The primary objective of skinny-fat guys is to build total-body muscle. The more muscle mass you have the better off you’ll be. This is for several reasons.
Reasons 1. Muscle is metabolic. Meaning muscle burns a lot of calories and it burns calories all day, everyday.
Reason 2. Muscle reshapes your body. Having muscle in the right spots is crucial for a healthy, strong and good looking physique.
For these reasons you should train accordingly.
Skinny-Fat Workout Plan
Skinny-fat guys should train with a full-body workout plan. Emphasis should be placed on training your legs and back.
This may seem counter-intuitive since it’s the arms, abs and chest that look the best. However, arms, chest and abs make up a small percent of your total muscle.
Your legs and back make up a huge percent of your total body muscle. Therefore training them is essential to build the most muscle mass.
You Can’t Fire a Cannon from a Canoe
Your legs and back are the foundation of your physique. They must be strong in order to support fully developed ‘show muscles’ like arms, back and abs.
How often do you see a nice set of arms on a guy with a tiny back?
Probably never.
Train Efficiently
Back and leg training stimulates the most muscle fibers. The more muscle you train the more growth hormone that gets released.
This has an anabolic effect on every muscle group. Meaning once you train your legs and back, natural growth hormone pumps through your veins making it easier to build muscle in your arms, shoulders and chest.
Now, we want a balanced, healthy and attractive physique. This requires training your other muscle groups as well. We’ll get to that in a minute.
Training for the Skinny-Fat Body Type
Skinny-fat means you have love handles and skinny-arms and narrow back and shoulders.
We need to reverse that. We want proud shoulders a wide back and narrow waist.
You must train in a way that builds total body muscle, plus builds additional muscle in the right places.
Here’s how you fix it.
Build total body muscle with a balanced training program using exercises that hit every muscle group as they should.
Start doing bodyweight exercises 3 times a week. Then begin including weight lifting as you get stronger.
Utilize the following exercises for maximum benefit.
Bodyweight exercises
Push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, leg lifts, body weight squats, lunges and dips should be your go-to’s.
Sprints uphill or running up a stair case is also a great way to build up your legs without weights. Just go to your local sports stadium and run up the stairs a few times.
Compound Exercises (with weights)
These are the main weight lifting exercises to perform in order to build total body muscle.
- Bench Press
- Incline Bench Press
- Shoulder Press
- Squats
- Deadlifts
- Rows
These are perfect for building healthy muscle. Be sure to get a healthy dose of squats and deadlifts. Preferably at least twice a week for each.
Isolation Exercises
These exercises target specific muscles to sculpt an aesthetic body.
These are the best three exercises for skinny fat guys to build wide shoulders and a strong chest.
- Lateral raises (side, and rear delt)
- Chest flyes
- Guillotine Press
These are the muscle shaping exercises, and should constitute no more than 10% of your total training volume.
90% of your training should be done with the bodyweight and compound barbell exercises mentioned earlier in this post.
Build a Skinny-Fat Workout Routine
If you’re a beginner, perform bodyweight exercises until you can do 10 perfect pushups in a row. Then move on to weight training + bodyweight exercises three times a week.
Don’t completely ditch bodyweight training. Bodyweight exercises are very important for keeping your physique balanced and strong throughout.
Pick 2 upper body exercises and 2 lower body exercises each workout. Then do one abdominal exercise and one isolation exercise. Train Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Example Skinny Fat workout Plan
Workout 1: Monday
Pull ups / Bench Press / Squat / Lunges / Chest Flys / Leg Lifts
Workout 2: Wednesday
Pushups / Military Press / Deadlift / Bodyweight Squats / Lateral Raises / Sit ups
Workout 3: Friday
Row / Pull ups / Squat / Lunges / Guillotine Press / Leg lifts
Perform 3 sets of 8 reps for each exercise to start.
And remember:
- Always strive to do more weight than you did your last workout.
- Focus on perfect form. Quality reps get real results.
- Be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day. It takes time to transform yourself.
Losing Fat is Easier than Keeping it Off
A quick note on diet.
It’s easy to lose fat. But how often have you or someone you know lost some weight then put it on again?
It happens all the time. People end up agonizing over what to eat. Then they eventually cave and eat crappy then blow up in weight again.
However, building muscle prevents this from happening. Muscle eats up those extra calories and makes it harder to get fat. That’s why you should strive to build as much muscle mass as possible. (Hence train your legs and back.)
While I believe in building muscle mass is a priority, skinny-fat guys should get lean as soon as you can. There’s a tactful way to do this what allows you to boost natural growth hormone, testosterone, while losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time.
In Conclusion
Reshaping your body is hard work. On top of that, skinny-fat guys have unique challenges to overcome.
Building muscle is hard but you can make a huge positive improvement with 3-6 months of solid training.
The easiest part is actually losing the fat. Keeping it off is the biggest challenge.
You absolutely have to build total body muscle. This is because muscle burns calories and muscle mass is a good indicator that your testosterone levels are increasing, which is also a critical component to conquering skinny-fat.
There are no short cuts. Trying to just build the show muscles will end in frustration.
So dig in, get committed and the results will come.
If you want to remove all the guess work, pick up a copy of ‘The Skinny-Fat Solution’. It lays out the battle plans in complete details. It shows you exactly what to eat and how to train in order to completely reshape your physique as quickly as possible. It comes complete with a full workout plan and nutrition guide (with recipes) to show you the way.
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