How to Build the V-Taper Body You’ve Always Wanted

The wide upper body and lean midsection that tapers to the bottom half give an appearance of a strong, confident, and powerful physique. That’s why people grind their way in the gym to achieve the V-taper body or the superhero look.

Many would argue that this physique is genetic. While this is true, and some individuals are just gifted with the genes of a Greek god, achieving a V-taper look by natural means is still possible.

With dedication and strategic training, you can achieve this superhero look you’ve always wanted.

This article will discuss the specific muscle group you must prioritize and tips on how you can achieve a V-taper body.

Wanting a V-taper look goes beyond its aesthetic benefits.

In our modern world, achieving a V-taper look is technically impossible without putting tremendous effort into the gym and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. In fact, even experienced lifters may have difficulty keeping this figure.

This means that having these Godly proportions proves that a guy is different from the crowd and has unique qualities that society deems attractive and necessary to thrive, such as discipline and persistence.

There are no secrets to building the V-taper. You don’t need fancy equipment or gimmicky exercises to build the right muscles for the job.

If you are hitting the gym regularly, chances are you are already doing the necessary exercises to sculpt your body into V-taper.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a hard gainer or lift a little lighter than others. Achieving an aesthetic V-taper is all about having the right proportions.

The trick is to prioritize muscle groups that will give you an illusion of a wider upper body and narrower waistline.

These are the muscles that you need to prioritize when building a V-taper physique:

• Shoulders (Delts)
• Chest (Pecs)
• Back (Lats)

The main goal of your exercises is to prioritize adding bulk into your shoulders, creating a broad chest, and improving the spread of your lats.

The idea is to widen your upper body structure by increasing the 3D shape of your delts. This can be achieved by targeting all the fibers of your deltoid muscles during your shoulder exercises, especially the side and rear delts.

Suggested exercises:

• Side lateral raise using dumbbells and cables (Side Delts)
• Front Raise (Front Delts)
• Rope face pulls (Rear Delts)
• Overhead press
• Reverse flys

Sculpting your upper body is incomplete without a widened and thickened back, especially the lats. Your lats improve your front, side, and back profile in a “V”-like frame and create an illusion of a smaller waist.

Suggested exercises:

• Lats pull down with overhand grip
• Rows
• Deadlifts
• Pull-ups

Be careful not to add too much weight when trying to overload your lats exercises as this often causes compensatory movements of the shoulders and lower back, thereby making the exercise less effective.

Try to maintain a rep range of 8-10 reps to keep your lats engaged, and then do a drop set until failure on your final set.

A workout you must try:

Your chest muscles give more definition to your torso and will also emphasize your big delts. In addition, training your pec muscles and delts will complement each other to provide a broad, strong-looking front profile.

Suggested exercises:

• Bench press
• Push-ups
• Dumbbell press

If you are packing a considerable amount of love handles or body fats in your midsection, you need to eliminate them to highlight your V-taper figure.

Include HIIT exercises in your training at least 1-2 times per week to chip off stubborn fats and prevent muscle loss.

Targeting at least 10% body fat percentage is ideal for showing your abs definition and eliminating excess body fat.

Remember that even with wide shoulders and a broad back, you’ll still end up with a square figure if you can’t manage your midsection.

As many would say, your nutrition is 80% of your results. So a proper diet is critical in gaining muscle mass while shredding off some fat.

The goal is to maximize lean muscle gains and minimize fat gains. You’ll want to steadily build muscles without gaining too much fat over time.

A clean diet comprising whole foods with high protein is ideal for building muscle mass.

Your lean bulking diet should look like this:

• 15 - 25% of your calories should come from protein.
• 50% of your daily calories should come from carbs
• 20 - 35% of your daily calories should come from fats.

It’s easy to fall prey to junk foods or dirty bulking when you need more calories. One solution is preparing your meals for the week and finding the time to cook whole, nutritious foods to support your muscle growth.

After bulking and achieving your desired muscle growth, you need to follow it up with a proper cutting phase to trim unwanted fats that you gained in the process.

You’d also want to train your traps and quads for an ideal body proportion and further emphasize your V-taper figure.

Building your traps can offer more thickness and definition to your upper back, making them look wider. They also help improve the separation of the lats on the middle back.

Well-defined quads will also make your waist look smaller and prevent your lower body from lagging behind your upper body in progress.

Achieving a V-taper is possible with strategic training. By focusing your training on key muscle groups such as your delts, chest, and lats muscles, you will be able to create an illusion of a wider upper body frame that tapers to the midsection of your body.