The V-Taper Workout and Diet Plan

Cobra Lats, Broad Shoulders, Lean Waist

by Eric Bach | Today

NEW
Tags: 
 Training

Who doesn't want broad shoulders and sweeping lats that lead down to a
narrow but solid waist? Achieving a V-taper comes down to three key
components:

 A foundation of strength
 Spot-specific hypertrophy for your lats and medial delts
 Adequate leanness

The best way to get there? A specialization program, like the one here. As a
bonus, I'll throw in a nutrition program to fuel your success. But first, let's take
a closer look at these three keys.
Key One: A Foundation Of Strength

No impressive physique is built without an impressive foundation of strength.

Heavy compound lifts, specifically the overhead press, pull-up, and deadlift,
are the cornerstone of V-taper physique training.

These will provide the necessary tension to build dense muscle and activate
the maximum number of muscle fibers to accelerate growth. More importantly,
building impressive top-end strength builds a body that's actually as strong as
it looks.

Key Two: Spot-Specific Hypertrophy Work

This is bodybuilding-style work to accentuate the muscles that really make a

V-taper.

Shoulders

Your anterior delts get plenty of work with overhead and horizontal pressing
movements. While these compound movements are a pillar for building a V-
taper, we'll spice up your training with a bunch of lateral and rear-delt building
variations. This emphasis will help improve your posture, balance out the
muscular development of your lats, and add width at the top of the V.

Lats

Well-developed lats are a must to accentuate a lean waist. While vertical

pulling exercises like pull-ups are essential to building the V-taper, it's
important to remember that the lats aid in internal rotation. If you
overemphasize exercises that internally rotate your humerus, you'll
exacerbate caveman posture, round your shoulders, and minimize the top the
"V" so to speak.
 To balance out your physique, we'll add a steady dose of horizontal pulling
movements, like rows, to retract your shoulder blades. You'll improve posture,
reduce shoulder dysfunction, and visually enhance the V-taper.

Abs

You must be lean to maximize the V-taper. An intelligent plan includes

exercises to target the "anti-movements" and provide a pillar of stability for
performance and injury prevention while adding a little meat on your rectus
abdominus. For additional volume, we'll combine anti-movements, single-limb
training, and flexion-based abdominal training.

Key Three: Adequate Leanness

No physique will stand out if it's hidden beneath a few layers of body fat. Sure,
you can still look athletic or strong if you're carrying some extra weight, but
your "V" won't really have a chance to taper if the girth of your waist is the
same as the girth of your shoulders.

Much of this component comes down to diet, and you'll see what I suggest at
the end here. So don't click off once you've gotten the workout program.
Check out the nutrition recommendations too.

V-Taper Physique Program

The V-taper program is a specialization program consisting of five separate

training days. Take a look:

 Two days focused on vertical push-pull exercises

 Two days focused on horizontal push-pull exercises
 One day focused on legs
This program is best done intermittently as a 6-8 week specialization phase
placed between more balanced programming. Think of this as a specialization
period, not a long-term thing. Your elbows and shoulders will benefit from a
reduction in volume.

Ease up after this and you'll notice increased muscle growth due to super-
compensation in the days and weeks following the V-taper specialization.

Here's exactly how the program will help you build muscle in all the right
places.

Four Ways You'll Trigger Muscle Growth

1. Technical Mastery

Exercise selection and rep schemes are important, but they're meaningless
without careful attention to mastering the execution of each rep. When
building muscle is the goal, you need to maximize tension on each rep and
focus on creating a mind-muscle connection.

In the beginning of the program, decrease the weight you think you'd normally
use, slow down your eccentric (lowering) phase, and focus on squeezing the
target muscle. Once you've locked in technical mastery of an exercise, add
load.

2. Heavier Weight

You'll be using giant sets with heavy weight, moderately-low reps, and auto-
regulated rest periods. Setting up training this way is going to allow you to fit
in more volume due to the heavier weights, and resting just long enough not
to have to drop the weight as the sets progress. This will provide significant
mechanical tension to trigger growth.
3. Mechanical Tension

This is arguably the most crucial factor for building muscle. Tension refers to
the amount of stress placed on a working muscle for a given length of time.
The problem is, most lifters only associate mechanical tension with heavy,
compound lifting. But to maximize growth, we must focus on a variety of
muscular contractions, not just heavy or explosive lifting.

For example, in one workout below, you may increase tension through the use
of partial reps and eccentric pauses. In another, you may use giant sets to
increase tension through heavier weight, along with mid-rep pauses, ROM
manipulation, and partial reps.

You'll notice that almost every exercise has some form of tension
manipulation technique to help you get more out of each lift.

4. The Pump

One of the keys to building big, dense muscle is sending as much nutrient-rich
blood as possible into the muscle you're targeting. The heavy giant sets will
help, but you're going to complement them with some brutal end-of-session
finishers to fill up those muscles with blood to stimulate more repair and
growth.