How To Get A Fitness Model Body

Commercials for home exercise equipment make me laugh. I recently saw one for something called the T-Core. The dude in the video has an impressive physique, and I can just imagine what he was thinking during filming: This thing is such a piece of crap.

I can pretty much guarantee he didn’t get that body with that product.

Bowflex sells chiseled “in as little as 20 minutes, three times a week.” They also say things like, “I’m not on a diet. I’m on a Bowflex.”

The problem is those people are on strict diets and they’re working out a helluva lot more than an hour a week. And they didn’t do it on a Bowflex or any other infomercial-sold product in the first place.

Charles Darwin, you suck

Start with your parents. If they weren’t the right ones, you’ll have to change them. What I mean is, you may be genetically hamstrung from the get-go. If your family tree is more like a potato farm because everyone is a barrel-bodied endomorph, then there is only so much you can do. In my case I’ve got plenty of obese genes (I could show you pictures, but then I’d be cut out of my parents’ will), but I’m lucky enough to still have a fairly mesomorphic physique, which is what most fitness models are. Yes, I must slave to shed fat, but I do have the ability to look like one of those models. Sort of.

A mesomorph is often defined as an “athletic” physique, like this guy. (Warning: Oil alert!) For you, it may be a case of settling for being all you can be. Evolution via natural selection isn’t fair, and it’s the fat storers who survived those Stone Age famines long enough to procreate. The genetically skinny folks mostly starved to death millennia ago.

Logging the hours

If you’ve got the genes, then you also need the work ethic. If looking like a fitness model was easy, then a lot more people would. The last beach I went to looked more like a hippopotamus convention.

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Minus occasional breaks, I spend about four hours of hard lifting (not with a Bowflex) and five hours doing intense aerobic training such as running and cycling every week. I am able to do this because I love exercise, and that’s the only reason. Looking good is a beneficial byproduct.

I’ve spoken to models and read a variety of articles that reveal that nine hours is toward the low end of exercise time per week. Many of them exercise as much as 15 hours each week, especially as they approach photoshoot time.

Dietary deprivation

Part of the reason I run so much is that I’m not so great at this part. I have kids who demand we have at least some junk food in the house, and that’s hard to resist. Also, there is beer.

If you’re better at dieting than I am, then you can spend less time burning off those excess calories. I like to live a little, and find that I can sustain the running but not constant dietary deprivation. Cheating and drinking is what allows me to stay pretty lean year round.But, still, compared to most people, I have a clean diet. I almost never eat out or order in, rarely consume anything processed, go easy on the red meat, take in lots of fruits and vegetables, and regularly go to bed feeling a bit hungry. I eat to the point of feeling stuffed once per year: December 25th.
And I still don’t look like a fitness model. If I wanted to trade my so-so four pack for a shredded six-pack, it would take me at least six weeks to drop those last five or so pounds. Those six weeks would really suck, and not be sustainable.
Most models are the same way. They know when a shoot is coming and do intense dieting in advance, then often take it easy after the shoot. Remember how ripped Mark Wahlberg used to be when modeling for Calvin Klein? He didn’t maintain that leanness. Yes, he got pretty ripped again for The Fighter, but as soon as filming was over, he went off his diet.

Pharmaceutical assistance

Most of them take supplements, and some go further. The movie Bigger Stronger Faster has a model admitting on camera that he takes anabolic steroids. This guy is a model, not a professional bodybuilder.I don’t even take creatine, but that’s just a personal choice. So there is your reality check. My guess is that most women just want you  not to be fat, so don’t sweat it so much. Sure, I look at those models with some envy, but I also realize it’s their job to look like that. Also, they’re years younger than I am. The bright side is I’ve got my loving family, and they have to settle for having threesomes with bikini models.