Most men dream of looking like a sexy stud with a chiseled figure, having that precious V shape with a strong, masculine form. This is a look that will attract the ladies and draw jealous gazes from lesser fortunate men.

However, most men only realize such a vision in their dreams, believing that they could never achieve such a lofty goal. The truth is, acquiring the perfect male body isn’t a matter of wishful thinking, but can be realized by a commitment to a strong workout program and by approaching bodybuilding with a smart plan. Intense workouts get results and exercising smart gets the results in the shortest amount of time.

Although genetics make up a large part of what you will ultimately end up looking like, there is absolutely no excuse for not reaching your goal of obtaining the perfect male body in today’s world. There are so many tools and so much knowledge available today in the fitness world that any excuse is reduced down to basically being lazy, unless you just happen to have some physical problem that keeps you from training at full tilt.

Let’s take a look at the top 4 tools in the bodybuilder training toolbox that you can use to chisel out the ideal male body.

Training Tool #1 – Develop the Foundation for a Sexy Physique

There are certain physical characteristics that are appealing to the opposite sex, whether consciously or unconsciously. This attraction stems from a deep, inner psychological need to choose a strong, healthy mate to reproduce with. Men tend to prefer a well proportioned hour glass figure on a woman, whereas women tend to be drawn to a man who has the characteristics represented in an X-shaped body.

The man possessing an X-shape has those broad shoulders and trim waist that form the coveted V-shape torso as well as well developed legs. Therefore men, you should focus on developing these areas specifically in order to draw the attention of more ladies seeking a fine male specimen.

Broad Shoulders – Utilize compound exercises such as the hang clean and press, overhead military press, dumbbell shoulder presses, upright barbell rows and overhead squats. You should also fine-tune the shoulders with isolation exercises like various lateral workouts to increase the size of your delts and shrugs to bulge your traps.

Narrow Waist – Obtaining a narrow waist requires a two-fold approach. First, you build strong, well developed abs by focusing on a variety of ab exercises. Second, you cut fat around the abdomen via a nutritious diet. A healthy diet is just as important as ab exercises in achieving a set of 6-pack abs since rippled ab muscles are commonly hidden underneath a blanket of body fat.

Strong Legs – Well developed legs form the bottom of the coveted X-shaped physique. Keep in mind that developing the entire group of leg muscles is important, which includes the glutes, thighs, hamstrings and calves. Incorporate lunges, deadlifts, leg curls, leg extensions, squats, leg presses and calf raises into your bodybuilding program.

Training Tool #2 – Strive for Balance and Symmetry

As you’re honing the foundation of an X-shaped body, also focus on developing both balance and symmetry all along your physique. It’s very easy to fall into training ruts that can actually harm your physical appearance.

First of all, be sure you’re utilizing correct technique on all your lifts. Falling into bad form during weight training can lead to an unbalanced muscular look as well as cause injury. Employ the help of a trainer or seasoned weightlifting vet to watch you as you perform weightlifting exercises to ensure you’re doing them correctly.

You should also avoid the trap of targeting what are called “mirror muscles”. These are the muscles which are readily visible in a mirror and which you may tend to focus on since you can easily see the results. Many bodybuilders (especially beginners) tend to do this. For example, they will spend a great deal of time developing the biceps and chest while ignoring the back and triceps.

Both of these training errors will cause your body to look out of balance and unsymmetrical from another person’s perspective. If your goal is to attract the ladies then you need to develop a well formed body, both in shape and proper symmetry.

Therefore, include exercises in your weight training program which build opposite muscle groups. For instance, perform a variation of biceps curls (biceps) followed immediately by dumbbell extensions (triceps).

Training Tool #3 – Utilize High Intensity Training

If you want to get shredded then you need to pound out your workouts hard. Countless studies have shown that performing high intensity exercises stimulate the best and fastest muscle growth. Therefore, when you hit the gym, give it all you’ve got for around an hour and spend the rest of the day focusing on your nutritional needs.

However, not only do you want to employ high intensity training to your bodybuilding program, but you also want to lift heavy. When you train heavy, your body responds by being and looking strong, an aspect which women tend to be drawn to. You should use heavy weight at a near-maximum level and train within low-rep ranges of 3-5 repetitions for best results.

Training heavy develops both the neurogenic and myogenic aspects of muscle tone, both of which are required in order to sculpt a sexy physique. The neurogenic aspect of muscle tone is entailed in the hardness of the muscle when it is flexed. The myogenic aspect of muscle tone entails how hard the muscle is when in a relaxed state. By developing muscle tone that incorporates both neurogenic and myogenic qualities, you appear buff whenever you flex or are just hanging out.

Training Tool #4 – Use a Variety of Training Methods

Muscle gains occur when muscle fibers are stressed to a point which they have not previously encountered. However, muscle also adapts very quickly to the same level of stress placed on it over a period of time. Because of this, plateaus in muscle growth occur easily if your workout routine is not constantly progressive or changed frequently.

In order to achieve the goal of the perfect male body, you have to provide constant stimulation for muscles so that they are constantly encouraged to grow. For the best muscle mass results, you should change your bodybuilding program regularly so that new exercises or new versions of the same exercises are performed about every 5-6 weeks. Not only does mixing up your fitness program cause new muscle growth, it also allows you to maintain a high metabolism and lower percentage of body fat.

There are a variety of ways to keep your workout both fresh and stimulating. You can change to completely different exercises, add or subtract rest time, weight, reps or sets, move from straight sets to supersets, circuit training, etc, or make slight changes to your current program by moving from a barbell to dumbbells for instance. Regardless of how you vary your training methods, whatever changes you make will nudge towards your goal of achieving the perfect male body.