Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How to Be More Physically Attractive to Women (According to Science)

Episode Date: February 3, 2020

One of the main reasons many guys get into working out is to be more attractive to women. And for good reason—it works. Men have known for thousands of years that women generally prefer men who are muscular, lean, and strong to those who are soft, fat, and weak, and modern research has vindicated this fact. This isn’t surprising, of course. Having a fit, healthy, athletic body is a good indicator of many desirable traits, such as discipline, determination, patience, perseverance, and self-respect. So if you’re a guy and looking to improve your chances of finding a partner, getting in better shape should be near the top of the list. Of course, that raises the question: What kind of body do women find most attractive? Let’s get started. --- Mentioned on The Show: Books by Mike Matthews: https://legionathletics.com/products/books/ --- Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.legionathletics.com/signup/

Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I'm doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider picking up one of my bestselling health and fitness books, including Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for Men, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for Women, my flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef, and my 100% practical and hands-on blueprint for personal transformation inside and outside of the gym, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best bodies ever. And you can find them on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes & Noble stores. Again, that's Bigger Leaner Stronger for Men, Thinner Leaner Stronger for Women, The Shredded Chef, and The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Oh, and I should also mention that you can get any of the audiobooks 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which is the perfect way to make those pockets of downtime,

like commuting, meal prepping, and cleaning, more interesting, entertaining, and productive. meal prepping, and cleaning more interesting, entertaining, and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on that offer, and if you want to get one of my audio books for free, go to www.legionathletics.com slash Audible. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics slash A-U-D-I-B-L-E, A-U-D-I-B-L-E and sign up for your account. How can us guys be more physically attractive to women? That's the question I'm going to be answering today. Now, before the obnoxious social justice warriors start accusing me of being a homophobe or a transphobe for doing this, let me say that I don't know of any good research on how women can be more physically attractive to women, like specifically that scenario or men and men, but there is definitely overlap. There are gay women out there who are attracted to other women who have some of the traits and characteristics that we're going to discuss here. And there are gay men who tend to be attracted to other men who have some of the

more feminine traits that I'll talk about in the follow-up discussion, which is research on how women can be more attractive to men. And the flip side of that is true too. There are many gay women who tend to be attracted to the type of women that men also tend to be attracted to. And there are many gay men out there who tend to be attracted to the type of men that women tend to be attracted to. Okay, woke disclaimer done. Let's get to the discussion. So evolutionary theory states that a fit, healthy, and capable male, which is of course biologically appealing, looks strong, lean, and muscular. And accordingly, women have learned over the course of millennia to recognize and prefer these outward signs of health for the

purposes of mating. Now, this makes perfect sense, of course, because healthy men are more likely to produce healthy children and big and strong guys are more likely to be able to fight and kill both animals and people if necessary to protect the family and protect their territory. Now, these days, that doesn't really matter, of course. We don't have to hunt and fight and kill to survive and even thrive. But those traits, which are biologically attractive, have been valued for so long that there is genetic programming in place. And so women are naturally inclined to be attracted to healthy, strong, lean, muscular looking guys. And of course, this is news to no one. And this is why many guys get into working out. That's why I got into working out when I was 17 or 18. I had stopped

playing ice hockey, wanted to do something with my body. I was 17, 18. I was like, hmm, I like girls, girls like muscles. I guess I'll just do that. Now, what most guys don't know, and even what surprised me a little bit when I came across this research, is the point of diminishing returns for jackedness, if we're talking about just physical attractiveness for women, is quite a bit lower than many of us guys think. And definitely quite a bit lower than our own standards. So what we think is maximally attractive or maybe desirable is the right word, is almost always too much in the eyes of most women. And this has been shown in a number of studies. For example, research conducted by scientists

at Chapman University showed that most women preferred a guy who was, again, by our fitness guy standards, I'd say like moderately muscled, athletic looking, not bodybuilder-ish, not even big by probably most of our standards. So for a visual here, think of, I'll use a cheesy analogy, Brad Pitt in Fight Club. Think of that plus maybe a little bit of muscle and body fat because he was quite lean. Think of that kind of look as being more ideal in the eyes of most women versus Brad Pitt in Troy plus 20 pounds of lean mass, which is what many guys would think is ideal. That's what they would aspire to. They think that looks awesome. And they would think that every woman out there would want them if they just looked like that.

Another study that lends some insight here was conducted by scientists at the University of Texas. And what they found is that women preferred well-developed lower bodies and upper bodies. So don't skip leg day. And quite a bit less fat than the average guy. And to put numbers to it, what it really came down to is take the average guy and add 20 to 30 pounds of muscle. So let's say one to max two years of good training. Bring his body fat down to around 10%, 10, 11, 12%. And that is the sweet spot. And, you know, a little side note that was interesting. I came across some research that showed that even women who claimed to prefer skinny guys or skinnier guys, when they were surveyed anonymously, they actually preferred stronger guys and leaner guys and more muscular

guys. Their preferences were right in line with most other women. Now, that isn't to say that there are no women out there who truly do prefer skinny guys. Of course, there are. There are exceptions to any rule. There are outliers always. There are also women out there who prefer fat guys, and there are guys who prefer fat women. Pierce Brosnan, for example, it recently came to my attention, at least, that he has a fat fetish, and that's why his wife is overweight. And one of the reasons why I think that's funny is Pierce Brosnan was someone my wife would bring up when we would talk about just marriage and loyalty and being with people when they're doing well and not doing well and not just bailing because they're not doing well. And that can be physically or emotionally. And she would bring up

Pierce Brosnan as a positive example of that, because here's a dude who could have any woman. He could be banging a new model every single day, but he is not only with someone who isn't beautiful by normal standards. He is very devoted to her and her assumption was it was true love. Nope. Fat fetish. I thought that was pretty funny. I had to tell her about that. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Twitter at Muscle for Life and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness.

Anyway, coming back on topic, height is another thing in men that most women find attractive. Again, something else that we don't need science to tell us. But interestingly, many women found that fitness, strong, lean, muscular mattered more than height. So if a guy was fit, height mattered less in terms of attractiveness. And so while you can't change your height, you certainly can get fit. And as far as physical attractiveness goes, you can have confidence that many women are going to find you attractive if you are fit, even if you are not very tall. What's interesting though, is you don't have to take your fitness as far as many guys think to get most of the physical attractiveness to women out of it that is available. Again, many guys think that they need to be jacked to be maximally

attractive to women, or that there's a big difference in physical attractiveness between being jacked. And I'm not even talking steroid jacked. I'm talking about natural jacked. So to put a number to that, let's say 35 plus pounds of muscle gain, 35, 40 plus pounds of muscle gain from normal. That's about as jacked as you can get as a natural weightlifter. Maybe you can get into the 40s if you have great genetics in terms of pounds of muscle gained. But for most guys, let's just say the cutoff is probably around 40 pounds, period. That's where I'm at, for example. So the irony is many guys put a lot of work into that and they focus a lot on that because they think that that's what's needed to be as attractive to women as possible. But research shows that once you get beyond

that 20 to 30 pounds of muscle gain, so your first, second year of weightlifting, you are not going to gain that much more attractiveness by continuing to get bigger. And ironically, as you continue to get bigger beyond that 20 to 30 pound mark where you just look athletic, you look muscular, you don't look weak, but you don't look like a bodybuilder. You don't look like you're all that into weightlifting. But once you have gained 30, 35 pounds of muscle, you're looking pretty muscular now. And while some women will find that slightly more physically attractive than a smaller version of you, there can be negative connotations that come with it. Because now you are starting to look like a gym guy, a muscle head, a bodybuilder. That can turn many women off. There's a psychological component there. They might now think that you are a narcissistic, stupid douchebag,

and that's why you spend so much time trying to make your biceps bigger. Or maybe they think that you are likely a player and you put all this time in your body because you just want to have sex with as many women as possible. And these assumptions are not without substance. And women might even be better at it than men, generally speaking. And particularly with judging character, women seem to have a pretty good sixth sense. Whereas many of us guys seem to be oblivious of a lot of the stuff that goes on around us that isn't immediately obvious. And so I understand why many women are wary of workout guys, of bodybuilder guys, of guys who are into having big muscles. Anyway, the good news is if you are just into weightlifting for reasons other than loving yourself and wanting to screw as many women as possible, and you just like building muscle and you like looking a certain way, which I understand I'm the same way, you don't have to worry about

getting too big in the eyes of women. If we're talking about just the physical attractiveness part, the psychological part and the inherent association with men that many women don't want to associate with is something you're just going to have to deal with to some degree. But if we're talking about just physical attractiveness, you are not going to get too big in the eyes of most women if you stay natural. Now, where you see that, where women explicitly say too big doesn't look good is in steroid users. It requires steroids to gain so much muscle that now the average woman is going to look at you and think, ugh. So remember that if you care about this at all, and you are cruising the

drug beasts, I mean, the lifetime natural athletes on Instagram, you might think it looks awesome. And you might even aspire to have such a physique yourself, but remember most women do not find that attractive. They would rather have that dude in his second, maybe third year of weightlifting, no drugs than in his final super say in train insane or remain the same mode. Alrighty, to summarize, if you're a dude and you want to be more physically attractive to women, gain 20 or 30 pounds of muscle, get your body fat down to about 10%, and that's it. You have done the 20%. It gives you the 80%. And it's also worth mentioning that research shows women rate quite a few things as more important than physicality as far as attractiveness goes,

the bigger picture goes, like socioeconomic status and extroversion and kindness and sense of humor. And so even if you are less than perfect physically, you can more than make up for it in other ways. You can achieve success in your work. You can develop a good sense of humor and show that you have a sense of humor and not take yourself too seriously and not take things too seriously. You can become an outgoing person who is good at conversation. You can become a good listener. You can be a nice person. I think you get the idea. Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I'm doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider picking up one of my bestselling health and fitness books,

including Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for Men, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for Women, my flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef, and my 100% practical and hands-on blueprint for personal transformation inside and outside of the gym, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best bodies ever. And you can find them on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes and Noble stores. Again, that's Bigger Leaner Stronger for Men, Thinner Leaner Stronger for Women, The Shredded Chef, and The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Oh, and I should also mention that you can get any of the audiobooks 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which is the perfect way to make those pockets of downtime

like commuting, meal prepping, and cleaning more interesting, entertaining, and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on that offer, and if you want to get one of my audiobooks for free, go to www.legionathletics.com slash audible. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics slash A-U-D-I-B-L-E and sign up for your account. All right. Well, that's it for today's episode. I hope you found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and you don't mind doing me a favor, could you please leave a quick review for the podcast on iTunes or wherever you are listening from? Because those reviews not only convince people that they should check out the show, They also increase the search visibility and help more people find their way to me and to the podcast and learn how to build their best body ever as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast in whatever app you're using to listen, and you will not miss out on any of the new stuff that I have

coming. And last, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts. Let me know how you think I could do this better. I read every email myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback. All right. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.