starting to feel good. The consensus within the scientific literature is clear. It should be beneficial. I feel like it's going to be. Well, if it's good enough for Taddei Pogacar and Team UAE, who are doing loads of it this year apparently, well, yes, it's good enough for me. Where next? Well, I'm looking at making this into some sort of a series. If you'd like to see that, then let us know in the comments because that would allow me to go into more detail about the nutrition, the training, and the exercises that I've been doing. I'd also like to continue going to the gym and trying to build more muscle in the future, but also maybe try to improve my body composition a bit for performance on the bike and still maintain the muscle that I've put on. We've got a few challenges and rides and races and things planned for the channel as the year continues. For example, one of them is going to be the Fred Witton. I absolutely love this event, and I've got loads of data from having done it before. I'm really interested to see how I will compare now that I'm seven, eight kilograms heavier, but more powerful, especially in an event where there's 33% climbs after 100 miles. Durability will be key. In theory, that is something that I should be much better at now. Yes, in conclusion, I am still pretty weedy, but I'm less weedy than I was before. If you'd like to see how I continue to progress, hit subscribe, and hopefully see you in the next one. Love you. Bye.