Our character, work ethic, personality, passion, degree of ambition, intelligence, and persistence are all judged within the first 4 seconds of meeting someone. We do the same to them. It’s not a bad thing, nor is it a good thing, it just is. We’re hardwired as human beings to make these immediate assumptions.
We make these snap, 4 second judgements completely based on looks; more specifically, based on shape. Within 4 seconds of meeting a lady, she’ll have already judged the kind of man you are without you even saying a word. The same goes for a CEO or an entrepreneur you want to impress. Surprisingly, your shape can have a big impact on whether or not a door opens – whether it be for business, or love – or if it closes.
The goal, then, is to build the body that would make us feel confident so we convey confidence. We also want to let the shape of our physique tell a powerful story, one where we’re the alpha male, where we’re athletic, powerful and ambitious. The alternative is to give the impression that we’re lazy, average, and forgettable.
This perfect first impression exists in the ratios of our different body parts to one another – for example, our waist circumference to that of our shoulders. Artists have been painting and sculpting using this ideal ratio for centuries. In the art world, it’s old news. In the health and fitness realm, it’s groundbreaking.
How You’ve Moved Away From Perfection
We’re all born with the capacity for this ‘aesthetic perfection’ in our genes, but from a young age we either move away from it, or further develop it. What’s scary is that a lot of what we’re doing in the gym can be moving us away from these ideal ratios.
Before we get into how we’re moving away from perfect, watch this video…
1. You’ve Trained the Wrong Way.
Like I said, some of what we’re doing in the gym can be pulling us further away from our ideal body. Powerlifting isn’t going to help you aesthetically, neither is bodybuilding. In most cases they take you away from your perfect physique. Bodybuilding does this two ways:
- It makes you too big/too muscular.
- It gives you a well-rounded physique.
A well-rounded physique is a good thing, no?
To build our ideal body, we each may need to develop certain areas more than others. We might need bigger shoulders and smaller arms, or bigger calves and smaller quads. Bodybuilding, with the body-part splits, gives us even work on every body part. If we specialize, we can develop better ratios and move closer to perfection, but how do we know what those perfect ratios are? (watch the video above to find out)
Too muscular – does that even exist?
It does, in a big way.
The ideal body conveys power, athleticism, an alpha mystique. The alpha is strong, but athletic. He’s lean muscular, but he’s lean. He can lift heavy weights, but fit nicely into a suit as well.
Your body should put a little bit of fear into the heart of other men – they may not consciously know it, but they’re thinking what the hell is that guy doing? He has to be successful or something…
The body of a bodybuilder looks comically large, from the eyes of a man – or a woman. It’s just too much. It conveys over-compensation, not confidence.
Powerlifting expands your waistline.
I love heavy lifting, especially deadlifts. But deads and squats can negatively effect your waistline, especially if you’re lifting heavy. That’s the effect that you see with most powerlifters, they have massive (but muscular) belly’s to support the sheer poundage they’re lifting.
If you want to lift like that, you’ll look like that.
If you want your aesthetically ideal body, you have to do things a little different.
Weird Tips to Get That Ideal Ratio
1. Lower Cortisol
