This feature originally appeared in the 15 May 2025 print edition of Cycling Weekly, on sale in newsagents and supermarkets, priced £3.35. You can subscribe through this link here.
When CW’s features editor emailed me one lunchtime, asking if I’d like to investigate FatMax, I almost choked on my pork pie. What exactly was he insinuating? OK, I had to punch a couple of extra holes in my belt over the winter, but surely that didn’t merit such a callous appraisal of my physique. Only after I threatened to involve HR did I realise I’d been hasty. Although FatMax sounds like the street name of a portly American mobster, it in no way pertains to excess blubber. It is, in fact, a training method that is growing ever more popular among pro cyclists.
