STARTING POINT
Where the rider was before coaching
Chris started at 84 kilograms with body fat around 20 percent. He wasn't out of shape by general standards — but for a cyclist trying to ride well, the body composition was a ceiling.
The real problem wasn't a single number. It was the gap between how he was eating, how he was riding, and how he was recovering. Each piece sabotaged the next, and the average wattage wouldn't move.
INTERVENTION
What changed
The intervention here was the full Roadman five-pillar system, not a diet. Training, nutrition, strength, recovery, and community — all moving in the same direction.
Chris's testimonial is direct about it: "He set me on a dietary, mental and physical journey of true discovery." The mental piece is what most weight-focused programmes ignore. You don't outrun a fork — and you don't out-discipline a poorly designed week either.
WEEKLY STRUCTURE
What the training week actually looked like
We don't publish Chris's exact week. The general framework: enough volume at conversational intensity to drive aerobic adaptation, enough hard work to push the ceiling, and recovery built in so the body can actually adapt rather than just survive.
On top of that, the volume settled into a real habit. Chris's testimonial: "weekly 100 km+ rides are now the norm." That's not the cause — the structure is the cause. But it's the symptom that the engine has actually grown.
NUTRITION & STRENGTH
The pillars under the bike
Nutrition guidance was about fuelling the work, not running a chronic deficit. The cyclist who eats less and rides more in the wrong combination loses muscle, loses power, and looks lighter on the scale — but the watts don't follow.
Chris took fat off and the watts went up. That's the combination that proves the nutrition was right. If only the scale moved, we'd have done the wrong thing.
OUTCOME
The result, in the rider's own words
16 kilograms off. 20 percent body fat down to 7 percent. Average wattage doubled. Weekly 100km+ rides became the norm.
Chris's words: "Anthony is a visionary, an educator, a mentor, a coach." The result is the result, but the bigger thing is that Chris owns the system now. He knows what produced the change.
THE NUMBERS
Before / after
From the athlete's testimonial and TrainingPeaks file. Where a number isn't published, we don't list one.
Body weight
84 kg68 kg
-16 kg over the coached arc
Body fat
20%7%
-13 percentage points
Average wattage
BaselineDoubled
Power moved in the right direction with weight loss, not against it
CAVEATS
What this case study does not claim.
- Seven percent body fat is racing-cyclist territory. It is not a year-round target for most amateurs. It is also not a target you set on a spreadsheet — it falls out of the right system over a long arc.
- Chris's transformation wasn't six weeks. The testimonial is silent on the exact timeframe; this is a multi-year arc, not a quick fix.
- Doubling average wattage is the kind of number you can only get from a low starting point. It does not mean every coached athlete doubles their watts. It does mean the framework that produced it is real.
- Body composition is one of the most personal areas of coaching. Some athletes have medical or genetic context that puts a 20% → 7% transition off the table. The five-pillar approach adapts to the athlete in front of it — it does not chase a number for its own sake.
COACH COMMENTARY
Anthony on this case
Chris is the answer when someone asks whether you can lose weight and gain power at the same time. You can. You just have to stop doing the things that make those two outcomes fight each other.
The cycling internet wants weight loss to be calories in versus calories out. That model is so outdated. The five-pillar system gets the body to a place where it doesn't need a deficit to compose itself properly.
What Chris did is rare. What's repeatable is the framework. Most athletes won't go from 20% to 7%. Most athletes will move the right direction on body composition while their watts go up — and that is the only outcome that matters on the bike.
— Anthony Walsh, Roadman Cycling head coach.