Building a great body is simple. It’s certainly not as elusive as the large majority of people make it out to be. It doesn’t require hours of cardio, becoming a meathead in the gym, or adopting some “clean” special diet. 

The issue is that most people just flat out don’t understand the two basic essentials that make up those great looking “toned” or “ripped” physiques that they see at the beach or at the gym that stir subtle envy from those around them and serve as pleasant eye candy to those of the opposite sex. We genuinely never get taught about it, and our modern lifestyle makes it impossibly easy to develop ourselves in the opposite direction. Unsurprisingly, most people end up with the same result: a lacklustre rig, and no idea what to do about it. 

So we start jogging in order to “get fit”, we put ourselves on various diets “proven by science” to be the secret to weight loss, or we hire personal trainers that make us feel like we’re working hard and keep us coming back for more. Yet when have these things ever given you the body you really want?

Let me make this clear: being “big boned” is not a thing. Your genetics don’t make you fat. All of this is in your control, and like every other human being you have the ability to optimise yourself and build your own version of a lean, aesthetic body, purely through your behaviour. Better yet, it’s only a small fraction of your behaviour that counts. 

So stop it. Stop all the random shit now. Here’s all you need to know to get the body you want.

The Two Elements of the Ideal Human Body

As a human, you look good when you have two things (relative to the average Joe): a high level of muscle mass, and a low level of fat mass. That’s it. There is nothing else you can alter in terms of your body’s appearance.

Now, before you start arguing that you don’t want a stack of muscle, I get it, that’s fine. I don’t want to look like a bodybuilder either. But the truth is that you are never going to. You will have to work VERY intentionally for a LONG time before you even begin to build a level of muscle mass that’s “too much”. Especially if you are female (muscle-building hormones just aren’t on your side). And especially if you also keep low body fat. It is just so hard for anyone to get “bulky” without intentionally eating a truckload of excess food and gaining a stack of fat in the process. Or, for that matter, using the assistance of anabolic steroids. Remember: Every bodybuilder you see hasn’t just built him or herself that ungodly amount of muscle through smart use of training and diet—they use drugs. So don’t ever fear getting too muscular. It’s just not going to happen.

So what I mean here by “high” is working hard to build up to as reasonable a level of muscle mass as you can. Because doing so is KEY to creating a sleek, athletic, attractive frame.

(Note: It’s written in our genetics to subconsciously value muscle mass; it is one of the few direct visual indicators of athletic potential (guess what another might be…), which is important when you’re fighting animals and other tribes to survive. So it makes sense that we are innately drawn to it, at least at the surface level.)

Onto the second element. If you’ve ever seen someone with six-pack abs, ripped muscles, vascular arms, a flat stomach or toned shapely legs, these people all have one thing in common: low body fat. They did not get there by doing lots of crunches or nailing their pilates every day. They just got (or kept) their body fat down in the right range. 

Body fat is stored below the surface of your skin and obscures the definition of the muscles beneath it. The more you have, the softer and more dumpy your body looks. A certain level of body fat is essential—we need it to survive. But that essential level is much lower than what most people carry around on them. The level where we tend to look our best is somewhere around 10-12% bodyfat for men (think abs and “hard” overall muscle definition) and 20-22% for women (think toned, slim and shapely). With a half decent diet and healthy relationship with food, this level is easy to maintain for most people year-round without any ill-effects. It is just the right amount.

Together, this combination of low body fat and a decent amount of muscle mass is the recipe for those bodies you drool over. 

Applying – Building the Ideal Human Body

This is nice to know, but how do you actually attain these two things in order to craft your own great physique, and how do you make sure they stick around while you go about your life?

I will give you the essential principles here, so that you may go about figuring out how to do the things that matter. There are only two principles you need to understand, and so long as you follow them, your body will only keep improving. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, but as long as you know which cat you’re trying to skin, you will get the result you are after eventually. 

Building Muscle Mass

From now on, this is your one law of muscle growth:

The stronger you get, the more muscle you will have.

As a natural (i.e., someone not using steroids), strength is the KEY to gaining muscle mass. There is simply no avoiding it. If you can get seriously strong, you will have the muscle to show for it. Use whatever exercises and protocols you like, but build strength throughout the full range of the major planes of motion, and you will build the muscle mass you need. Actually achieving this strength takes much more explanation, but this is the goal. And as long as you know that that is your sole outcome to work towards, you will be able to figure out how to get there. (Feel free to check out my other posts to start learning all about this process.)

Losing Fat

From now on, this is your one law of fat loss:

A calorie deficit is the only way to lose weight. 

I’ve already written about this in detail (again, check out my other posts to learn more), but here it is in short form: Eating less calories than your body burns on a daily basis, on average, over time, is the only way to lose weight. Strength training combined with eating enough protein is the way to ensure this weight is fat (not muscle). Doing this, you can reduce your body fat to your ideal level, and then stop (i.e., go back to eating what you need to maintain your weight). You will now have a new (lower) level of body fat that’s yours to keep!

Summing Up

So there you have it: the two features that make up the ideal human physique, and the two essential principles you need to achieve them. 

Use these principles, and there is no way you can avoid achieving their outcomes. Building an awesome body takes time if you’re not there already, but it is simple. And here’s the best part—it doesn’t go away once you achieve it. This is for two reasons: 

  1. Just as it takes time to change in the first place, so it takes time to change back. You’re only going to “lose your physique”  if you completely stop doing the things that got you there (gaining strength and using a calorie deficit from time to time).
  2. This probably won’t happen. By mere virtue of the fact that you got there, you will necessarily have built the habits necessary to nail these two things on an ongoing basis, with almost thoughtless ease. So the choice will be all yours—keep improving your body year to year while you enjoy what you’ve got so far. Or not. 

To summarise the long-term process down to a single formula:

continually improving strength + maintaining low body fat = ideal human body for life

To learn how to combine these two elements into a single, life-long practice, click here.