There's a myth that aesthetics comes from emphasizing certain muscles, creating the illusion of broader shoulders and a narrower waist. The idea is that by being more specific with your training, you can create the illusion of being stronger, leaner, and more masculine than you really are.

This almost always backfires. Not only do people see through the illusion, but they can see that you're trying to create the illusion. It comes across like a vain person trying to play a trick.

I've surveyed thousands of men and women, having them review photos and illustrations. We've consulted with celebrities to help them improve their appearance, and with top athletes to help them improve their performance.

• Having a higher shoulder-to-waist ratio is consistently rated as being more attractive by both men and women, but that doesn't mean your shoulders are disproportionately important.
• Studies show the same results when the shoulders are factored out, using the chest-to-waist ratio instead. This suggests that every other part of your torso is just as important.
• The effect is even stronger when you forget about proportions and look directly at strength, measuring how strong people are at random upper-body exercises like biceps curls, chest presses, and rows.

No matter how you measure it, genuine strength is rated as most attractive. Not on any particular exercise or in any particular rep range, but overall.

We can go deeper:

• Frame health: Building thicker, denser bones sends a signal to your muscles, telling them, "We've got this! You can grow!"
• Radiant skin: Your skin glows with a healthy vibrance when you build a dense web of capillaries that deliver nutrient-rich blood throughout your body. It gains a youthful elasticity with good exercise, a healthy diet, and proper skin hydration.
• Posture: Building a strong, fit, and mobile physique helps you sit and stand with a more athletic posture, giving off the impression that you have more energy (because you have more energy).
• Leanness: The more muscle growth you stimulate, the more calories get directed towards muscle, and the fewer are left to be stored as fat. More importantly, you'll burn more visceral fat, giving you a leaner waist with healthier organs.

However, there are four major caveats.

1. Upper body strength matters more. Our aesthetic wiring is deep in our primeval brains, harkening back to when men ran through savannahs, wrestling and raiding, carrying their prizes home on their backs.
2. Barbarian strength. The chest, shoulders, and arms signal the sort of strength that was historically the most useful. That sort of strength is still the most useful now. So, this program emphasizes the bench press, chest, shoulders, biceps, triceps, and forearms.
3. Overall fitness is still important. The idea of maximizing leg hypertrophy is a recent bodybuilding thing, and we don't need to take it that far. However, your most handsome ancestor carried his strong upper body around on athletic legs, fuelled by a powerful cardiovascular system. A low-volume, strength-oriented approach to leg training is perfect for that, and it pairs great with cardio.
4. You don't need to be perfectly balanced. Athletes are known for having especially cool physiques, and their physiques are notoriously specialized. Swimmers are all shoulders. Gymnasts are all lats, abs, and biceps. Powerlifters have impressive chests, traps, and butts. You can build the physique you want. We're here to help.

This program includes cardio. I know some of you guys are already in great shape. You're already doing awesome. You can keep doing the cardio you already love, keep playing the sports you already play.

• Beginner Cardio: If you aren't already doing cardio, we'll ease you into it slowly and easily. We'll help you fit it into your lifestyle, no matter how busy you are.
• Intermediate/Advanced Cardio: We'll teach you how to do a fully optimized cardio routine, helping you build amazing health and fitness, with maximum longevity.

These are just options. None of it is mandatory.

We'll show you how to eat a balanced diet. You can eat low-carb, low-fat, or plant-based. It's okay if you have allergies or IBS, and the program comes with a guide for improving digestion.

Different people prefer and benefit from different ways of eating. But whatever you eat, you need to give your body the nutrients it needs without overdoing it on the things that aren't good for you.

We'll also show you how to get results with your diet. This may sound counterintuitive, but meeting all of the diet guidelines only adds about a year to your lifespan (study). That's great, but it pales in comparison to the decade you gain from a great exercise routine.

I suspect that's because eating healthy food won't necessarily improve your body composition. You need to learn how to use your diet to help you burn fat, build muscle, and strengthen your bones.

Online coaching from us in our private community. We'll take a look at where you're starting, answer all your questions, and find the best path forward for you specifically.

At the end of each 15-week program, we'll evaluate your progress and goals, and give you a plan for the next three months. Here's what those three months might look like. In this case, the goal was to cut down to get a healthy waistline:

As the months go by, your progress will add up, giving you a dramatic and sustainable transformation that looks good, feels good, and adds years to your lifespan.

The goal is to gain at least a decade.

That's what the Silver Era of bodybuilders were able to gain. They lived 10 years longer than the typical men of their era (study). That makes sense. Those are the same gains we see in modern men who exercise and eat properly (study).

What's interesting is that these same Silver Era bodybuilders tend to look ideal to modern men and women, beating out modern bodybuilders. They have the bodies modern research shows to be coolest and most attractive. They win all of my surveys.

The path to health is the same as the path to aesthetics.