Articles
The Skinny Guy’s Guide to Body-Fat Percentage
As a skinny guy, it can be hard to figure out what your body-fat percentage is. Imagine the average man. A DEXA scan measures him at 24% body fat. Then he sits in the BodPod, which puts him at 26%. A bit of a discrepancy, but he can be reasonably confident he’s between 24–26%.
Now you walk in, and DEXA puts you at 9%. Not only are you lean enough to bulk aggressively, but you’re also leaner than most professional athletes. You may even want to gain a bit of fat. But when you step into the BodPod, it measures you at 22% body fat. That’s a bit high. You might want to lose some fat.
You’ve spent a few hundred dollars getting the two most accurate tests, and you don’t even know if you have too much or too little fat. For guys who are underweight, DEXA and BodPod can be off by up to 13%!
So in this article, we cover why your body-fat percentage matters, how to measure it properly, and then run through some real-life examples (with pictures).
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The Best Clothes for Skinny Guys
Being a man is about being a good person, and part of being a good person is knowing how to fit into society. Demonstrating that social savvy will make you more attractive to women, earn you more respect with other men, and make frailer people feel safer around your strength instead of threatened by it.
As you gain more strength, that last point becomes more important.
There are a few things we can do. Being polite, knowing when to smile, improving our posture, and knowing what to wear.
Even by just fixing up our style, we can start living better almost instantly.
But for us ectomorphs, things are not quite so simple. We’ve got a rarer body type, and it can be hard to find clothes that fit and flatter us.
Then as we build muscle, we look better in clothes, yes, but new challenges are introduced. Having a butt means switching to a whole different cut of jeans. If you don’t, you’ll blow out the crotch.
Building up bigger shoulder muscles will bring you up a shirt size, but that bigger shirt will be enormous around your still-slim waist.
So now that you’ve bulked up and you need to buy new clothes anyway, let’s see if we can help you do it right.
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How I Overcame My Skinny Body-Image Issues & How You Can Too
We’ve got a new guest post for you guys. This one from a naturally skinny science communicator who reads a lot. You might think some of his points are controversial, and we’d love to hear what you think. We think his perspective on dealing with body image issues as a skinny guy is incredibly thought provoking in the best way. Without further ado, Will Chou:
Recently, I met with some old friends for a reunion lunch. As we walked out of the restaurant, the conversation turned to what I looked like when I was young. Two of the guys mentioned that I was not just skinny: I was bony and scrawny. One of them even emphasized it with his tone like it was a huge deal.
They weren’t being mean; they were just giving me some constructive honesty. Having said that, I was still very surprised because I didn’t think I was that weak. But it turns out, that’s how they viewed me.
For 80% of my life, I have found myself in frequent situations where I was left out. I had focused on school and struggled with any weight training programs, so I was as skinny as they get.
The worst parts of my day was lunch. My school had a huge, noisy cafeteria with hundreds of people in it. And as you got to higher grade levels, you got to sit in more exclusive areas. The seniors had their own VIP area with its own curtain. But when I was a senior, I still sat alone in the freshmen section.
Sitting there alone for half an hour while everyone around you chatted away creates a constant reminder of isolation. I felt horrible because every few seconds, I was reminded that I was left out. You can’t help but wonder why. Was it because I was Asian? Socially unskilled? Skinny?
If you have ever felt insecure or excluded, you are not alone. Body image is a constant problem in modern society.
But my story doesn’t end there. Your past doesn’t have to destroy your future. Nowadays, I am healthier physically and mentally than I have ever been. You can become secure with yourself no matter where you are in your progression. You can and should change your self-esteem so that you stay resilient no matter how you look. You can and must change your perceptions about the world so that you develop good mental health for your own success in life.
I’m going to share with you some cool science-backed advice on how to have badass self-esteem. First, let’s tackle a big myth about “looks being superficial”…
I Know Everything About Building Muscle—I Just Haven’t Done It Yet
Couple quick questions.
Are you satisfied with how much muscle you’ve built?
If not… do you know what to do? I mean the basics: Eat 1g of protein per pound bodyweight, get into a calorie surplus, lift weights, and sleep. That kind of thing. Know them inside and out? Rad.
But if you know the basics and you’re not satisfied with what you’ve built so far, what’s going on?
How is it possible to not be where you want to be when you know everything?
I’m not asking these questions to be mean, or a downer. I’m asking because I really want to see you reach your potential.
I’m asking because I want to see if I can wake you up. Is it possible that there’s a gap between intellectual knowing something and actually doing it?
The Skinny Guy’s Guide to Natural Testosterone Production
This is a guest post written by Dr. Robin Bhavsar, a physician with a specialization in urology (the field of medicine concerned with testosterone). He works at St. Joseph Health. You can see his credentials here.
After bulking up with our Bony to Beastly Program, he wrote a guide in our coaching community that became immensely popular with our members. He also answered many of their questions, including ones like:
- Does being skinny mean I have low testosterone?
- Am I skinny-fat because I have low testosterone?
- How can I increase my natural testosterone production?
In this article, Dr. Bhavsar will explain everything a skinny guy should know about their own natural testosterone production.
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A Conversation On Aesthetics and Fitness
In this article we’re going to do something a little bit different. The idea came from one of our members. He started off by saying something fairly controversial. Then, as other members prodded him, instead of backing away from it, he doubled down. And I think his arguments are pretty compelling.
First, let’s set the stage. In our articles about attractiveness, we make the argument that attractiveness is visible health. Being very attractive just takes that one step further. Instead of looking healthy, you’d have to look healthy in a way that truly stands out—you’d have to be conspicuously healthy.
For an overweight person, the best way to build a more attractive physique is to become visibly healthier by losing fat. For us skinny guys, the best way to become more attractive is usually to build muscle. There are lots of objective goals you could set: bringing your BMI to 23 with abs, becoming 50% heavier than your date/girlfriend/fiancée/wife, or building your biceps up to the size of your neck, to name a few.
At first, progress can be very quick. If you’ve read our newbie gains article, then you understand exactly how quick. The interesting thing is that the 80–20 principle applies here. What I mean is that with a small amount of time investment—just a couple months—a skinny guy can usually get to the point where he looks healthy and fit. He’ll look attractive.
Not alarmingly attractive, but attractive.
At that point, progress will slow, and it can take a lot more time and effort to get to that next, very attractive level. After all, looking healthy is one thing, but looking so healthy that people go, “Wow, that dude looks healthy!” is a whole other thing.
But physical attractiveness isn’t the only way you can boost your attractiveness. It’s not even the only physical way that you can boost your attractiveness.
That’s where Rick J comes in.
The Male Body Types: Ectomorph, Endomorph, Mesomorph
In bodybuilding and fitness communities, people commonly use the terms endomorph, mesomorph, and ectomorph when talking about male body types. Endomorphs are purportedly stockier and chubbier, mesomorphs are said to be broader and more muscular, and ectomorphs are supposedly thinner and leaner.
Or that’s what people say, anyway. Men do have varying heights and bone structures, and have different propensities for being overweight or underweight, but do these traits really combine together to form three distinct body types? Is it correct to call a naturally skinny guy an ectomorph?
And even if we do use these slang terms to sort people into different body types, do the different body types benefit from different diets and workouts? For example, is there such a thing as an ectomorph workout or an ectomorph bulking diet? Or do all body types benefit from the same workouts, diets, and lifestyles?
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How to Gain Weight If You’re Skinny
Sometimes you’ll find an article about how to gain weight that doesn’t quite make sense. It’s not that it’s wrong, it’s just that it’s clearly written by someone who isn’t skinny and who’s never struggled to gain weight. They just don’t get how tough it is for us skinny guys to gain weight.
It’s like an obese person taking weight-loss advice from someone who’s naturally skinny. The skinny guy would confidently say, “Well, yeah, just stop eating. It’s easy. I do it all the time.”
It took me years to realize how much fitness information is really weight-loss information in disguise. It took me even longer to figure out how to convert all of it into information that skinny guys can use. And longer still to break it down into five simple concepts.
This article is written by a skinny guy who has spent the past eight years helping other skinny guys bulk up. If you put this information into action, it will help you gain weight, just like it did for the thousands of members in our bulking program.
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The Social Workout: A Skinny Guy’s Guide to Confidence
A few weeks ago we got an email from a Beastly member, Nick, saying that he had referenced our Ectomorph Aesthetics article on his site. He thought that it perfectly described the physique that women find the most attractive. That got me curious about what his site was all about, so I checked it out.
It turns out that Nick has started up a business teaching guys how to improve their confidence so that they can meet women in an honest, authentic way. This confidence extends to success in business and with friends.
His approach hit home with me.
As a skinny guy, building muscle was so important to me because I thought my skinniness would prevent me from attracting the amazing woman who I wanted to raise a family with, or that it would prevent me from defending her. My confidence suffered as a result, and I approached muscle-building with a sense of desperation.
By the time I met the woman of my dreams, I had gained over fifty pounds of muscle. We spent our first date drinking beer, chatting, and doing handstands in the park.
A couple of days ago my friend asked her what she first noticed about me. I was surprised by her answer. It wasn’t my long hair or tattoos; it was how strong I looked. She even told her roommate about it after our date.
As someone who runs a fitness website for skinny dudes, I wish I could tell you that she fell in love with me because of that strength. It sure made a strong first impression, but I think she fell in love with me because of something else.
Being a strong guy has value. So does being a confident guy. But being someone who can turn a weakness into a strength is the real ticket.
I think it’s amazing how Nick now makes his living teaching other guys how to do the thing he was known for being awful at. He turned his greatest weakness into his greatest strength.
This article might help you do the same thing, and if you’re a single guy looking for love, this could even be the article that changes your life.
How to Know If You’re an Ectomorph
Most of us ectomorphs describe ourselves as being naturally skinny and we tend to have a hard time gaining weight. More specifically, though, ectomorphs are usually defined by having narrower shoulders, lankier longer limbs, thinner bones, and a lower body-fat percentage. Being an ectomorph is also associated with having a higher metabolism and a smaller stomach.
If you’re curious about whether you’re an ectomorph or not, there are a few simple tests that you can do. All you need to do is measure the width of your frame, the thickness of your wrists, and the length of your muscle bellies. You can do it at home in just a couple of minutes.
We’ll also cover how the various ectomorph traits affect our ability to build muscle, what our genetic muscular potential is, and how we should approach bulking up.
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