Think your legs are ripped? Compare.

DC Wonk wrote:

Polish pro cyclist Tomasz Marczyński who rides for Lotto Soudal. His bio says he is 5'11, 143 pounds:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B0V9haboXew/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

What a lot of people don't realize is this is what cortisone can do for you. You can get leaner that it's otherwise possible to do so. It's one of the best PEDs out there and is hardly even talked about in running. This is why it's so advantageous to have asthma, not because it allows someone to use albuterol inhalers, but because you can get a TUE for something like prednisone that allows you to spare glucose utilization and increase lipid oxidation or whatever the fancy scientific way of saying you use less carbs and more fat.

Major game changer in the marathon.

the c man wrote:

What a lot of people don't realize is this is what cortisone can do for you. You can get leaner that it's otherwise possible to do so. It's one of the best PEDs out there and is hardly even talked about in running. This is why it's so advantageous to have asthma, not because it allows someone to use albuterol inhalers, but because you can get a TUE for something like prednisone that allows you to spare glucose utilization and increase lipid oxidation or whatever the fancy scientific way of saying you use less carbs and more fat.

Major game changer in the marathon.

That's how a "doped to the gills" cyclist looks like - literally less than 2% of body fat:

He doped from 1998-2010 and used "EPO, growth hormone, testosterone, DHEA, insulin, IGF-1, cortisone and did blood transfusions". Without some these things it's impossible to achieve this low body fat/leanness, unless you are someone who is naturally very skinny like KoKo.

2% is an exaggeration. Plenty of riders in the pro peloton are at or above 7%, the top climbers in the tour are 5.5-6%, very few will finish the tour much below 5%. Contador claimed to finish grand tours around 3.7% but there was a lot of doubt around the accuracy of that. Rasmussen (who, admittedly, was a nutcase and used to peel the stickers off his bike to save weight) looks disgusting because he's the color of spackle, has a shaved head for the inadvertant concentration camp look and is tall for a cyclist, with long stretched out limbs. Honestly, color aside, I know plenty of amateur runners with torsos built like that - myself included.

Hey hey, the clouds are away. There's straw for the donkeys and the innocents can all sleep safely. All sleep safely

...also to add, %s are very very hard to compare because people rarely state the measurement method they used. Pre Vuelta (which obviously is not the same as post but hey), Chris Froome's percentage was 9.8% and he's probably one of the slightest guys in the peloton. That was DXA tested.

Why did the chicken wrote:

2% is an exaggeration.

Ramussen was measured at 2-3%. Of course he didn't get naturally to it - he used triamcinolone, which caused the fat loss. Team Sky ordered 55 vials per season, and he said he would make up reasons like tendonitis in elbows or knee to be allowed to take them. Many pro cyclists use it legitimately now, as they just get a TUE (therapeutic use exemption) to get the use of corticosteroids like triamcinolone justified.

What you mean is that cyclists have high BMI values - yes, even Rasmussen had 19.5 which is perfectly healthy according to WHO (but what BMI doesn't show is that he has big quads/glutes and his body fat is far below what we can consider healthy. Rasmussen on 19.5 BMI is nothing like an elite runner at 19.5 BMI who still looks fine as runners have much higher body fat).

Froome's 9.8% were tested in 2015. After, he lost 6 kg / 13 pounds of almost pure fat, his percentage is much lower now.

Show me a cite to 2-3%. Ideally one that includes the measurement method.

Why did the chicken wrote:

Show me a cite to 2-3%. Ideally one that includes the measurement method.

Here 2%, quoted from Michele Ferrari himself (aka Dottore Ferrari/Dottore EPO, he gave triamcinolone to over 80 pro cyclists)

Contador was measured at 3.7% - as said by yourself. Now compare him to Rasmussen:

Rasmussen looks at least 1% less than Contador. Pictures make people look 10 lbs heavier, but imagine seeing Rasmussen in real life then you would finally realize how low his body fat actually is. Like most cyclists he was using PEDs to get there, and he certainly set the limit of what's possible for humans but his low body fat % is not a myth.

Back to original topic, the low body fat caused by PED's is also the reason why their calves look impressive, but I guarantee you any elite runner got stronger calves than skinny cyclists even if they don't look like it.

So we've gone from "literally less than 2%" to "2-3%" to quoting some random twitter user (who describes themselves on their profile as an "anti doping troll"), who in turn claims to be citing Ferrari (without a link) who never worked with Rasmussen and can only have been going on a "looks like."

I also never said Contador tested at 3.7%, I said he's claimed it.

I maintain there never has been and never will be a competitive cyclist with a DEXA or Bod Pod measured body fat of less than 2% and I'd be very surprised if there were any below 3%. I know competitive bodybuilders (on every substance you can imagine), who flirt with 2% during competitions and the health effects are horrendous. They can't stand up for want of body fat under their feet and their endocrinal and immune systems go haywire as they strip visceral fat. Getting oiled up and gurning for 5 minutes is the outer limit of what someone in that state can do physically.

*to clarify, your random twitter user was clearly talking about Froome, not Rasmussen (so we seem to be moving all the goalposts) but the rest of my response stands.