Muscle And Aesthetics

If you currently follow a fitness programme the chances are one of the goals on your list will be to look your best. That’s totally natural. Hitting the gym to be fitter and stronger also has this great bonus of actually making you look your best. And if you train with the purpose of muscle hypertrophy then you might even prioritize the aesthetics over the health benefits. Either way, training can be fun when we start to see things happen to the body as it can make us feel more confident about ourselves. In fact, I fail to see a single negative aspect of exercise. It literally ticks all the boxes.

But a massive tick for lots of people is the box titled ‘aesthetics’, AKA ‘looking damn fine’, AKA ‘smokin’, AKA ‘sun’s out, guns out’. This type of training is commonly known as muscle hypertrophy and recently I read an article about the muscle parts that are seen as the most attractive and appealing. It focussed quite a lot on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s chest and Hulk Hogan’s biceps and I’d like to add my own entries there with Beyonce’s rear and Jack Grealish’s legs. But I’m pretty sure that most of my readers are not movie star bodybuilders, WWE wrestlers, global pop superstars or Premier League footballers. So I’d like to address hypertrophy and which muscle can look the best for the every day folk. After all, we don’t all have time or money for an in-house PT or a fully equipped home gym to train in everyday to acquire the hypertrophy that our celebrated friends have.

Firstly, it is important to point out that your genetics are different from the next person. Your body will be able to adapt to something much easier that someone else but they will have different qualities to you. Therefore going to the gym to blow up your shoulders five times a week won’t progress them past the sarcoplasmic (pumped) stage if you ignore the rest of your body… especially the stuff that you are particularly good at!

So this is where you need to begin. Start with the stuff that you enjoy and are already good at. Your mate might have big shoulders because A. It’s their favourite body part to train or B. They are helped along by freaky genetics that enables broad back/shoulders. If your friend’s dad needs to enter a door sideways then there’s a very good chance that they will too. Add that fact to what is their favourite body part to train and they will end up with pretty impressive shoulders. But that doesn’t mean it is where you will excell. You need to find your own niche.

Your friend will still need to train the rest of their body. If they don’t, their genetics and well worked delts will look odd if they have underdeveloped legs or chest.

For natural muscle hypertrophy for aesthetics, you need to train every body part. But even if you can only manage three gym sessions a week there’s gains to be made with the correct planning and nutrition. In a one hour session your focus should be hitting high reps on as many muscle groups as possible for more than half of it and then you can focus on your best bits on a series of isolations. If it’s your chest, then do dumbell pullover to flyes supersets. If it’s your legs then perform leg extensions to lunge supersets. Not only would you see progression in your underdeveloped areas but the muscle groups that you naturally excell with will keep you wearing t-shirts or shorts well into December.

Play to your strengths in every session, but make sure that you do the other stuff first. Compounds that hit every muscle will compliment your best bits. Compounds increase testosterone,muscle and bone density, regulates fat distribution and red blood cell production. So the most attractive and appealing muscle group that you have is the muscles that you are the most adept at working…as long as you’ve put the ground work in on the rest!

Personally, my shoulders are my trophy muscle. They stand out nicely in a T. But as I said earlier, this is helped by genetics along with my calves which have always gained attention since playing football as a kid. So training these areas are pleasing to me because I see rewards instantly. I give a nod to these muscles regularly because I like how they make me look, but I know that I can’t ignore my other muscle groups even if it means performing my least enjoyable exercises. And despite being a PT I have many.

Aesthetics is something that we don’t always want to talk about as Personal Trainers. We’re supposed to be promoting the physical health benefits and the need to exercise for our mental health has been well publicised in recent years. But if you see muscle development and you feel pretty damn good about yourself because of your aesthetic look then don’t be ashamed that this is what you trained hard for. Looking good helps your mental health too! So give a little tense and a pose the next time you walk past your mirror. No-one is looking!