Wouldn't it be cool if you could shift your man boobs into your legs?
So you've got a perfectly lean, manly chest and slightly fatter legs.
That'd be cool, right?
But heck, it still sucks to have fat legs, so I've got something better for you today.
What if you could turn the fat in your man boobs, into MUSCLE in your legs?
How about that?
Well, right here in this article I'm going to tell you how to do just that.
See, I've been getting lazy.
I haven't been training my legs much lately.
It's amazing what you can get away with AFTER you've lost your man boobs.
MAINTAINING a great body is so much easier than BUILDING a great body.
I'm naturally a lazy guy, so I'm always experimenting with how little exercise I can do to maintain a body I'm happy with.
One exercise that I've always HATED is squats–both weighted squats and bodyweight squats.
It's just a tough-as-hell exercise, and I've always dreaded doing it.
So I tried dropping squats from my workout routine for a few months.
Not surprisingly, my thighs shrank in size.
And here's the big message for today's email:
I noticed my body fat levels go up in tandem with the shrinking of my thighs – with both my belly and man boobs making a small come-back.
So basically, when I lose muscle in my thighs, I gain fat on my belly and man boobs.
I've noticed for a while that the more muscle I have on my frame, the lower my body fat count.
One of the easiest ways to lose a whole bunch of fat, is to just grow as much muscle as possible.
And the best place to start, is to just grow muscle in your LEGS.
Why just the legs?
Because by far the biggest storehouse of muscle in your body is in your legs.
The legs are also the EASIEST part of the body to grow muscle on.
I've always had a hard time growing muscle everywhere but in my legs.
I can easily grow my legs to be thick like tree-trunks without taking any steroids, and I've coached dozens of clients to do the same.
Any time I do squats and grow thick-ass legs, my body fat levels go down and my chest and midsection get leaner.
It almost seems as though the fat on my belly and in my chest are CONVERTED into muscle in my legs.
But we know from human physiology, that fat does not get converted into muscle.
But I believe there is something in the human body that science hasn't discovered yet, where the more muscle you have, the less fat your body thinks you should have.
I think it goes beyond the whole thing about muscle being very metabolically active, and burning more calories throughout the day. I reckon there's more to it than the whole calorie burning thing.
Here's how it looks:
Look at the guy's legs in the above gif image. Notice how as the leg muscles get bigger, body fat levels go down all over, including in the chest and belly.
So here's the bottom line in today's post:
If all you do is make your leg muscles bigger, your belly and man boobs will get smaller–just like the guy in the above image.
This has been my experience with my own body and with my clients.
This only works though, if you're eating the right foods, and you don't stuff yourself with a whole bunch of extra carbs and junk when you start training your legs. Otherwise you'll grow muscle and keep the same level of fat.
And there are limitations with this approach too, if you're a huge guy with a huge belly and huge man boobs, getting your leg muscles as big as is genetically possible, may not be enough to give you abs and a completely flat man boob free chest. But it can at least give you a significant reduction in the size of your belly and man boobs.
So once you've grown those thick legs, what do you do next?
Do you keep trying to grow those legs even bigger and bigger?
Well, after a certain point you should STOP focusing so much on further growing your legs, and do something else.
See, you get the biggest level of muscle growth when you FIRST start training. In bodybuilding.
This is referred to in bodybuilding circles as “newbie gains”.
Where as a beginner you will see huge leaps in muscle growth in just a few weeks, as an advanced trainee, you have to train hard for months, and sometimes YEARS, to get even the SLIGHTEST amount of muscle growth.
You'll know when you first hit that big plateau. Your muscles will be big and thick, but no matter how hard you try, it seems nearly impossible to get them any bigger.
At this point you need to remember that you are NOT a professional bodybuilder trying to win a competition in front of professional judges to see who's got the biggest and most ripped legs.
You're just a guy trying to lose his man boobs.
Do keep training your legs by all means.
Keep pushing hard and work on increasing the weight over time (or increasing your reps if you're doing bodyweight training).
Remember that the more advanced you get, your muscle growth may slow down, but studies show that the testosterone boosts you get from your training go UP, so leg training as an advanced trainee, is even MORE helpful in helping you to lose your man boobs.
BUT…
At the same time, keep in mind that though your ability to lift a heavier weight or to do more reps goes up as you become more advanced, your body's ability to recover does NOT go up to the same extent.
This means that the more weight you are ABLE to lift, and the more reps you are able to do, the more EXHAUSTED you become from your workout.
Doing a big-muscle exercise like squats, builds some HUGE inroads into your body's ability to recover.
And you have to think at this stage, when your legs are not growing so much any more, is it worth pushing yourself to the max with squats, trying to grow those legs by that extra 2mm in 6 months? Or is it better to hold back with the squats, and focus on growing muscle ELSEWHERE on your body?
Here's what I do.
Once I reach that advanced stage with my legs, and I'm finding I have to fight tooth & nail to get any more growth in my legs, I start doing PASSIVE rather than ACTIVE progression with my legs.
This is an expression I made up, I've not heard anyone use it before.
Active progression is where you keep adding more weight to the bar (or do more reps) every workout, every week, or every month no matter what. You may hit plateaus where you physically CAN'T add any more weight, but you're fighting tooth & nail, training really hard and doing all you can to increase your lifts.
Passive progression is where you keep lifting the same weight, and only add more weight to the bar (or do more reps) as you get stronger and the exercise feels easier.
You could look at passive progression as being one step above maintenance, where maintenance is where you lift the same weight, do the same number of reps, and intentionally keep everything the same week after week, month after month, year after year.
With passive progression, it may mean you train for months on end, and stay on the same weight or on the same number of reps.
With maintenance and passive progression, you'll still get testosterone boosts from your training, and it will help you with losing your man boobs.
When you do maintenance or passive progression, it frees up some of your body's limited resources to be able to do active progression on another area of your body that isn't as highly developed.
So once your legs muscles are thickened to that level, you might start working on building the second biggest muscle group in your body – your back. Then maybe you'll build your chest muscles, then your calves. You may decide to get faster in your HIIT sprints, which is another great way to boost testosterone and get rid of man boobs.
So build your leg muscles to that advanced stage, then switch to PASSIVE progression for your legs, or even maintenance, and then focus on active progression on your back. Once your back is maxed out, switch your back to maintenance or passive progression, and focus on active progression on your chest, and so on.
And here's how you do this under the whole-body weight training routine I show you in How To Lose Man Boobs Naturally:
As a beginner, you can do active progression on all of your exercises – on your legs, back, chest, and shoulder exercises.
After a certain level of muscle growth, you'll find your workouts are becoming more and more exhausting.
At this point, switch to maintenance on everything but your legs.
Making your leg muscles grow should be your #1 priority.
Once you find your legs are quite big, and it's getting exhausting to get them any bigger, switch to passive progression or maintenance on your legs, and start actively progressing your back.
Once your back muscles are maxed out, switch your back to passive progression or maintenance, and switch the next muscle group you want to grow, say your chest, to active progression.
When you switch a body part to active progression, you are basically putting more energy into the exercise for that body part, where you load on more weight, push to do more reps, and do everything you can to progress in that one exercise.
But remember, it all starts with the legs.
So get started on doing some squats and building some thick leg muscles. Watch your belly and man boobs shrink, and let me know how you get on.
Oh, and if you're really into the weight training side of things, pick up a copy of the Chest Sculpting Blueprint, which is my ultimate weight training guide for losing man boobs. There you'll discover advanced tactics and exercises that will help you grow those muscles much faster: