These 3 Muscles Make You Look Bigger (and more attractive)

The beginning of your fitness journey can be a magical time a time where it can be easy to add 10 15 or even 20 pounds of muscle mass to your frame and as you can imagine this is enough to make a noticeable difference in your physique in fact if you take advantage of these newbie veins you can expect to achieve more muscle growth in your first 12 months then your next four years combined this is due to our bodies being hyper responsive to the newly introduced stimulus during the beginning stages of our training unfortunately this magical period in your training will come to an end results that once took for weeks could now take you four months and building five pounds of muscle in one year as opposed to the 15 pounds of muscle you put on previously is going to be much harder to notice when you're staring in the mirror every day that is of course unless you focus your efforts on the three key muscles that create the illusion of a bigger more well-developed physique adding five pounds of muscle in these areas has the same effect as putting on 10 to 15 pounds across your entire body in terms of visual impact now although you're probably already training these three muscles it's likely they're not being prioritized or trained in a manner that will produce the maximum result in this video I not only want to share the three key muscles that make you look bigger and more jacked but I want to go over the best exercises for building them up as fast as possible without further ado let's jump right in number one neck in traps I'm pairing these two together as most people who have well-developed wraps also tend to have a well-developed neck having big traps is a direct sign of being stronger and more masculine and there's a strong scientific reason for this let's look at steroid users for the rate at which their traps grow is typically much faster than that of any other muscle group by far this is because your traps have very high levels of androgen receptors meaning that larger traps are normally a sign of higher testosterone levels here's an example a former UFC light heavyweight Vitor Belfort notice the visible difference in the peak of his traps and width of his neck big traps not only give you a more masculine appearance from the front but also looks extremely powerful from the back and sides apart from your traps having a small neck is one of those things that is often overlooked until it's viewed in isolation for example here's a picture of me followed by the same picture this time with some neck reduction not only does this make me appear far less masculine but it gives me the appearance of a large head and a small frame not good so if you're struggling to build your neck despite having big traps direct work could help but first let's talk about which exercises are going to hit both muscle groups effectively the traps are divided into the upper middle and lower fibers but we're going to focus mostly on the mid and upper fibers as they provide the biggest visual impact the main function of the upper traps is shoulder elevation or shrugging and the mid traps are responsible for retraction of the scapula pulling your shoulder blades back my go-to exercise to hit both the neck and traps at the same time our deadlifts but chances are you're probably already including this movement in your training that said there's one other exercise that I recommend to anyone struggling to build their neck and traps despite already performing heavy because the main function of the upper traps is shoulder elevation it's no surprise that our primary movement would be a shrug that said research has proven that having your arms in a degree of abduction rather than directly at your sides leads to a greater degree of upper trap activation that's why I recommend a snatch grip barbell shrug where you're leaning slightly forward although the exercise is quite simple to perform there are a few mistakes you must avoid when performing a barbell shrug for starters gripping the bar at shoulder-width as you would on a traditional shrug while standing completely upright is going to limit the amount of upper trap activation another classic mistake is failing to control the weight on the eccentric portion of the lift sure this may allow you to lift a bit more weight but you're far better off using a weight you can handle in order to maximize muscle growth while reducing the risk of injury to ensure you're maximizing your results with this movement make sure you're gripping the bar at a width where it's it's right at the top of the pubic bone when standing upright lean your torso slightly forward and shrug the bar up and inward as if you're trying to touch your shoulders to your ears control the weight on the way down and initiate the rep once your arms are completely straight and the traps are fully lengthen now if you add these in to your training and still see little to no success with your neck growth it's time to try some direct work for now give those a shot and see how it goes number two shoulders my opinion your shoulders are possibly the most important of the three key muscle groups shoulders particularly the mid delts make a massive impact on the size and width of the top of your frame for overall delt development your goal should be to get stronger at the overhead press it trains all three heads of the doubt effectively and is very easy to load another simple but overlooked tip is to increase your training frequency if you're currently only training your delts once per week try including a second session and although the overhead press should be the focal point of your shoulder training it's critical that we target the mid doubts directly as they are most responsible for adding width to your frame when it comes to direct mid delt work most people will perform a few sets of dumbbell lateral raises at the end of their workouts in hopes of building down their shoulders unfortunately the traditional lateral raise alone may not get the job done the issue with the traditional dumbbell lateral raise is that it has a pretty poor resistance profile there's little to no tension at the bottom of the rep and a lot of tension from roughly thirty to ninety degrees of abduction this rough resistance profile means that the muscle is getting targeted mostly in its shortened range and not in its lengthened range which is why I recommend including some Egyptian lateral raises to further stimulate the mid delts the Egyptian lateral raise accounts for one problem that the dumbbell version can't fix the resistance profile because the mid delts are more involved during the end of the range of motion and less in the beginning leaning away allows for better isolation of the mid delts to perform this exercise set the cable pulley at the bottom place the leg of the side your training slightly in front of the other to allow the cable to pass through this mitigates any chance of the cable hitting your body and also leads to a straighter line of force remember what makes this exercise powerful is the ability to lean away so make sure your legs are set close enough to the pulley to allow you to do so and last but not least number three the last the lats also referred to as wings aid in the creation of the esthetic B taper giving the strong illusion of a narrow waist the lats are a massive muscle group running all the way from the lumbar spine inserting into the humerus they essentially wrap your back like a Christmas present the lads have a few functions but the main ones we are going to be concerned with are shoulder extension bringing your arm behind your body and shoulder abduction bringing your elbow in toward your don't get me wrong barbell rows and deadlifts are great overall back builders and in a lot of cases will be enough to build your lats that said if your upper back is well developed but the lats are lagging behind start performing your barbell rows with an underhand grip this will force you to keep your elbows closer to your body making for better lat activation and if you really want to take your lats to the next level start including heavy vertical pulling movements such as weighted pull-ups chin-ups or lap pull downs because these movements target the lats in their length and range you'll be hitting the lat near the insertion point of the humerus further amplifying the V taper so there you have it the three muscle groups that you need to focus on if you want to take your physique to the next level hitting these muscles like I suggested is going to not only make you look bigger and stronger but also more masculine and perhaps even more attractive did you find this video helpful if so click the like button below as it will truly help out the channel also if you're looking for free workouts meal examples form videos and more make sure to follow me on instagram at muscled monsters where I post daily and if you haven't already make sure you subscribe for more 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