Workout Tips [FTM]

[Hayden]

Do any of you guys have any workout tips for helping your body look more masculine? I just recently started working out more, and I'd like to know what I can do to reduce my chest size and waist size, and increase my shoulders and back. Thanks in advance. 

[SandraG]

As someone born male that was always on the lean side, I found that the best ways to appear "manly" tended to involve the shoulder and neck muscles. I've always found yard work to be the most masculinizing work for my physique, so a lot of varied pick-and carry from different angles to build the shoulders and neck.

 

I've never been a gym rat, and always hated going there, so I can't tell you specific exercises in a formal workout arena to suggest, but I got the most "manly" comments when I've been doing this type of work.

[JJ]

The best and easiest thing Ive found is a resistance tube. They started out for old people but now many professional body builders use them as well. Especially when they travel.

They come in different strengths and I worked up to ultra. My current is 100lbs resistance but you definitely don't want to start with that.

You can target arms or abs or shoulders or a combination. You can work on legs too but with cross country hiking that was something I wanted to avoid.

 

Another thing I did and still do is wear arm weights when I hike and work out. It is VERY important to work up to higher weights slowly. I wear 2 sets on each arm that total 5 lbs per arm. It means every time I move my arms at all I'm working out. But start low and go slow.

 

Nothing is going to reduce chest size. Except fat redistribution on T. And that is not complete. But as your shoulders and arms muscle up it minimizes the chest. Truth is unless you are very large it isn't as big a gender marker as we tend to make it. It in our minds because it is a symbol of female past and what is wrong with our bodies but nobody looks at a guy's chest unless some other clues are off. Chest to hip ratio is much more of a marker so if we overbind we not only damage our health-Binding CANNOT be done safely and will eventually do damage. The goal is to minimize it for as long as possible.- we actually get misgendered more rather than less because we profile more feminine. Lots of women are flat chested and lots of men have moobs and aren't misgendered because the profile ratio and other clues are right.

 

[DrumbeatAlex]

Hey Hayden,

 

I would definitely advocate for pull-ups as a good exercise for improving you back strength and size. I'm pretty sure the width of your grip changes the emphasis and difficulty of the pull-up so that might be something to look into (I think a wider grip might focus on your lats more?). If pull-ups are too tricky atm you can do negative pull-ups (jumping to the top position and lowering yourself down slowly) or get a resistance band which will make it easier.

I've found back exercises like pull-ups also help improve posture for a little bit after exercising which could make seem more confident (and thus potentially more masculine). Plus doing pull-ups makes you feel like a boss! ;D

 

For shoulders there are a number of isolation exercise you can do (raising weights in different ways to target the shoulders- try googling front shoulder raises, side shoulder raises and rear delt flyes), but your shoulders will also probably get some work if you're doing compound exercises (eg. bench press works the front of your shoulders a bit). Just make sure you're exercising each part of your shoulder/deltoid (front, middle and back) at some point.

 

Those are just my two cents, I'm not a PT or anything. XD

 

-Alex