Bony To Beastly Body Fat

[Zada Odome]

Duringpuberty, testosterone binds to the androgen receptors in the bones and muscles of our shoulders. This makes our clavicles grow longer and our deltoids grow bigger, making our shoulders broader.

This shoulder-to-waist ratio is called the Adonis Index. The name comes from Greek mythology, where Adonis is the god of beauty and desire. The idea is that the human body looks most aesthetically pleasing when it conforms to divine proportions. In this case, the ideal male proportions are rooted in the Golden Ratio (Phi), a ratio commonly found in nature and classic art.

As I was going through the attractiveness research, I noticed that shoulder-to-waist and chest-to-waist ratios were used interchangeably. Our chest-to-waist ratio has nothing to do with our shoulder muscles, and yet a higher chest-to-waist ratio was just as indicative of attractiveness as having broad shoulders.

Both ratios were used as loose proxies of muscularity and leanness. The more muscular we get, the bigger our chests, backs, and shoulders become, giving us larger shoulder-to-waist and chest-to-waist ratios. The leaner we get, the smaller our waists become, boosting the ratio even further.

This gave me an idea. I drew a man with a greater shoulder-to-waist ratio and bigger shoulder muscles. Then I drew a man with bigger chest muscles and narrower shoulders. Both were similarly lean and muscular overall.

Furthermore, men have proportionally more androgen receptors in their shoulder girdles than women. That means having proportionally bigger traps is distinctly masculine. Masculine traits tend to be attractive to women. Men also tend to find masculine things cool.

At this point, my business partner, Jared, started using me as an example of someone with naturally broad shoulders. Clearly, he argued, my clavicles had been long the entire time. As proof, he put me in a spread with other guys known for having broad shoulders.

Our deltoids have three different groups of muscle fibres: the front delts, side delts, and rear delts. They all have different functions, making it impossible to train them all with a single lift (though the overhead press comes close). Our front delts push stuff away, our side delts lift stuff out to the sides, and our rear delts pull stuff in.

There are a few different types of lateral raises. Standing dumbbell lateral raises are great for beginners, but as you grow more advanced, you can switch to harder variations that stimulate even more muscle growth.

TYIs work your rear delts and traps through 3 different ranges of motion, giving you more balance muscle growth and doing a better job of strengthening your shoulder joint. Marco is demonstrating these without weight, but you can load them by holding dumbbells or smaller weight plates.

The small bony bump above your shoulder joint is the acromioclavicular joint (ACJ). Some people have a more pronounced bump than others. Skinny guys have more prominent shoulder bumps, so we often get questions about it.

The good news is that all of those muscles will help you build broader shoulders. Goblet squats, for example, are fantastic for bulking up your serratus muscles, improving your shoulder health while also pushing them out wider.

If you have poor shoulder posture, it can limit your shoulder mobility. Many beginners struggle to press weights overhead, preventing them from doing the overhead press properly. Use this exercise progression instead:

If you want us to walk you through the entire process of bulking up, check out our Bony to Beastly Program. It includes a customizable workout routine, a bulking diet guide, a recipe book, and support from us in our online community.

Shane Duquette is the founder of Outlift, Bony to Beastly, and Bony to Bombshell, each with millions of readers. He's a Certified Conditioning Coach (CCC), has gained seventy pounds, and has over a decade of experience helping more than ten thousand naturally thin people build muscle. He also has a degree in fine arts, but those are inversely correlated with muscle growth.

Jared Polowick, BDes, has a degree in design from York University. He co-founded Bony to Beastly, Bony to Bombshell, and Outlive, where he translates complex academic research reviews about strength, fat loss, and health into easy-to-read and visual formats that anyone can understand.

Marco Walker-Ng is the founder and strength coach of Outlift, Bony to Beastly, and Bony to Bombshell. He's a certified trainer (PTS) and nutrition coach (PN) with a Bachelor's degree in Health Sciences (BHSc) from the University of Ottawa. He has over 15 years of experience helping people gain muscle and strength, with clients including college, professional, and Olympic athletes.

Recently, I met with some old friends for a reunion lunch. As we walked out of the restaurant, the conversation turned to what I looked like when I was young. Two of the guys mentioned that I was not just skinny: I was bony and scrawny. One of them even emphasized it with his tone like it was a huge deal.

The worst parts of my day was lunch. My school had a huge, noisy cafeteria with hundreds of people in it. And as you got to higher grade levels, you got to sit in more exclusive areas. The seniors had their own VIP area with its own curtain. But when I was a senior, I still sat alone in the freshmen section.

But thanks to some helpful mentors online, my perspective on everything changed. I realized that how you present yourself outwardly is an extension of your inward self. If you show up to a job interview or business meeting looking like garbage, you are either:

Your body is a logical area that women look for and assess. The lesson is to remove any toxic mindsets hidden in your psychology about physique. They hold you back from a positive view of others and yourself.

This will help you think of exercise and grooming as less of a chore and more as an avenue for self-improvement. Countless studies have shown that exercise improves your focus, lifespan, energy levels, attractiveness, happiness, emotional resilience, and many other success factors.

You may be wondering what science has to say about why I was an outcast and why people prefer hanging out with fitter men. I am not an all-knowing expert, but I did some research into evolutionary biology to answer this question for you.

In a high school setting, status may be represented by fewer signals, such as being a member of an exclusive sports team, social skills, charisma, fashion, or physique. The high status kids may not actually have money or a job (resources) yet but people are still genetically wired to look for social signs regardless.

At the time, I did not have any of that. The book smarts I had were not genetically valued because of the Savanna Principle. This principle means that we are still wired like the humans of hunter-gatherer era thousands of years ago. Humans evolve very slowly because of our long life spans.

The renowned professor Carol Dweck popularized this concept through her studies. She found through her studies that unsuccessful people have the opposite of this mindset. They have a fixed mindset, which believes that you cannot change your skills and success in life.

But I was surprised when some of the big guys there went out of their way to support and encourage me. It was quite refreshing to see these people come out and help me when they could have ignored me. Instead, they respected my courage and work ethic.

This type of thinking also helps you progress. I am committed to a level of excellence even if others praise me inaccurately. If I slack off and everyone is congratulating me, I know I did not meet my own standards and will keep pushing rather than sit there and accept their praise.

I highly encourage you to take some time to define your own values and measures of success. For me, these include having a consistent work ethic, developing good relationships, being a kind, ethical, and warm person, always improving, and pushing my comfort zone. Whenever someone measures me by their own set of values, I remain undisturbed because I know what truly matters to me.

As long as I am proud of my accomplishments, character, drive, and relationships, my inner scorecard keeps me from relying on others for validation. This has helped me create an internal motivation that does not deplete as easily because it does not rely on others.

Therefore, I celebrate the effort I put into my workouts and the moments when I remember to eat healthy. I learned about this concept, called the Jar of Awesome, from top entrepreneurs, like Tim Ferriss. You document all your achievements and review them at least once a week to celebrate and savor them.

Ever since I started doing this, I realized how often I forget about all the small (and sometimes big) positive things that happened to me and dwell on the one or two negative events (usually for way too long).

Also, try finding a community where people will celebrate you. In most places, people are nicer than you think. But definitely, test out a few different areas to find a place with people that compound your growth with their warmth.

He told me that if you want to turn your weakness (a skinny physique) into a strength (strong and ripped), it can take a long time. Not as long as you might think, but a fair amount of time nonetheless:

I believe you can apply this to other areas of attraction. For example, it is a lot easier to go from poorly dressed to neutral fashion than to amazing fashion. You can perform better in record time at job interviews, public speaking, sales, and dating by just removing the traits that repel others, like ill-fitting clothes, wild colors, or unwashed clothes. Later on, you can improve it further and turn the non-issue into something that makes you truly stand out in a positive way.

I would focus more on giving great value to your local community, and by doing that, you will develop prestige and local status. A few ways this can do this will include teaching others, volunteering, being a connector among new people, and making sure your tribe is constantly happy.

3a8082e126