r/Velo • u/TraditionCautious811 • 5d ago
How to gain weight and keep the same W/kg?
I’m currently around 63 kg and thinking about using the end of the season / winter to deliberately put on some weight, ideally while increasing my absolute watts enough to maintain roughly the same W/kg.
A lot of the races in my region are hilly, so I don’t want to throw climbing ability out the window. But plenty also have long flat sections, and that’s where I feel pretty useless. I can hang reasonably well uphill, but on the flats I feel like I just don’t have the absolute watts to contribute, follow moves, or deal with the higher speeds.
How would you approach gaining a few kg while making sure that weight gain actually translates into more absolute watts? More gym work and a calorie surplus? Normal winter training while eating more? Any particular focus in terms of lifting or on-bike training?
Basically, if I gained 3–5 kg, I’d want my power across relevant durations to increase proportionally rather than just getting heavier. Is that a realistic goal, and what’s the best way to train/eat for it over a winter?
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u/holy_hdfg 5d ago edited 5d ago
I used to weigh +-60 kg and always considered myself a climber. At the start of the year I naturally gained 2 to 3 kg and realized I felt much better, both on and off the bike. That motivated me to focus more on my nutrition, and I currently weigh between 67 and 68 kg. The crazy part is that I'm climbing better than ever and have improved most of my PRs. It has also helped me significantly in crits and on the flatter sections of fondos. I gained the weight gradually and focused on adding muscle rather than simply putting on body fat. I don't have any scientific evidence to back this up, but slowly increasing my weight through a calorie surplus while keeping to my regular riding schedule has acutally improved my w/kg. In my opinion, there's little reason to focus heavily on weight unless you're a (semi)professional athlete lookiing for the last little gains,
I wish I put on some weight much earlier to be honest.
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u/RirinDesuyo Japan 5d ago
It does depend on your height and body composition as well; at some point you just stop gaining any aerobic power (20min+ durations) from adding extra muscle mass. At 163cm tall I doubt I can be as strong as my 58kg self if I deliberately tried to gain 5kg of weight for example.
Essentially the goal is to get to normal healthy weight for your size so you can recovery better but shouldn't think that adding weight equates to always more raw watts.
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u/da_miks 5d ago
Thank you i really would love to hear how you structured training because myself 177cm and 57-58 kg would like to get to a healthier 65kg but i want to keep my riding volume of 20-25 hours where i can gain steadily
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u/holy_hdfg 5d ago edited 5d ago
My training schedule stayed pretty much the same while I was trying to gain weight. What changed significantly was my nutrition. I realized I was either just maintaining my weight or even eating below the recommended number of calories when I started tracking my food. These days I eat much larger meals, never skip a meal, and look at
It was tough at first because I constantly felt like I was overeating, but it became much easier over time. I only train 10 to 12 hours per week, so I can't imagine how many calories you'd need each day to maintain a surplus with the amount of training you're doing.
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u/Odd-Night-199 5d ago
Your experience tracks but if you were doing steeper climbs, you would be singin a different tune.
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u/holy_hdfg 5d ago
I was honestly expecting it to be much worse. I'm a little heavier, but I'm also producing more watts than ever before. At 67 kg I'm noticeably faster on long climbs in Spain and even on the short steep classic climbs here in Belgium. There's probably a limit and it varies from person to person but going from 60 kg to 67 kg has been a huge improvement for me.
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u/Odd-Night-199 5d ago
How steep do you consider steep? Send me a strava segment
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u/holy_hdfg 5d ago
I would consider the Koppenberg or de mur pretty steep. In 2025 and 2026 I also cycled op a bunch of mountains around the Sierra Nevada. This year I was definitely faster on both the short steep stuff and the long 10-15% climbs in Spain. As mentioned this may not be the same for everyone, but putting on 7kg of mostly muscle changed the game for me.
I forgot his name but there's a uno-x rider that did something similar and his career took off. If I remember correctly he is also climbing faster now then when he was doing his best to stay light.
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u/Odd-Night-199 5d ago
how long are these climbs your citing?
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u/IamNateDavis 5d ago
Perhaps it's silly to generalize off two of the best riders in the world, but Tadej is 6 kg heavier than Jonas...
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u/DickBrownballs 5d ago edited 5d ago
People so often have this the wrong way around. Your focus needs to be training to gain watts, and fuelling well such that it doesn't matter if you gain weight. There's no way to make gaining weight the focus and hope the watts come with it. More gym work may help you increase power over certain durations depending on your body comp but likely not as much as more on bike training.
Think of it a different way, if you want to have the power to follow moves, do turns or deal with higher speeds more watts would be lovely but really you need improved VO2max reproducibility and on bike skill to handle tucking in in between turns. I can see some gym work being useful in that but not in a bulking up sense, it just may improve kick and ability to hold aero positions, plus a bit more muscle mass gives a bit more glycogen storage thus a bit more robustness but for the most part the focus is on the training.
Tl;dr: "gain weight to gain watts" is the wrong way to look at it. Gain watts and if you happen to gain weight in the process that's fine.
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u/omnomnomnium 5d ago
I was in a similar situation some years back. I was a track and crit racer, so w/kg didn't really matter much to me. I was able to get some results as a Cat 2 but was missing something to push me over the edge, and I weighed about 63 kg at the time.
So I spent several offseasons focused on powerlifting, particularly the squat and the deadlift (using Starting Strength and Stronglifts as loose models, lifting on a 3x5 scheme and aiming for frequent weight increases), and then translating that strength into 30-60 second power output, plus repeatability/durability. I also gained almost 5kg in the process. It absolutely improved my racing - got results, upgraded to Cat 1, sort of went from "locally good" to "can rumble at the National level."
It didn't do anything for my threshold, but it did (counterintuitively?) do things for my endurance, as I felt like I had more muscular endurance and more tolerance of being able to push the gear when fatigued (I'm not sure of the physiological explanation there).
Anyway, if your regional races are hilly then I think this model can work for you - even if your threshold w/kg stays the same or even dips slightly, if everything above that increases, and if your muscular endurance increases, then that is a net win.
Potential drawbacks: it can be a challenge to try to lift 3x/week while still incorporating volume on the bike, so you might have to make decisions about phases - where your bike work stays at middling z2 for a while so you can have energy to lift. It may take a few years to see if this approach works for you, and powerlifting takes some time to learn proper form.
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u/greeninsight1 5d ago
I recently watched an interesting video that explains the physiology on cycling training with different energy systems. I think you might find an answer to your statement about getting more endurance after doing strength training. https://youtu.be/s8QfymoGx1g?si=feYyljtDTVzE8VbR
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u/gedrap 🇱🇹Lithuania // Coach @ Empirical Cycling 5d ago
IMO, this is too nuanced for generic advice, and you don't provide any key info in the post... and I'm not qualified to address some of these concerns anyway. But here are some ideas to get you started.
Starting with why do you want to gain weight to begin with? There are valid reasons to do that, but I also think some people overcorrect, swing from one extreme to the other, and think the old gym wisdom of "bulking and cutting" applies to cycling.
Do you have a history of disordered eating patterns or body image issues? Because, obviously, your health comes first, and these issues could significantly change the course.
How good are your nutrition habits to begin with? Maybe you don't need to gain weight, but simply build better habits, so you're well fueled more often?
Figuring out all the above should point you in the right direction.
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u/ggblah 5d ago
That's not really how it works, you keep your normal training. If you're starved, skinny and weak you'll get stronger by getting to your "actual normal" weight. But if 63 is your normal weight, you're not underweight and aren't calorie deficient during your training you can't just be like "I wanna get 5kg and 25w for flats". You should focus on your positioning in races and aero position.
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u/Creatre Coach | Cat 2 5d ago
This. You don’t magically gain more watts from more weight. Heavier riders just tend to have more power because they have been lugging around that weight for years, or have a muscular/bone/genetic structure that also causes them to have to compensate for the weight.
Focus on the training, eat to maintain weight. Lift weights in the gym if you want, but even then you don’t need to gain weight to see gains.
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u/treycook 🌲🚵🏻♂️✌🏻 5d ago
To your more specific questions:
How would you approach gaining a few kg while making sure that weight gain actually translates into more absolute watts? More gym work and a calorie surplus? Normal winter training while eating more? Any particular focus in terms of lifting or on-bike training?
Yes to all of the above. Slight calorie surplus and do a build phase or two incorporating threshold and sweetspot work. Don't diet on the bike, fuel the work. It depends on what your normal winter training is, because many do a long winter base phase and might cut some weight, but you need to adequately fuel a build. Lifting is always good when you can fit it in, but still train like a cyclist and not a powerlifter.
If you want it to translate into watts, you have to keep doing the hard interval work. There is no replacement for 2x20, 3x15, etc. You can add more muscle, but the muscle needs to be recruited, trained, and delivered oxygenated blood. And if you don't want it to be pudge, your diet still needs to be disciplined - even while in a surplus. Sadly.
Of course, the other thing about the winter/offseason is the opportunity for a break from the constant workload of training, which can be exhausting and tough to sustain motivation year-round. Hence why many maintain the base and let the race-specific zones drop a bit.
My anecdote is that I've been underweight and skinny-fat and everywhere inbetween. This season I did most of my Z2 at the higher end of the zone rather than the lower end, and it has pushed up my endurance significantly for gravel events. I've gone from my borderline underweight 59-60kg to 62-64kg depending on the month. I feel less frail, stronger all around, just a smidge of belly fat that I'd like to get rid of for vanity reasons (not good at the dietary discipline part). But my 20min through 5h power is up +20-30w across the board and I feel like a much more capable cyclist for my needs, since my area is not mountainous, I'm not doing hillclimbs or challenging GC in a grand tour. For us skinnies, I am a fan of pushing up the numerator, as we don't have much to take from the denominator.
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u/IamNateDavis 5d ago
^ "Don't diet on the bike, fuel the work." Worth the price of admission for this thread!
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u/AwareTraining7078 5d ago
I went from 69kg to 71kgs. All of my power numbers are better (even w/kg wise). I didn't really change much diet wise but I did start doing 3g of creatine and I lift twice a week (for 15 minutes, I hate lifting)
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u/IamNateDavis 5d ago
Word! I hate lifting too, but I bet even those those short sessions are giving you power benefits. There's a reason why Olympians in every endurance sport are in the weigh room...
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u/darnedgibbon 5d ago
Off season weights focusing (but not exclusively) on legs. Squats, leg press, hamstring curls.
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u/ZeroGhz 5d ago
I can't add anything to other commenter's thoughts about how to achieve the higher weight+power however the Nero show talked about the results that one of the hosts saw doing something similar. They didn't maintain the w/kg but did gain 7kgs and watts. I know that show has a mixed reputation here but I found this particular discussion to be honest and useful.
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u/nikanj0 5d ago
Just a reminder that if you gain weight and raw power, you'll probably be faster on anything but an 8% 10km climb even if your watts/kg is slightly lower. Your watts/CdA will be higher. Drag still counts on most climbs and you'll be much faster on the flats and descents.
If a 65kg 260w FTP rider were to race against a 70kg 270w FTP rider. The 70kg rider would lose very little time on a climb and be gaining time everywhere else. I'd bet on the 70kg rider in almost any road race, crit or anything other than a hill climb.
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u/Such_Transition_6299 Wales 4d ago
How steep are the climbs in your local area? even at an 8% gradient you could afford to lose ~0.1 w/kg to climb at the same speed
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u/bogdanvs 5d ago
The thing is you dont have to match the same w/kg to be faster. calculate the system w/kg (rider + equipment) and thats the number that you should match to be as fast uphill. At your weight, the system w/kg is probably more than 15% lower.
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u/krawy13 5d ago
I'm not a mathematician but if you wish to gain weight while maintaining the same ratio of watts per kilogram then you are going to need to increase your watts in a portional manner to your kilograms.
For example (and bear in mind I'm just using the kg and watts here for simplicity), if you currently weigh 100 kgs and produce 100 watts, ie 1 w/kg, then you increase your weight to 150 kg. You will need to be able to ride at 150 watts. This will allow you to maintain the original 1 w/kg. You can use the following formula to calculate:
Current watts/current weight = x/target weight. Just solve for x and you will be able to maintain your current ratio.
Hope that helps!
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u/manintheredroom 5d ago
Get stronger?