2905: How to Build an Aesthetic Physique | Best Exercises for Chest Back Shoulders and Legs

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1:37Adam Schafer:You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, fellas, we're going to talk about how to sculpt your chest, back, shoulders, and your lower body. You know, the physique you actually want. By the way, we have a brand new workout program, MAPS Upper Lower. It's a four-day bodybuilding split. Four days in the gym, upper, lower, and then a day off, and then upper, lower again. Go to mapsupperlower.com, and if you use the code LAUNCH, you'll get it for 40 % off. This episode is also brought to you by Troscriptions. So Troscriptions is medical-grade supplements, okay?

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3:20Sal Di Stefano:Hit pause. Head on over to mindpumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show.

3:26Adam Schafer:All right, fellas. Today, we're going to talk about how you can sculpt your back, your chest, your shoulders, and your lower body. You know the physique that you actually want, the one that looks great at the beach? We're going to break it down for you. Let's get to it. Let's go. Yeah, let's talk about that.

3:42Sal Di Stefano:Build some bodies. Justin was dying for this conversation. He was like, I can't wait until we get to the studio today. I was just thinking about that. We can talk about building men's bodies. I was about to take my shirt off, and I was like, dude, we should talk about this first.

3:54Adam Schafer:You know, this is actually a good conversation. It's going to be aesthetically focused, okay? That's why Adam's poking at Justin. You're the performance guy. I'm totally aesthetic. But we're going to talk about the aesthetic point of view, right? Like how do you develop these muscles so that they make the biggest impact visually, right? So we know what they do for function and strength, and that's all great. I think that's more important. But nonetheless, most people go to the gym or work out.

4:21Sal Di Stefano:I was going to say, let's be honest, though. What do most people want? They want to look a certain way. Yeah. And even the people that say, I'm in it for health, strength, longevity. Yeah. But they always end that with, and I'd like to look a little better. Or I'd like to lose 15 pounds. So there tends to be an aesthetic goal attached to almost all goals. Almost all. I mean, that's an overgeneralization, but there absolutely are exceptions to the rule. But I'd say a vast majority of everybody that I train. It's always there, regardless. They were motivated because they wanted to change the way they looked.

4:55Sal Di Stefano:100%. And they knew that losing body fat and lifting weights was the path. They just didn't know how to do it.

5:02Adam Schafer:Yeah, and I'm going to just say this, and this goes without saying. I think everybody who's listening understands this by now, but the most aesthetically valuable form of exercise is strength training. So all exercise versus no exercise is good. So all forms of exercise are good. All of them will improve the way you look as you become more fit and healthy. But strength training is quite unique. It's the only form of exercise where I could target parts of my body. I remember in the old documentary, Pumping Iron, where Arnold Schwarzenegger, he's young, He's in his 20s in this, but he's getting interviewed.

5:37Adam Schafer:And he talks about how bodybuilders are like sculptors and how he looks in the mirror. And like a sculptor, he decides where he wants to add more clay and how he wants to shape his body. Strength training allows you to do that. There are exercises specifically for chest and back and shoulders and for the lower body. There are ways to train your body to where you develop muscle in a way that looks more impressive visually than other ways of exercise. And so that's what we're going to kind of focus on is like, okay, what these body parts that we just mentioned, these are the big ones, but what are the best exercises to develop that aesthetic look that give that look that people really seek when they do strength training?

6:20Sal Di Stefano:You know, you reference pumping iron all the time, and I don't really, but that scene in particular is one that I appreciate a lot. And I think that the part of it that I think a lot of people don't see is just the patience required to be that sculptor. we want this immediate result I want to build my shoulder so you want to go in and so you want to just do an exercise or follow one program and see this huge difference and it takes a long time to do that and so I have such an appreciation for someone like Arnold talking about that and talking about sculpting the body because it's an ongoing process and when you look back over months and years of consistently training it's crazy how much you can really do that like you can really completely transform the body and how it looks and and damn near almost anything that you want right like obviously uh you can't train to make yourself taller um but you can't make yourself wider yeah thicker thinner you know more here less there create illusions yeah yeah and so you know that's really really cool that You have the power to do that through nutrition and consistent, proper training and muscle building.

7:43Sal Di Stefano:And so I think it's a really cool thing. But I think a lot of people just don't have the patience for it and the consistency to allow it to develop.

7:51Adam Schafer:It takes time. And I will add this. the things that you have to tackle or contend with when it comes to strength training your body or developing it in a particular way is you don't have unlimited ability to recover and adapt. So, you know, we're going to talk about exercises that really add that visual element, the ones that really give that aesthetic look and what that is all about. But there's a lot of exercises. There's 100 chest exercises. Why don't you just do all of them then? Maybe these ones over here, which are the ones you guys are going to mention, are really good for developing this aesthetic look.

8:29Adam Schafer:Why don't I just do all of them, though? Why don't I just do every single exercise I can think of? And that's because you're limited by your ability to recover and adapt. And so you have to pick the best ones, and you can't do all of them. You can only do the ones that are the best, and you have to recover and adapt. You have to give your body that time and ability to do so. Otherwise, nothing's going to happen.

8:48Sal Di Stefano:Also sticking with the Arnold analogy, since you went that way, of packing on clay, certain exercises pack on the most clay for you to sculpt and work with. Period. And so, yes, there are exercises that are good for chest development. But what happens to a lot of people is they do these small movements or movements that don't pack a lot of clay on. That sure, it works your chest and it works from this angle or it hits this part or this thing and it's different and unique. but part of sculpting and building a physique like this it the first part is actually packing on a lot of that clay in the areas that you want and then the sculpting part is that cutting the body fat and leaning out and then it's showing that generally speaking a bigger muscle looks better

9:31Adam Schafer:than a smaller muscle does and so and that's generally speaking now when you get lots of muscle size you're already jacked then you can play with like little tiny that's right but early

9:40Sal Di Stefano:on build muscle there is a there are exercises that are superior to others when you are trying to body build and sculpt because you want the things that pack on the most clay and the things that pack on the most clay typically are a lot of things that the exercises that we talk a lot about and i i do think this is an important point to hammer home because in the bodybuilding world and the in the instagram world a lot of people follow these these pros and these pros have already packed on so much clay that they do and what is unique on instagram or it goes viral are these unique movements or never seen before you've never seen or a new machine or a you know sideways chest press thing or adding bands and things just mirroring there's these these novel there's these novel exercises or movements or things that they're doing and what people miss is that those people had already packed on a ton of clay from doing the movements that really move the needle and now they're doing these novel things and then you have this and i say this because i was this kid i i was susceptible to this at 20 22 years old looking at the i was always chasing the new creative exercise and the newest thing that was being advertised in the magazine versus sticking to what packed on the most clay and getting strong in those lifts and uh that i

10:56Adam Schafer:think is such an important thing to talk about so let's start with chest so first off let's talk about what makes a chest look aesthetic. So obviously muscle, right? So you need muscle on your chest for it to look aesthetic. So a big, strong chest looks better than a small, weak chest. That being said, there is a way to develop your chest to make it look more impressive when you have your shirt off. And this really points to the upper chest. So you can have two chests that are very well developed, but one chest is much more developed in the upper part in relation to the rest of it. And it gives it a more powerful presence.

11:33Adam Schafer:It makes it look more balanced. Yeah. And it creates a really nice - Bigger and fuller, yeah. Yes, a big, full-looking chest because the upper chest is really developed. So what we want is we want an exercise that is a big bang for your buck exercise, but one that also develops the chest in a very aesthetic way. And for me, that's the incline barbell bench press or incline dumbbell chest press. That's a good compound lift, builds a lot of muscle, but it also develops the chest in a very aesthetic way because it focuses on the upper chest.

12:05Sal Di Stefano:I love this advice because traditionally, the flat bench press is what's been hailed as the best. Not a bad exercise. Yeah. Great exercise. And because of that, so much emphasis has been put on doing flat bench. And many times, I was like this. I'm not sure if you guys were the same way or not, but I neglected incline because it was difficult because I couldn't lift as much. It was heavier. Early years of lifting, I was embarrassed to not be able to put a wheel on the barbell. And so at that time, it took me a long time just to get to there on a flat bench. Last thing I wanted to do was throw quarters on and go do the incline bench.

12:46Sal Di Stefano:So it was something that I neglected for so long, yet that's one of the best ways to build an aesthetic chest. And I remember, I totally remember the year that I made that goal of, okay, I'm going to, no matter how embarrassing it is for me to lift this light weight on my incline, my goal is to try and get my incline bench press up to what my flat bench press was. And it was the most growth and development and the best my chest ever looked was from that. And then I've never looked back. Now it's become the staple is like, I might not flat bench for a really long time, but I never miss an incline bench.

13:18Adam Schafer:And so what this looks like for you is when you're doing your chest workout, start your workout with a compound lift and make most of the focus on the upper chest. In fact, if all you ever focused on was upper chest, if all of your presses and flies and cable exercises were to target the upper chest, you would develop a very aesthetic looking chest. What's wonderful about what I'm saying, by the way, I know we're talking about how it looks, but there's always this side, and this is just because I'm a trainer, a function. And I will say this, it's also more functional. So you don't really have this kind of negative trade-off where well more better aesthetics worse function incline pressing uh in the real world tends to be more functional and healthy for your shoulders as well i was gonna ask you guys um even from an aesthetic perspective besides just uh function for like a decline chest press is there any value really to that i mean i i see very little very little it's a short range of motion um maybe functionality you know but i like dips better yeah for something like that be way more but i mean for chest the focus should incline pressing incline flies and you're done that'll build you up build your upper chest when was the last time any of you did a

14:32Sal Di Stefano:decline i don't i don't i mean in college i'm trying yeah i was probably 20 i always rarely ever did it because i just i always 23 24 years old yeah somewhere around there and you know what drew me to it weird how much weight you could put exactly it was that was the only thing that was appealing to me was that i knew on incline or decline uh bench press i could press more than anything else and that was back when that's what i cared about was doing that after that like the results from it are so minimal and i agree i think that if you want to target the lower chest like that uh ring dips like you love or barbell dips or even the dip flat bench by itself too cover a lot

15:09Adam Schafer:of that yeah no totally but stick to upper chest uh exercises to develop an aesthetic looking chest now we get to back back's interesting because it's we say back right when we say chest we're talking about one muscle talking about the pecs when i say back we're talking about a lot of different muscles yeah you got your lats you got your rhomboids you got your trapezius muscles you have all the terrorism you know major and minor muscles you've got a lot of erector spinae muscles like you've got a lot going on that i don't know why we call it back we should probably call it lats and you know something else basically what i can't see but yeah so now here's the deal aesthetic looking backs have two there's two things uh or two uh components to an aesthetic back there's width so how wide your back looks and this is especially uh important from the front makes your waist look smaller so bodybuilders do something called a front lat spread but even from the front, if you have a wide back, you see that from the back, obviously, but from the front, it gives you this nice V taper.

16:08Adam Schafer:Uh, but then, then you want thickness and depth and you want upper back development. Nothing looks more impressive. And people will debate this all time, uh, all day long. Bodybuilding made wide backs very popular, but I will say this in the real world, you take your shirt off, you're at the beach. It's the thick upper back development that gives you the aesthetic look. It just, it just looks powerful. A wide back without upper back thickness or thickness you know nice lat spread kind of cool does not look as powerful or as impressive as somebody with developed traps and that thickness in the back so that comes from

16:42Sal Di Stefano:rows and deadlifts i i even think that it it does more for the v taper i'll make that argument because we don't live in a two you don't move in a 2d world you're 3d and so when you get thicker and your and your waist is smaller that's a true you're like this from every direction yeah exactly So, I mean, getting a wide back might be good for a V-taper if you were a flat, if we live in a 2D world, but you're not. You're 3D. And so if you want that true V-taper look or hourglass look where you have a small waist and a wide, thick back, I mean, it's deadlifting. And to me, it's deadlifting. It's one of the most controversial things to me to say that, which is so crazy.

17:23Adam Schafer:I know people are weird about it.

17:24Sal Di Stefano:Because the deadlift is a hip hinge movement, and there's so much power that's being driven from the hips to do that. But I have never met anybody who can deadlift good weight, a lot of weight, and does not have an impressive back. Yep. Every heavy deadlifter has that. And you get to a place where if you're deadlifting over 400 pounds as a man, and you will have a good-looking back.

17:51Adam Schafer:Now, I'll say this too, because obviously bodybuilders are at the peak of aesthetic muscle building. And I've seen bodybuilders with a lot of bodybuilders, especially at the high level, have really wide backs. But oftentimes you see the thickness that's missing. I've seen powerlifters transfer to bodybuilding and they have to work on back width all the time, right? Because powerlifters do a lot of depth. They say have thick backs. But when they're just standing there, when they're lean, they look impressive. Thickness makes your back look aesthetic in the real world.

18:24Sal Di Stefano:It also, Sal, so pursuing the heavy deadlift translates to all the wide back exercises so well, too. I never could lat pull down or pull up more weight than when I got really strong with a deadlift. So that's the other part, too, that the CNS piece, the just overall power and strength you get from building a big deadlift. not only will build the stick back, but then it will also carry over into all the traditional bodybuilder back exercises that everybody talks about that are so clutch for you. I mean, if you have, try getting really, really heavy barbell rows and not be able to deadlift very much.

19:05Sal Di Stefano:You know what your limiting factor would be? It would be that weak-ass low back. You will only build a row so much if you don't have a strong deadlift. Now, if you have a really strong deadlift, that guy can now hold on to a lot more weight in row. It wasn't until I could deadlift over 400 pounds before I could even row over 275 pounds because I couldn't hold that and row it for multiple reps until I got that strong where I could hold 400 or 500 pounds. And so the carryover, not only what you get aesthetically from building a strong deadlift, but then the carryover to the other lifts are incredible too.

19:39Sal Di Stefano:And so I will die on that hill that the best way to build an aesthetic back is through the deadlift first.

19:47Adam Schafer:I would say your top three exercises, deadlift, your barbell rows and your pull-ups. And you've got all the bases covered, but the deadlift is going to give you, you get stronger, the deadlift, you'll have a nice looking back for sure. Now let's get to shoulders. Shoulders are interesting, right? It's this pretty, it's like this three-dimensional muscle. It's got lots of different function. The shoulder joint, very versatile, very versatile, complex standing shoulder press or standing overhead press will build big shoulders, but you need to do rear flies. Yeah. Rear flies for that rear delt. When we're talking aesthetics, okay, yes, big shoulders are important, but if you don't have well-developed rear deltoid muscles, which you're really only going to get through something like a rear fly, you're going to have a forward sloping shoulder look.

20:32So you'll, you've got the muscle, but it just doesn't look as aesthetic.

20:36Adam Schafer:When you build that rear delt, it gives you the roundness. Everybody thinks it's, it's laterals. Everybody It's rear flies that gives you that cap to your shoulder. So you do your overhead presses and your rear flies. That's going to give you the aesthetic look.

20:51Sal Di Stefano:There's two big reasons why this is a missing component for a lot of people. One, just pure the lack of it, the lack of focus. So there's a large portion of people that just neglect to focus on the rear delts. And then there's a good portion of the people that actually do focus on the rear delts, but do it improperly. It's like a road. When I think of a lot of the muscles that I had to try to sculpt and build for bodybuilding, the form and technique to developing the rear delts is one of the more technical ones. You're right. Because it's hard to not allow the back to overtake the movement. It's a very small range of motion.