The road to a V-taper consists of three steps:

Step 1: Lose body fat

Trillions of pages have been written on the subject of fat loss. Yet the process is fairly simple for most healthy individuals – consume fewer calories than you burn.

But the actual problem is not a lack of information. It’s the environment.

Modern existence facilitates lard accumulation through three avenues:

Availability. Fattening food (e.g., fast carbohydrates) is everywhere. It’s also cheap and delicious.

Dopamine. The pandemic put us in an unpleasant lockdown, but the truth is that contemporary human existence lacked flavor and adventure beforehand too.

The average human cycle consists of perpetual slaving to the economic furnace and a multitude of sterile simulations designed to elevate your adrenaline in a controlled manner, numb you, and keep you docile. (If you like similar hate, check out A Hater’s Synthesis 2).   

The dopamine that you get from bad food is one of those numbing factors too.

Few things feel as good as watching a new episode of your favorite TV show while filling yourself with popcorn and chocolate.

Lack of movement. Most people are extremely sedentary and spent the vast majority of their time in front of a computer. You can say that we’ve “evolved” to this stage by being adaptive and smart, but even if one was to accept this ludicrous notion as true, our inherent biology will never agree – our bodies have to do something throughout the day.

The paragraphs above describe why it’s so hard to lose fat – the habitat that you reside in is strongly against it.

We hope that a new eating method will finally help us hack nutrition and gives us a pathway to a slim figure while consuming whatever we want. For better or worse, there are no hacks.

The most simple and proven way to lose fat consists of the following measures:

1. Reduce the bad foods that you eat

Eating clean 100% of the time is a lost cause in most cases. If you can do it, more power to you. But the environment and the cravings for processed food that we’ve been nurtured with decrease most people’s chances of succeeding to practically zero.

Therefore, in most cases, it’s better to practice predicted failure.

Instead of pretending that you’ll never break your plan, you plan when and how much to break it.

If you limit the junk to 10-15% of your total food consumption, you would be eating healthier than the vast majority of the population.

2. Do cardio

Contrary to popular belief, cardio isn’t your enemy. Don’t listen to the 5×5 squat fanatics who sacrifice everything in the name of the Squat Lord. A few cardio sessions after your muscle-building routines will not kill your gains.

3. Drop the calories

Even if you eat the best foods on earth, you will still gain fat or fail to lose any, if you don’t reduce your overall caloric intake.

In theory, the best way to accomplish that is to count calories.

Calorie counting may be useful in the beginning to find out where you stand in terms of caloric intake, but doing it forever is just not realistic.

A simpler system to accomplish a similar effect would be:

• Reduce bad foods
• Replace high caloric foods with others containing fewer calories
• Skip a meal
• Decrease meal size by 10%-40%

Why should a man lose weight to get a V-taper?

A V-taper combines a slim waist and a wide back. You don’t need shredded abs to get a V-taper, but you can’t allow yourself to have a massive spare tire around your stomach either.

For that very reason, many permabulkers acquire a square taper – a square-shaped body the result of 1:1 waist to shoulder ratio.

In some severe cases, permabulkers end up with a reverse V-taper a.k.a. a pyramid – a highly unaesthetic case when your waist is ever so slightly wider than your shoulders.

FAQ: How many calories should I consume?

It’s hard to answer this question with certainty. Counting calories is always an estimation.

But in general, the Lyle McDonald starting formula for losing weight works fairly well.

The formula is: 10-12 cal/lb (read more)

If you weigh 190lbs, this amounts to 1900-2280 calories.

Ultimately, however, you will have to experiment and see if it works for you. Eventually, you may have to cut the calories even further.

Step 2: Build up your lats and teres major

The “V” in V-taper comes from the latissimus dorsi and the teres major – a small muscle under the rear deltoid known as the lat little helper.

The go-to exercises for lat construction are pull-ups, chin-ups, and lat pulldowns – all done with a narrow or close grip.

Surprisingly to some, the lats work harder when you’re pulling with a close grip because:

1. The stretch on the muscle is greater.
2. The range of motion is longer.
3. The angle of pull makes it easier for the lat to contribute to the lift.

However, the wide-grip version is still beneficial as it increases the stress on the teres major which also contributes to back width.

A mixture of both grips will optimize the plan.

FAQ: Should I do chin-ups or pull-ups? Both are fine, but many people find it easier to activate their lats during chin-ups.

Back Width Program (Lats and Teres Major Focus)

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3
Chin-ups – 5xF*	Pull-ups – 5xF	Chin-ups – 5xF
Wide grip lat pulldowns – 3×8-12	Wide grip lat pulldowns – 3×8-12	Wide grip lat pulldowns – 3×8-12

 5xF* stands for five sets to failure without form breakdown

The second movement is a wide grip pulldown instead of a wide grip pull-up because most people would have a hard time accumulating a decent volume of wide grip pull-ups after five sets of close grip work.

The lat pulldown makes it possible to reduce the weight to whatever number’s necessary to get more muscle-building reps in.

But if you have the strength and endurance, you can replace the lat pulldown with wide grip pull-ups.

If you don’t have access to a lat pulldown machine, consider the following alternatives:

1. Lat pulldowns with resistance bands
2. Wide grip jackknife pull-ups
3. Wide grip bodyweight rows

Step 3: Building the shoulders

The shoulders are a small muscle group, but they have a tremendous impact on one’s width due to their placement. For complete effect, all three heads (anterior, lateral and posterior) have to be hit.

The good news is that the front and rear deltoids rarely need direct work – pressing and pulling exercises take care of them.

The side deltoid may require a little extra attention even though movements like the overhead press activate it.

The most straightforward exercise to hit the mid-delt are lateral raises with a dumbbell, a cable, or a resistance band.

To keep the tension on the side delts, consider the following pointers:

• Keep the pinky finger higher than your thumb at the top position. This small adjustment greatly increases the involvement of the mid-delt. If you cannot keep the pinky higher than the thumb, the weight is too much, and the body is trying to get help from the anterior deltoid.
• Pause at the top of the movement for a second.

Another fine lateral deltoid exercise is the Scott Press with dumbbells – a modified partial overhead press designed to increase the stress on the side and posterior deltoids.

Example Programs Combining It All Together

Option 1: Calisthenics Focus

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3
Chin-ups – 5xF	Pull-ups – 5xF	Chin-ups – 5xF
Dips – 5xF	Decline push-ups – 5xF	Dips – 5xF
Wide grip bodyweight rows – 3×8-12	Wide grip jackknife pull-ups– 3×8-12	Wide grip bodyweight rows – 3×8-12
Side Laterals – 4×8-12	Side Laterals – 4×8-12	Side Laterals – 4×8-12

 Option 2: Weights + Calisthenics

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3
Chin-ups – 5xF	Pull-ups – 5xF	Chin-ups – 5xF
Incline/Flat Bench Press – 3×6-12	Overhead press – 3×6-12	Incline/Flat Bench Press – 3×6-12
Wide grip lat pulldowns – 3×8-12	Wide grip jackknife pull-ups– 3×8-12	Wide grip lat pulldowns – 3×8-12
Side Laterals – 4×8-12	Side Laterals – 2×8-12	Side Laterals – 4×8-12

 Option 3: Integrated Leg Training

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3
Chin-ups – 5xF	High Bar Squats – 2×5, 2×8-12	Romanian Deadlifts – 3×6-8
Dips – 5xF	Pull-ups – 5xF	Dips – 5xF
Wide grip bodyweight rows – 3×8-12	Decline push-ups – 5xF	Leg Curls – 3×8-10
Side Laterals – 4×8-12	Wide grip jackknife pull-ups– 3×8-12	Chin-ups – 3xF
	Side Laterals – 4×8-12	Wide grip bodyweight rows – 2×8-12
		Side Laterals – 4×8-12

Option 4: Minimalist

This is a routine for people who don’t like doing many exercises and don’t have access to an equipped gym.

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3
Chin-ups – 5xF	Wide Grip Pull-ups – 3xF	Chin-ups – 5xF
Decline Push-ups – 5xF	Dips – 5xF	Decline Push-ups – 5xF
Side Laterals – 4×8-12	Side Laterals – 4×8-12	Side Laterals – 4×8-12

If you don’t have dumbbells or resistance bands at home for the lateral raises, you can use water bottles with a handle. After all, you don’t need a lot of weight for the exercise.

Why Bodyweight Training Could Give You a V-Taper the Fastest

The two main conditions to get a V-taper are to lose fat if you’re fat and to get your back and shoulders as wide as possible. Therefore, all exercises that push you in that direction should do the trick.

However, calisthenics/bodyweight training comes with unique features that make it a highly suitable path for naturals trying to get a V-taper.

The benefits of bodyweight training are:

• Positive reinforcement when leaning out

When you lose body fat, bodyweight exercises become easier, and your repetitions per set go up. The improvement has a positive effect on your mental state and validates your training as effective on a conscious and subconscious level.

Weight lifting operates on a different principle – the lighter you are, the weaker you become. It’s easier to move heavy barbells when you’re heavy yourself.

Many lifters obsessed with personal records get depressed during the leaning out phase because their barbell lifts go down. To compensate, they slow or halt the process and remain fatter than needed to protect their precious strength.

• Bodyweight training is popular and fun

The calisthenics communities are strong and trending. The social status of bodyweight training in combination with its accessibility provide a great deal of motivation to become a “bodyweight beast.”