There is only one reason men join the gym — to become more masculine. The great thing about masculinity is that there are no set standards. The Cambridge dictionary defines masculinity as “having characteristics that are traditionally thought to be typical of or suitable for men.”
Masculinity could mean different things to different people. It is a complex concept often associated with strength, assertiveness, and competitiveness but can vary based on cultural and social norms.
You don’t necessarily need 18-inch arms and a handlebar mustache to look masculine. Becoming more masculine can completely change your personality; think Zac Efron in High School Musical to Efron in Baywatch.
Although the internet has made our lives easier in multiple ways, it is also responsible for inducing a negative self-image in many people, especially teenagers. Looking at social media celebrities, their impeccable physiques, and their luxurious lifestyles can make you feel less of a man.
Many men combat this feeling by going overboard. You must remember that there is a fine line between healthy and toxic masculinity. Becoming more masculine can improve your lifestyle, whereas toxic masculinity is bad for you and the people around you.
This article covers tips and techniques to become more masculine and build a chiseled physique (broad shoulders, barrel chest, and burly legs). Following these tips will help build confidence, adding to your persona.
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Feeling intimidated? Please don’t. We won’t ask you to take a military physical fitness test — or get a face tattoo. This article contains actionable advice that will help improve your personality within weeks.
10 Tips To Be More Masculine
Ask a man if he wants to be more masculine, and he’ll answer in the affirmative. Masculinity, however, is hard to achieve. You must master the following traits to be deemed an alpha male:
Improve Your Posture
This will be the first step in becoming more masculine. Minor tweaks can help improve your posture, make you look better, and boost your self-confidence. A good posture will improve your confidence and convey it to people around you.
A bad posture can be the result of poor spinal alignment. If you spend most of your day hunched over your phone or computer screen, you are more prone to a bad posture. Being aware of your posture is the first step toward improving your posture. Pulling your shoulders back and down, sitting upright, stretching, and exercising regularly are proven ways to improve your posture.
Look People In Their Eyes
Avoiding eye contact signifies a lack of confidence. Maintaining eye contact conveys trustworthiness and interest in the conversation. Want to establish a deep connection with your peers? Look them deep into their eyes. Eye contact is essential, but you must do it sparingly. Staring at people for too long can make them uncomfortable.
Calm Down
The ability to stay calm in high-pressure situations separates the men from the boys. Being calm and composed can help you navigate challenging situations with clarity and focus.
Some people confuse emotions like anger or aggression with masculine traits. You’ll be better off learning to manage your emotions healthily and constructively. Developing emotional intelligence and communication skills can help improve your interpersonal skills.
You should meditate daily to deal with stress, anxiety, and anger. Although meditation is a tried and proven practice to improve your attention span and awareness and achieve a mentally clear, emotionally calm, and stable state, it can take some time to master. Join a local meditation class or use guided meditation apps like Calm and Headspace to get better at meditating.
Take Initiative
If you want to be more masculine and come off as an assertive individual, you must stop being reactive and start taking the initiative.
Drop your fear of rejection, gather courage, and ask your crush out on a date. If you don’t ask her out, the guy who reads this article before you surely will.
Besides your love life, you must take the initiative in work and family responsibilities. Masculine folks are self-motivated, driven, and credible. They are proactive, constantly solving problems and working toward their goals.
Respect
Treating people with dignity, fairness, and kindness, regardless of their background or social status, is an uncompromisable masculinity trait. It also helps build healthy personal and professional relationships.
Masculine men not only treat people around them respectfully, but they also act responsibly toward animals and the environment. Being respectful demonstrates a person’s strength and character.
The lack of respect and compassion is at the root of toxic masculinity. Besides a lack of respect, toxic masculinity is based on aggression, dominance, and emotional suppression. Bullying, harassment, and physical violence are all sub-products of a lack of respect.
The absence of respect for your peers can lead to apathy and issues in interpersonal relationships. It can, in turn, cause feelings of loneliness, isolation, and depression, which can then lead to toxic masculinity. It is a vicious cycle you want to avoid.
Work on Your Style
How you carry yourself can dictate how your masculinity is perceived. Your dressing sense and personal hygiene can boost your self-confidence and impact how others perceive you. Although superficial, your personal style contributes to your first impression.
You must be careful while dressing to look masculine. Many people start out trying to look masculine but end up looking like meatheads. Having big muscles is great, but you might be going too far by always sporting skin-hugging clothing.
Pick a timeless style. Dress shirts, trousers, and boots never go out of style. Building a wardrobe from scratch can take time, be harsh on your wallet, and require trial and error.
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Get Sharper Mentally
Building a chiseled physique can make you look more masculine. However, you cannot overlook working on your mental development. Being mentally sharp can help you think critically, solve problems, and make sound decisions. It can also improve your interpersonal relationships by making you more empathetic.
You must invest in your psychological development. It could be through reading books, taking courses, or attending seminars. Choose what works for you and stick with it. It is no secret that a learned individual inspires confidence and respect from others. Improving your mental sharpness can also boost your self-confidence and image.
Challenge Yourself
Magic happens outside your comfort zone. Constantly challenging yourself promotes personal growth and development. Setting challenging goals for yourself and getting after them with everything you’ve got displays determination, perseverance, and a willingness to take risks.
Constantly pushing boundaries helps develop confidence and resilience. How is that, you ask? You’ll run into roadblocks and hurdles when you set big goals. Finding your way around them helps build confidence and self-esteem.
Furthermore, you’ll have to develop new skills and gain new knowledge to accomplish your objectives, which will help sharpen your mind and build a more masculine self-image. Finally, constantly challenging yourself helps build a growth mindset. It involves the belief that you can develop your abilities over time and that your growth potential is unlimited. This is an empowering feeling.
Embrace Responsibility
Taking responsibility demonstrates maturity, accountability, and a willingness to take action. It quickly makes you the leader of the pack. A masculine individual takes responsibility for his actions and their outcomes, demonstrating a sense of control and authority.
Showing leadership traits earn your peers’ trust and can establish you as the alpha male in your group. Furthermore, embracing responsibility helps develop self-discipline and a sense of purpose. It is a part of constantly challenging yourself.
Being responsible for other people strengthens your resolve to achieve your goals and helps develop a sense of duty and service. It makes you feel fulfilled and boosts your self-confidence and image. It also makes you more self-reliant and self-sufficient.
Build Muscle and Strength
Building strength and muscle mass can help develop a masculine appearance. Furthermore, it can improve your mental health by reducing stress, anxiety, and depression, helping increase your overall quality of life and self-esteem. [1][2]
Building muscle mass and strength requires hard work, grit, and discipline. Working on these traits can boost your masculinity. For a successful transformation, you must set goals, design a balanced training and diet regimen, and work toward them with discipline.
A physique transformation program challenges you and requires you to take the initiative and responsibility. It can improve your posture and make you mentally sharper, all of which are masculine traits.
Workout Program For Building A Masculine Physique
Developing strength and muscle mass requires a balanced training program. Since our goal is to build strength and muscle mass, we’ll focus on compound (multi-joint) lifts in the masculine body training program. The workouts will also include isolation exercises to help tone and condition your muscles. Given below is a 12-week workout regimen suitable for lifters of all experience levels.
Day 1: Chest
You’ll train your chest on day one of the masculine physique training program. Your primary goal should be to master exercise fundamentals. Do not chase weights and focus on perfecting your form.
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
| Bench Press | 3 | 8-12 |
| Incline Barbell Bench Press | 3 | 8-12 |
| Decline Dumbbell Bench Press | 3 | 8-12 |
| Pec Deck Fly | 3 | 8-12 |
| Push-Up (weighted) | 3 | 8-12 |
Day 2: Back
The back workout includes a balance of vertical and rowing exercises to help build back width and thickness.
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
| Pull-Up | 3 | 8-12 |
| Lat Pull-Down | 3 | 8-12 |
| Barbell Row | 3 | 8-12 |
| Straight Arm Lat Pulldown | 3 | 8-12 |
| Deadlift | 3 | 8-12 |
Day 3: Shoulders
An effective shoulder training routine focuses on training all three deltoid heads. We’ll also include a trapezius muscle exercise to achieve overall shoulder development.
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
| Dumbbell Shoulder Press | 3 | 8-12 |
| Side Lateral Raise | 3 | 8-12 |
| Dumbbell Front Raise | 3 | 8-12 |
| Cable Rear Delt Fly | 3 | 8-12 |
| Barbell Shrug | 3 | 8-12 |
Day 4 and 7: Rest
Day four and seven of the masculine physique training program are active rest days. Avoid sitting on the couch for the entire day. Engage in a 15-30 minute low-intensity steady state (LISS) cardio session to ensure optimal metabolic levels. You could use cardio equipment like a rowing machine, treadmill, or Stairmaster or go for an outdoor walk or run.
Day 5: Arms
Since you only have one weekly arm training day, you must make the most of it. Bump up your training intensity and volume to build massive guns.
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
| Barbell Biceps Curl | 3 | 8-12 |
| Dumbbell Hammer Curl | 3 | 8-12 |
| Machine Preacher Curl | 3 | 8-12 |
| Triceps Cable Pushdown | 3 | 8-12 |
| Overhead Dumbbell Triceps Extension | 3 | 8-12 |
| Dumbbell Kickback | 3 | 8-12 |
Day 6: Legs
You must leave nothing in the gas tank in your leg workouts. Ensure you follow a full range of motion and focus on contracting your muscle at the top with each rep.
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
| Barbell Squat | 3 | 8-12 |
| Leg Extension | 3 | 8-12 |
| Leg Curl | 3 | 8-12 |
| Romanian Deadlift | 3 | 8-12 |
| Walking Lunge | 3 | 8-12 |
| Standing Calf Raise | 3 | 8-12 |
Masculinity is Not Only For Males
Masculinity is a complex subject. It has traditionally been associated with male biology, social roles, and cultural expectations, but things are changing quickly. Individuals of any gender can embody masculine traits and behaviors.
Assertive, confident, and self-reliant women can be seen as exhibiting masculine traits. On the flip side, nurturing, empathetic, and emotionally expressive males embody feminine traits.
Traditional gender roles and stereotypes limit the expression of masculinity and femininity to certain behaviors and traits. You must, however, challenge these norms and express yourself in the most authentic ways.
Recognizing that masculinity is not limited to biological males can help create a more inclusive and equitable society that values and respects diversity.
Wrapping Up
Working on your masculinity will improve you physically and mentally. Embracing a more inclusive and expansive understanding of masculinity can lead to healthier and more fulfilling interpersonal relationships.
Irrespective of your biological gender, embodying the masculinity traits explained in this article will help with your personal growth and development. Plus, the workout program will help you build strength and add muscle mass to your frame. Ultimately, getting more masculine is about becoming the best version of yourself, and you should leave no stone unturned to achieve this goal.
References
- Zamani Sani SH, Fathirezaie Z, Brand S, Pühse U, Holsboer-Trachsler E, Gerber M, Talepasand S. Physical activity and self-esteem: testing direct and indirect relationships associated with psychological and physical mechanisms. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2016 Oct 12;12:2617-2625. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S116811. PMID: 27789950; PMCID: PMC5068479.
- Gordon BR, McDowell CP, Lyons M, Herring MP. The Effects of Resistance Exercise Training on Anxiety: A Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Sports Med. 2017 Dec;47(12):2521-2532. doi: 10.1007/s40279-017-0769-0. PMID: 28819746.
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