There’s something about a guy who walks into a room and immediately, people think, “Yeah, this ou lifts.”
They don’t have to brag about how many times a week they gym because their physique already tells people the whole story.

These ous know something about training that most people don’t, and that’s what I’m here to expose to you as well.

The best part about this is that, even if you aren’t as big as you want to be right now or don’t have washboard abs, you’ll still start looking more jacked in the clothes you wear within in months of consistency of using this knowledge I’m about to throw down.

THE V-TAPER

The secret to having an aesthetic physique is called the “V-Taper”. This means that your upper body resembles a V shape, and this is done by having a broader upper body compared to your waist.

The V-Taper is often characterized by the following muscle features:

vtaper

These features all taper down towards your waist and make you look extremely strong in a shirt even if your abs are not yet quite there.
A huge plus of the V-Taper is that developing these upper body features makes your waist appear narrower.

exercises to get a v-taper

Broad and Rounded Shoulders

  1. Shoulder Press: You can do these free-weight (dumbbells) or with a machine. Shoulder presses target your front delts and a bit of your side delts. The stronger you become on shoulder press, the bigger your shoulders will become in turn.
  2. Lateral Raises: These target your side delts and make your frame wider at the shoulders by rounding them off. Since they’re a small muscle group, they are fast-recovering, so you can put a lot of volume into them (I do around 4 sets in a session).
  3. Rear Delt Flies: These can be done with dumbbells or cables. The rear delts are often neglected, but they make your shoulders look more well-rounded from the side profile and complete the muscularity of your upper back muscles. Another exercise you could do are face-pulls with a rope, but I found that feeling the rear delts can be tricky so I prefer delt flies.

Wide Lats and Thick Upper Back

  1. Any Lat PullDown/PullUp: These add width to your back and give those wings that poke out and make you appear wider from the front. Use a wider grip to target the upper lats and a narrower grip to target the lower lats. I usually switch between a wide and narrow on different pull days.
  2. Wide Grip Rows: These can be seated with a cable, bent-over using a bar, or with a machine. The key here is using a wider grip that’s ‘pronated’ (palms facing the floor). By using the wide grip with pronation, you’re hitting the rhomboid muscles (between your shoulder blades), the mid traps and your delts as well. Do these to add thickness to your upper back.
  3. Cable Pullovers and Neutral Grip Rows: Pullovers and Neutral Grip (palms facing each other) Rows target your lower lats and make them appear wider from the front.

Proud Upper Chest
When I say “proud” I’m refering specifically referring to the upper chest (closer to your clavicles). Targetting these ous will give you armor breastplate look and will make your whole chest look stronger and more masculine - this avoids the “man-boob” appearance. My top upper chest builders are two exercises:

  1. Incline Dumbell Press: These are great for building strength and size of the upper chest and I prefer these to incline bench press (with a bar) as you can start pushing a lot more weight sooner (progressive overload is easier).
  2. Incline Flies: Can be done with either a cable or old-school style with dumbbells. If you notice a lot discomfort with the dumbbells, then the cables are just as good. These add definition and size to your upper chest - make sure you don’t ego-lift here as we want to crank out reps and get a good pump on this exercise.

Proportionally Large Traps
These are going to be targetted through your compound back lifts like Wide Grip Rows, so you don’t necessarily have to dedicate an exercise to them. But if you’re noticing that they’re underdeveloped, I usually do Shrugs.
These can be done with a bar, dumbbells, and even a cable with the pulley placed as low as possible with a straight bar attachment.
Maintain a slight bend forward, slowly lower the weight as far down as possibly can and then shrug up by squeezing your shoulders (pretend like you’re telling someone where you’re tax money goes - “IDK”). Crank out the reps.

Complemented with well-developed arms
There’s no point having a good chest and huge back with small arms. Well developed arms make your physique look well-rounded and honestly, who doesn’t want big arms?
I’ve written a full-on guide to building your arms and you can check it out here.

So there you have it - the secret to looking better in shirts from early on in your training journey.
These exercises can be incorporated into your regular workout routine, but know that the best way to see results is consistency over time - target these muscles frequently and you’ll see the difference.