Masculinizing Your Physique: Training for a Broader, Stronger Frame
Best chest workouts for trans masculine, FTM, trans man, and non-binary individuals.
For many trans masculine, FTM and non-binary individuals, developing a gender-affirming physique starts with the right trans masc back workout to build a broad upper body. This physique is known by many names: the “V-shape”, “v-taper”, “upside-down triangle” or “Dorito shape.”
Building a broad upper body through a consistent back and shoulder workout is often the #1 gender-affirming fitness goal to minimize the appearance of hips and decrease hip dysphoria.
My hip dysphoria was forever destroyed when my chest measurement (which includes lat muscles) exceeded my hip measurement. The numbers told me themselves, my upper body was now wider than my hips.
In this article, we'll break down the most effective back workout and shoulder exercises to help FTM, trans masculine, and non-binary individuals masculinize their physique with a broader, stronger V-taper frame.
What creates a V-shape physique?
A V-shape physique comes from two muscle groups: wide lats and broad shoulders. First, you need to understand what to target in order to achieve this body shape:
Back, mostly lats
Shoulder width
The lats (short for latissimus dorsi) are broad, flat muscles that cover the width of the middle and lower back. The lats start below the shoulder blades and extend to the spine in the lower back.
Wide lats are even visible from the front.
Building and widening your lats not only gives the “illusion” of a broader upper body, it actually broadens your upper body. It can increase your shirt and jacket size and help you fit better into clothes from the men’s section.
While chest and arms are also important muscles for body masculinization, this article will mainly focus on the lat and shoulder training that make up an effective FTM and trans masculine back and shoulder workout, as these are the primary drivers for overall torso shape.
Check out our chest-building guide for trans masc lifters here.
Note that there are a lot of other back muscles: traps, rhomboids, erector spinae, teres major and minor and infraspinatus. I’m not ignoring those, but this article is about lat width. Many of these other muscles go into back thickness, spine stabilization, and external rotator cuff strength. I will write a separate article on back training overall and a separate article on shoulders.
Best FTM & Trans Masc Back Exercises for Lat Width
Wide Pull Up
Use a wide, overhand grip and pull yourself up until your chin clears the bar, then slowly lower yourself back down. If you can’t perform pull ups, use bands for assistance over the assisted pull up machine. Chin ups are a variation that works well and is easier than pull ups.
Bonus Tip: For more hypertrophy rather than strength/function focused pull ups, shorten your range of motion OR use assistance so you can have more control. Instead of lowering yourself all the way down, focus on squeezing your lats and keeping constant tension on the lats throughout the entire sets. Even if your chin can’t clear the bar, keep going to failure if you can feel the lat activation.
Neutral Grip Lat Pulldown
This pulldown variation involves gripping a neutral bar with hands facing together. It reduces the stress on your shoulder and wrists joints and allows you to more comfortably perform the lat exercise with a greater range of motion and deeper lat contraction.
Single Arm Lat Pulldown
No training program is complete without unilateral exercises to keep muscle imbalance between left and right at bay. Single-arm lat pulldowns allow you to focus on one side of the back at a time with greater range of movement through each rep. Most people feel their lats contract stronger in single arm movements.
Single Arm Machine Row
Keep elbows tucked in as you pull. Stop at the torso, find the lat squeeze and slowly release.
Cable Lat Pullover
Using a cable or straps, this exercise slowly stretches your lats at the top and contracts them fully as you pull your hands to your hips. This is a great warm up to a back day or a lat finisher for a killer pump at the end of a back day.
Best Shoulder Width Exercises to Broaden Your Frame
Side Lateral Raises - Dumbbells, Machine, & Cable
Every variation of the side lateral raise is worth doing. Each has their pros and cons.
While dumbbells offer more accessibility since some folks who don’t have access to a gym have access to dumbbells at home, machines and cables provide constant muscle tension throughout the entire movement.
If you have side lateral raises multiple times within your workout week, or workout session, I’d recommend adding a combination of dumbbells, machines or cables as opposed to doing the same modality twice.
Tip: Keep your shoulders down and away from your ears to keep from shrugging up, as this will make traps compensate instead of shoulders.
Rear Delt Flyes on Machines or Cables
It’s my preferred to do rear delt flyes with cables or machines as it provides constant tension throughout the whole movement. Keep your elbows slightly bent and shoulders down. As you sweep your hands back, don’t retract the shoulder blades. Focus on feeling it in the rear shoulder.
Pronated Grip Dumbbell Reverse Flyes
If you don’t have cables or machines or are bored of them, this is my favorite dumbbell reverse fly variation. Same form as the machine or cable rear delt flyes only here you hinge your hips back and bend forward. Keep you core and glutes activated to stabilize.
To see results, you need to do 10-20 sets of each muscle group per week.
How Building a V-Taper Differs for FTM, Trans Masculine, & Non-Binary Bodies
Anyone, cis or trans - regardless of gender - can follow this V-taper workout advice to build a broader back and shoulders.
However, trans masculine people start out with different bone structure than cis men.
So this means that we might need to have different expectations coming in.
Some trans masc folks might have straight and narrow hips, others may have wider set hips.
It’s important to remember that bodies are diverse!
While some cis guys already have broader shoulders than their hips without having to lift anything, many have narrow shoulders naturally and a more rectangular bone structure.
Cis guys can also have thick thighs, hips, pear shapes, love handles, big butts, and so on.
If you have narrow hips to begin with, it may very well be possible that you build enough muscle up top to have your upper body be broader than your hips.
If you have wide hips to start out with, you may build a more square, rectangular or X-shaped physique.
Even if you’re cursing your ancestors for giving you wide, child-bearing hips, building a broader upper body can still have a powerful effect on alleviating dysphoria and helping you feel more aligned in your body.
When it comes to trans fitness and working toward your goals, remember to practice kindness and patience with yourself.
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