This week I got a question from a guy.
He thought my wide hip structured resembled his, and that my physique looked cool.
He says:
”My hip bones stick out quite a lot and I seem to store my very last stubborn fat on my love handles too giving a stupid feminine look.
I’ve noticed it’s similar to yours with the slightly wider hips and stubborn love handles.
I want to know how you got so comfortable with it, because I hate taking my shirt off as I’m so self conscious about it.”
So today we’re going to cover:
the difference between a thick waist and wide hips
the muscles I focus on growing
the ideal body fat percentage to aim for
my a-ha moment about self-consciousness
This is my honest advice for guys with wide hips…
Hips vs Waist
For this article we’re going to define your waist as the area between your ribcage and your pelvis.
Top white line – ribcage
Red dotted line – waist
Bottom white line – pelvis / hips
Your bone structure won’t change.
The width of your pelvis and ribcage is genetically determined
When people use the terms “thick or blocky waist”, they’re referring to the width of your waistline in relation to your ribcage and pelvis.
If all three were to be roughly the same diameter, you’d have a roughly straight sided shape to your torso.
Ratios
Your waist measurement doesn’t mean all that much by itself because it lacks context.
If you saw someone with a 34” waist who was 6’5, with a lot of muscle, and little fat, you’d probably think they looked incredible.
But a 34” waist on a guy who’s 5’2, without much muscle, and lots of body fat looks different.
The appearance of your waist size is relative to your shoulders and your height.
I’m around 167 lb, 175cm. My waist measuring around 31”.
If your waist measurement is roughly 50% of your height, you’re going to look pretty good.
And if your shoulders are about 1.5x the width of your waist, you’re going to look really good.
Sexual behavior studies shows us that women find men more attractive when they have a larger shoulder to waist ratio.
So if you’re trying to get laid…
That leaves us with 3 important numbers, your shoulder measurements, your waist measurement, and your height.
Unless you’re planning on going to Korea for some experimental height surgery…
You’ve only got 2 options.
1. You can lose some body fat around your midsection and shrink your waistline.
I’d recommend checking out my Free Weight Loss Calculator to make that happen.
2. You can build up the muscles of your upper body, to increase the tapered appearance from your shoulders to your waist.
For this, you can grab my Free Training Plan.
Building The V-Taper
If there were two muscles to focus on in your upper body that can get you looking more like a Dorito, they would be your shoulders and lats.
For shoulders, doing plenty of horizontal pressing movements like bench presses and pushups along with vertical pressing movements like DB and BB OHP is a good start.
But to really build the width of the shoulders, you’re going to have to include some lateral raise type exercises.
These can be done on a cable machine or using dumbbells.
Upright rows are another great option here – they absolutely pump my shoulders up like crazy.
When it comes to the lats and the upper back, you’ll want to include a variety of vertical pulling exercises like chin ups, pull ups, and pulldowns.
Also plenty of horizontal pulling type exercises.
Like chest supported rows, cable rows, and bent over rows – particularly where the elbows stays close toward the body to target the lats.
Learn how to train for muscle growth while losing fat at the same time in my free guide, Body Recomp 101
Insane that over 2000 people have used that guide now…
It’s better than a lot of paid products out there on the same topic.
But you might not realize that you can even shrink the appearance of your waist by building the muscles BELOW your waist.
The X-Frame
In bodybuilding, there’s a concept known as The X-Frame.
Instead of just looking at how the shoulders relate to the waist, you can also account for the legs.
Having a big set of meaty, christmas turkey quads visually shrinks the waist from below.
You can build those bad boys with squatting type movements like leg presses, barbell squats, and smith squats.
The leg extension machine is also a great option here for adding some extra icing on the cake.
But should you do core training to improve your midsection?
Direct Ab Training
Your abs and oblique muscles have a very limited potential for growth compared to larger muscle groups like your quads or your biceps.
That being said, they can still grow.
They’ll become increasingly visible at any given body fat percentage if you train them properly.
For the abs, I can’t think of many good reasons NOT to train them, if you want your midsection to appear leaner and more defined.
Weighted sit ups and leg raise variations are my favorite types of exercises here.
For the obliques – if you’re staunchly against making your waist any wider, go ahead and avoid training them directly.
Most people don’t do any direct oblique training anyways, and it doesn’t have a MASSIVE effect, so it’s not a huge deal.
But I would still argue that if they were a bit bigger, you’d still appear more defined at any given BF% despite being literally wider.
For this reason, many people will give the advice to avoid squatting and deadlifting because they will grow your waist.
I’ve yet to see sound theoretical grounds or practical data to back that up.
Since your abs and obliques are not working directly against the load, they probably won’t be growing all that much.
In any case, you won’t see much abdominal definition if your body fat percentage is too high.
Ideal body fat percentage
Getting shredded (ultra lean) sucks for a LOT of reasons – so I don’t recommend it for most people.
And if you have wide hips, losing fat is not going to make your pelvis any narrower.
But it will tighten up your waistline.
I wrote about this two weeks ago in The Best Exercise To Lose Belly Fat (Most Underrated)
If you’re over 20-25% body fat, you’re definitely going to be making matters worse.
But you can rock a very cool thick fit physique with some extra muscle, and some barely visible abs.
Living around 15% body fat is my preferred zone for that look.
You’ll feel energized and strong in the gym.
You’ll fill out clothes nicely, and still look lean when you pop the top off at a pool party.
But how do you stop feeling self-conscious about your body?
My a-ha moment about feeling self conscious
Nobody cares as much as you do.
Seriously, people ask in the comments section all the time about me losing my hair or my wide hips or whatever.
How am I confident with it?
Here’s the deal.
I just don’t care as much about it because I know it’s not that big of a deal.
Especially since I know my body does other cool stuff that isn’t just looking sexy on YouTube and OnlyFans (jk lol).
I’m getting better at jiujitsu, I’m decently strong, and my brain is at least somewhat decent at writing all this content that’s helping thousands of people.
You can find other ways to bring happiness into your life and value to the world outside of how your body looks.
Crazy, I know, coming from a guy who’s full time job it is to look good shirtless.
And check this out – how YOU feel about you matters way more than what anybody else thinks.
Ironically, if you feel better about yourself and you rock what you have, people seem to think that’s pretty cool too.
So wear the kinds of clothes that make you feel like a stud.
Rock the haircut and the facial hair that you think looks cool.
Shave your body hair or don’t – I don’t care.
It’s up to you to do the best with the hand you’ve been dealt.
After that, the rest is everyone else’s problem.
Action Steps
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Go back to the time when you were born
Pick better parents.
So you have narrow hips, wide shoulders, and you’re 6’5.
2. Build the X-Frame
Adding slabs of muscle above and below your waist.
This will create a tapered appearance to your midsection.
And make you look better at every body fat percentage.
3. Get your body fat in check
Somewhere around 15% body fat looks awesome on most guys.
Anything much fatter than that, and your abs will look pretty soft.
4. Train your abs (optional)
If you want to maximize how much they ‘pop’.
It’s worth doing some direct ab work.
5. Remember it doesn’t matter
Nobody cares as much as you do.
Find other ways to make life awesome.
And do the best with the cards that you’ve been dealt.
Hope this helps!
-Matteo
PS: if you want to lose 50+ pounds of fat in the next 6 months without keto, fasting, or drugs – check out my coaching program
