One of the best ways to track your progress when gaining muscle or losing fat is to take regular pictures of yourself.
I can’t tell you what a wake-up call it is when you see your picture and realize you aren’t big, you aren’t cut — you’re just fat.
But I used to always look at my pictures and scratch my head. When I look at myself in the mirror, I like what I see. But in my pictures, there’s always something missing. And I just couldn’t figure out what that missing something was.
Focusing on my body’s measurements, rather than my weight, revealed what I was missing.
Finding Your Weak Points
I am a big fan of symmetry and proportions when body building. Steve Reeves, one of the old time “physical culture” body builders from the 1950s, had one of the most proportional, aesthetic physiques ever, in my mind. He attained this by using precise measurements to reach his goals.
Basically, instead of focusing on your body weight like so many weight lifters do, you focus on how proportioned your muscles are to each other.
I bought a tape measurer for $1.00 and measured my parts. I found that my arms were severely out of proportion with the rest of my body. According to the “ideal” measurements, my arms were way, way too small!
After discovering this, I looked at my pictures. Sure enough, yep, that was one of those “weird” points. My arms indeed look too small comparatively to the rest of my body. But in the mirror, my mind always told me, “Hey, they’re looking good!”
Right now, my focus is on building up my arms. I am eating a little more than 4,000 calories a day, primarily all coming from eggs, cream, and beef. I do one big “carb-up” meal every four or five days, to see if I get better results than a full-day carb-up every week. (My body really does not react well to huge carb intakes.)
I have not weighed myself in months. All I do is measure my body once every week to make sure I am on track to create a proportional
physique.
The “Ideal” Proportions
Here are the guidelines I follow. These are the guidelines proposed by Steve Reeves.
The biggest focus for me right now: calves, neck, and arms should all be the same size.
Here are Steve Reeves’ exact “ideal proportions”:
Muscle to bone ratios:
Arm size= 252% of wrist size
Calf size= 192% of ankle size
Neck Size= 79% of head size
Chest Size= 148% of pelvis size
Waist size= 86% of pelvis size
Thigh size= 175% of knee size
Try Measuring Yourself
If you have had the same experience as me — you look at pictures of yourself and scratch your head, saying, “I know something is off, but what is it?” — then check your measurements. They’ll reveal a lot to you.
