TLDR
- Check out my Old School, New Body Reviews.
Good Start.
In the beginning…
I first became interested in working out in college, I admit my reasoning was for the ladies 😘 I went with my buddies, one of whom was HUGE! I did the same workout as my huge friend (of course with less weight) and I was pumped and ready for more!!! But not so much the next day… 😭
I realized that I might have overdid it a wee bit, following the workout of someone who had been working out for years… I made this brilliant deduction after I couldn’t move for 3 days post workout 😒 (Can you say DOMS?)
So I looked for something more beginner friendly. I couldn’t find anything so my buddy just had me concentrate on a few exercises every time I went. I got pretty good results and became the thinnest I had ever been in my life! I got down to 170lb (I’m 5’9) and was quite happy with how I looked.
15 years later.
Unfortunately I did not keep up with going to the gym. In college it was free! and right there on campus. After college it cost money and I wasted a lot of time getting to and from the gym, so I ended up not going.
I gained over 30 pounds and felt, not horrible, just blah most days. Once the jeans started to not quite fit right anymore I decided enough was enough, I had to get back into shape.
The Plan
Step 1: Build a home gym .
I found every excuse to not get my ass to the gym so, to remove as many excuses as I could, I bought some basic exercise equipment. You don’t have to get fancy, just some dumbbells and maybe a bench to start off is more than enough.
Step 2: Set fitness goals
Looking back at my college days, I realized I was really haphazard about exercise. I attribute my gains at the time to be 60% youth and 40% exercise. I decided to research into having a better plan than just “I think it’ll be arms today”…
So what goals did I set?
- Look good
- Don’t get hurt
Those would be my top two priorities.
- I still want to look good for the ladies! Well, lady in my case now (the wifey). 😉
- I’m not as young as I used to be and I find that I don’t bounce back like I remember…
So how do I look good?
I didn’t want to go the surgery route, so that left building my body back up! Looking at things like classical Greek and Roman sculpture as well as the Hollywood actors the ladies drool over, I came to the conclusion that there definitely is a proportion that people find attractive. So I looked into the studies done about this.
I found that there have been numerous studies about body proportion and how it affects perceived attractiveness for both men and women. For men the studies indicate that the breast, waist and hip ratios have the most impact on attractiveness across cultures. Scientists believe this is because that ratio is a sign of fertility.
I wasn’t interested in the studies about what men found attractive, as a guy I found it pretty obvious. I was only interested in what women found attractive about male bodies.
What were the my final findings?
The studies found that there is a ratio that almost all woman found attractive in guys. This ratio is usually called the golden ratio and has been noted for centuries. This ratio is 1.6 and would be measured in how wide your shoulders are, compared to how wide your waist is.
there is a ratio that almost all woman found attractive in guys.
This means if your shoulders are just over 1/2 as wide as your waist, this would be what the majority of women found attractive. Too wide or too narrow would both be bad!
This was great! This meant I have a goal to shoot for! But how was I going to get there? Just work out my shoulders and diet to get thinner?
While that is a viable strategy, I uncovered some other workout plans that revolve around getting you to this ratio as quickly as possible. The most useful ones I’ve found are
- Adonis Golden Ratio by John Barban
- Visual Impact by Rusty Moore
- Old School New Body by Steve and Becky Holman - Check out my Old School New Body Review !
Currently Adonis Golden Ratio is my main workout plan which I stay on for 6 months every year. The other 6 months rotate between Old School New Body and Visual Impact.
Other useful information
Other online resources that I like to use are
Nate Miyaki – Super knowledgeable and backed by science! Check out his site natemiyaki.com Lots of nutrition and exercise advice from someone past the first bloom of youth.
Greg O’Gallagher – His site kinobody.com has lots of great information and he advocates another approach to working out. Keep in mind he is in his 20s, so if you are younger or are more advanced, his workouts and tips may work very well for you.
T-Nation - Lots of forums/blogs/videos. All around great resource keeping the bro-science low t-nation.com
I’ll put other books and useful things I would recommend into my “Favs” section of the blog!