They try to stand taller, raise their chests up, push their shoulders back. However, weak posture is caused from weakness. It will collapse again as soon as you stop paying attention. You might notice that trying to force better posture makes you tired , too. We need to drill down to the foundation.
We need to build stronger bodies. That strength will then radiate from the inside out. For an example of a how posture can improve as you gain strength, here are two photos of Sara taken ten weeks apart.
They show five pounds gained, which is already starting to improve her muscularity. Even more noticeable than her muscle gains, though, is her rapidly improving posture:.
For most people, the best way to improve their attractiveness is to improve their body composition. Most people are overweight, so part of that involves losing fat.
We specialize in helping naturally skinny people, though, and for us, the best way to improve our appearance is to build muscle. To build muscle, we need to challenge our muscles in a way that stimulates muscle growth. Then we need to fuel that growth by eating enough protein and eating enough calories.
Then we can improve our recovery and keep our hormones healthy by getting enough good sleep. That gives us just four things to focus on:. The most attractive female physique is impressively strong, healthfully lean, and fit.
An attractive physique is something that we can build. After all, the only way to radically improve your attractiveness is to radically improve your health, body composition, and strength.
She's personally gained 22 pounds, going from 97 up to pounds. Great job Shane! As both a former journalist and current college professor — I am very impressed with how well-written this article is.
Chock full of dense and backed-up facts, but very easy and enjoyable to read. Glossy magazine-quality stuff. Thanks for the kind words, Latispatha! I started this article but it got so sidetracked that I just scrolled. Could you condense it or put it on Kindle? At least you warned me it was LONG.
By 55 my hourglass body shape was gone. My life journey has taken me through four pregnancies, three live births, a year physically active career, a love of walking and birdwatching, menopause, hair loss, breast cancer, radiation therapy, and a heart attack. I now need to take three medications that cause weight gain. Is there any help for me to regain some semblance of a real, female figure?
Look into HRT. The reason women get fat around their midsection post-menopause is because of an increase in testosterone and lower estradiol. Midsection fat is usually a characteristic of male body fat distribution, hence why it happens to women when they no longer produce enough estradiol and their test increases.
That sounds like a great and hard and wonderful life. Eli is right that hormones impact where we store fat. Reducing your body-fat percentage may help. Our bodies change as we age. You could speak with your doctor about HRT, but menopause is a normal thing.
I very much enjoyed reading this article. I was lbs. And there are a few things in this article about the eating, working with weights, and rocking the cellulite that I completely agree with. Lots of good examples to go by. Great, ignore the comment about the length of the article. It was nice to actually get a good, scientifically backed up ish read on why women need to work out and legitimately LIFT. Too bad!! More sisters should claim their space in there. The only way to get rid of cellulite is to lose weight, though.
Not true. I have been on the thin side all my life. Have a baby, cellulite will appear and there is no amount of weight you can lose to get rid of it. You have to tone the muscles. My bmi is 20 and I have cellulite. When my bmi was 18, I had cellulite. And then you have consider genes. Men like women to have feminine, non masculine traits. Therefore women should have curves. OK fine. But having broad muscular shoulders is most certainly a masculine, non feminine trait. In fact physical strength is a masculine trait.
Men are stronger then women, naturally. So why would men want women to have broad shoulders and physical strength? Also, in no way has anyone suggested that having muscle and extra curves makes people live longer. Genetics does that. Yes, its good to exersize the heart, but that kind of exersize buids no muscle. Its aerobic. Also the idea that people are suddenly looking to be thinner is NOT some psychological submissiveness of women.
Its because at no other time have people, women in particular been so extremely fat. Over half the women in the USA are overweight. Is it natural to have thighs that rub when you walk? WE were built in order to walk smoothly, one leg passing the other without touching. Think on it. Also its been noted that thinner women tend to be more successful. I kind of agree with the broad shoulders thing, I guess they mean broad but not like overly broad.
Cardio does help build some muscle though, like running is cardio and will help with building and toning leg and calf muscles. Yeah, exactly.
This can vary, though. The greater your muscle mass, the lower your risk of death, per WebMD , Independent , and this paper , to just name a few sources. And in both men and women, it helps to be strong enough, lean enough, and fit enough.
For a more obvious example, think of waist size. Women with smaller waists are often considered more attractive because among other things it hints at them not having much visceral fat. The same is true of men. A smaller waist is indicative of better health and is considered attractive. Building muscle is healthy for both men and women.
It improves almost every health marker and reduces all-cause mortality systematic review. Aerobic exercise is also incredibly healthy. Most major health institutions recommend strength training at least twice per week AND doing cardio.
We naturally store body fat when eating in a calorie surplus. Some cultures have naturally higher body-fat percentages than others. I have to agree with you. Whether or not your thighs rub together has to do with genetics not how all human woman are built.
Some women have breasts that are very close together and have a lot of cleavage and other women have a gap between their breasts. Not everybody needs to have a thigh gap! No they are muscular! Think on that. Oh and the reason thin people are more successful has more to do with the incorrect assumption that fat people are lazy.
I know lots of thin people that are lazy too. I am so glad that hourglass figures are in right now! Loved it Shane. I think the studies actually accurately promote a much better lifestyle too than what the mainstream media is presenting. Women being strong with a healthy amount of fat stores, being able to move the way they want without pain, having more energy, etc.
A point of clarification that may make women feel better — Muffin Top actually did not exist before I definitely remember life before Mufin Top, even with the Average Woman or even slightly overweight woman.
Muffin Top is an illusion in many cases. Hehe I had that experience myself a little while back. Cause for celebration in this case, I would say!
Thank you. Pheww — I was really worried about being honest and accurately interpreting the research … while also not ruining evenings. Since July , I have started to see muscle definition and a change in my body what! You are FIT! Martine, with all due respect, one swift look at the Instagram models that are popular or the women whose bodies are lauded by media e. Scarlett Johansson, Beyonce, Kim K. No, they just mean obvious toned arms and similar width size to your thighs.
But then again models represent opulence and luxury so people will always buy into that. The jig is UP Martine, slim thick is where its at until whenever. Looking good to other people is underpinned by feeling good from within, and that only happens, as you pointed out, when you work on becoming a strong and healthy woman. Thanks Clarice!
Hehe we got lucky — yeah. Would have been unfortunate had all the research suggested that men preferred a different kind of look! Finally finished reading this article! So well put together Shane. Posture, lifting form, and thought towards nutrition goes a long way. Cool stuff, thanks for sharing! Hey, nice article.
This sort of article really should be in the Cosmo style magazines not that I read any of that rubbish , especially for some of my slimmer compatriots who are vanishing from sight. They all seem to be frantically trying to disappear, whilst I, well, I lift and swing kettlebells, medicine balls, clubs and me! It seems like every decade puts a new spin on mainstream fitness and beauty ideals.
For men, crushing a triathlon used to be the ultimate accomplishment, whereas being burly was considered brutish. Now strength is often considered more desirable than endurance. If anything muscle mass is emphasized too much. Hopefully that leads to a love of strength instead of littleness. There are a lot of people in the fitness industry doing great things, even though some of the mainstream sources are still negative.
Maybe the next fitness trend will be a totally wholesome one and Cosmo will move a little bit away from promoting perpetual weight loss. Fingers crossed! Hey, I just want to say I love this article! I thought I was TOO thin. I did all the wrong things first, but over the years I learned that you can absolutely get results if you want to work for them….
I checked out your blog—very cool. There is! Bony to Beastly. This is a very good article, Shane. It is very informative. I usually want a thin body, but now I am more to healthy body. Thanks for this article. I was a sprinter in school and we spent 9 months every year training for almost 10 years.
After college, life starts. I have no energy. I still have body tone, though it may not as strong as before. And no matter how much I eat I still never gain weight. It can help us perceive things in positive ways and have a positive outlook on life.
When I read about this article, it made me glad things in my early life, being sporty. Yeah, friends and those close to me always wished they had a body like mine. So girls, I definitely agree with this article. It is just being confident, healthy, glowing, and strong while still looking feminine. Your writing flows smoothly, you cover your bases, and you make an excellent point. Well done! Loved this article! It is informative on the scientific level, and you related it to everyday life.
I really like how the healthiest bodies are the most attractive and that makes complete sense considering evolution. Survival of the fittest. After reading the male version of this article I decided to skip over to the female, pretty much expecting to see the typical schtick about the ideal feminine.
But I read, and surprisingly found myself reading further, because every point made really clicked and made a lot of sense. Also this article made me think of the old me from high school that actually lifted weights, and had a very toned back and arms, and how much I miss that old version of myself.
Thank you so much for the motivation; definitely bookmarking this! Have a good one. This was a very interesting article to read. People will tell me I look great and fit but I truth is, I hate it. All this to say, your article was the first thing in a long time that kind of made me stop and think.
Hopefully I can change my mindset before I waste another 10 years hating everything about the way I look. I think us men are that way too. I think the mainstream media is already starting to take a turn for the better. Strength and health seems to be starting to become a little more popular nowadays. Hopefully that continues on. Is it possible to reach the 0.
For some people reaching a 0. Even from an optimal attractiveness standpoint, some of the studies found that having a healthy body fat percentage was more important than specific proportions.
How much fat mass do you have around your waist? And what waist and hip measurements do you have currently? And for many people, losing weight would indeed be a good way to improve that ratio. It really depends on the person and their goals.
I find this article a bit offensive to be honest. I train purely for strength only; having a big bench, squat and deadlift. Not every woman cares about being attractive to a man. Some of us train for strength only. My goal is a big bench. Pure strength. Placing an emphasis on aesthetics is harmful in my opinion. The focus should be on performance. How much stronger are you?
Not as to how men might perceive us. It is already offensive enough that most men think that women train to be attractive to them which is untrue as many women, me included, do NOT train for looks or aesthetics but to perpetuate that with this type of article is just offensive and rubbish. You should not assume that most females train for looks or to be sexy to men. I think that many women agree with you, and I do as well. Very much so. As for why I wrote this article in the first place, I asked our readers what they most wanted me to cover, and they said they wanted a female version of our article on the most attractive male body , which is one of our most popular articles for men.
Anyway, I think your goals are awesome, and I wish they were more common. And if the 65 to pound deadlift is your own progress—congratulations! The author is perpetutating the myth that women train only to look good for men. Many of us train for strength; a big squat, deadlift… not looks. The author is offensive because he thinks his opinion on what is attractive is important enough that we should care. Some of us train for strength and performance. Some of us are even stronger than you.
This post is specifically about attractiveness…. Jackie I disagree. I think is one of the rare articles on female form and body type that simply describes common perception differences in attractiveness between the sexes, backed up by scientific references. It comes more of a put down on men who like big breasts to make small breasted women feel better I say this as a small breasted woman.
What this article fail to state which is surprising coming from a male that men do actually have different preferences. Some men like muscular and defined women , some men find that off putting. She barely has the ideal waist hip ratio — the very skinny models have more pronounced WHR than Kate Upton.
Many articles online are not really scientific especially if they are free. Again, do men who prefer large breast tend to be poor, hungry and sexist?
That is like saying that men who prefer small breasts tend to be pedophiles? Maybe men who prefer small breasts are sexists too given that they want a submissive partner? While I do not question the intention of the author, I think that an article like this,which especially ignores than diversity in mens tastes, reinforces body image obsession. He specifically mentioned small waist and the bottom.
What does that send to women who are already struggling with body image? MUst get small waist, must get round bum! Not all women can get round bottoms and small waist compared to hips. Even glute expert, Bret Contreras, say this so in his blog.
Unfortunately, the author has accidentally crossed that slippery slope. The better advise of the author would be work with what you have as long as you are healthy. Focus on healthy because if the focus is healthy, aesthetics will naturally follow. Compare that to when aesthetics is primary, it does not always follow that it is healthy.
Take a look at the photo above, it says, slim, average, curvy…The word curvy seem to have been used in a PC way rather than actual meaning. It depends one bone structure pelvic width and fat distribution patterns some women deposit fat in the stomach, some in the hips, some in the boobs. Made for an interesting discussion about gender, sexuality and attraction.
Love this website it has been what I have been looking for. My trainer has been treating me like I joined the gym to lose weight when I joined the gym to gain muscle! Bonus though love love the new curves I have and the definition I have now!! And I can definitely relate with your struggles to find advice for skinny people.
Dear Shane, WOW what an amazing resource you guys put together! Your knowledge and genuine caring for people really shines through. Still trying to get the form of the deadlift right — and how fast should I come up once to complete the movement? If your butt is lagging behind your leg muscles you might want to add in some lifts that preferentially work your glutes.
To do that, try adding in some glute bridges and hip thrusts! Although the intention of this blogpost was good, I think people should take this article and the references with a grain of salt. I somewhat agree with Jackie here about the implication of training for aesthetics. Hello make up, tanners, hair extensions.
Just look up youtube for testimonies! Also I am getting the feel that this is riding the skinny bashing trend in the internet and media that I have been seeing…but at the same time ignoring the rampant obesity.
Also, breast perkiness cannot be achieved by building pecs, it has more to do with skin elasticity and the ligaments that hold the breast up. Those articles were not even peer reviewed nor were they really scientific.
In addition, what qualifies as small or large breast? Often times people just say the cup size which makes no sense since cup sizes must exist with band size.
What qualifies as skinny, tender, average, fat? People interpret these words differently. But to be honest, she was far from skinny! If you look at the cover models, they arent thinner than playboy models. This isn't a current fad, either; it's a built-in biological preference, the research found. The attractiveness judgment based on figures defined by waist-to-hip ratio is a robust phenomenon evident in various cultures," Dr.
Devendra Singh, the author of the study, concluded. This waist-to-hip ratio is your classic "hourglass figure," and women who are very thin, medium-sized, or plus-sized all can have this body type.
The authors of a Journal of Psychology study on sex differences in perceptions of desirable body shape were particularly blunt in their assessment: "Our data suggest that women are misinformed and exaggerate the magnitude of thinness that men desire," write the authors, "probably as a result of promotion of thinness in women through advertising by the diet industry.
Women are just as bad at estimating what kind of bust lines men prefer. So what do the studies show about men's preferences? What kinds of bodies do men prefer in women? Click here to read the surprising answers. Tantleff-Dunn, Stacey, and Thompson, J. News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism.
Special Projects Highline. Others believe that culture, especially media representations, has more influence than genes or evolution. The tougher food and resources are to come by in a society, the more men prefer plump women. When UCLA researchers asked to select among a number of possibilities, men entering a university dining hall — presumably hungry — preferred slightly heavier women than did men leaving — and presumably no longer hungry.
When we are establishing ideals for body shapes, Johnson said, we may actually be seeking strong cues for masculinity and femininity. In fact, people tell us they look natural and very attractive even when shaped like Barbie. Rather, our preference may be about survival. Males can represent danger, which may be why most men and women think hyper-masculine men are not as attractive as men with somewhat softer features.
Perhaps, Johnson suggested and she is beginning to research this idea , both men and women prefer more extreme female body shapes out of self-protection.
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