Building the Greek God Physique
Introduction
I have received the question “How to look like a greek god?” multiple times now. The answer is “you never will”, and corollary to that, in the process of chasing the greek god physique you will develop an incredible physique that is unique to YOU. There are certain parameters and goals that stay the same however, and we will touch on throughout the week. Follow along as we go over a roadmap to building the ultimate physique.
Defining the Greek God Physique.
The first step in our process is to actually define our goal, then move into the steps to build towards that in future posts.
The first point is body fat percentage. If you look at greek statues the males are incredibly defined, but not shredded. This puts them in an athletic body fat range of 8-12% BF. An additional note is they were not purely aesthetic, but maintained a general athletic ability as well as an impressive physique. This is very doable for every male given a long enough time horizon.
Next are proportions. The ideal body is obviously subjective. But rough figures to gauge your progress utilize the golden ratio: 1:1.618 and can be applied to your physique. Essentially aim for the measurement around your shoulders to be 1.6 times the length around your waist, leading to a v-taper. More subjective aspects to include are rounded shoulders with separation (peaks), square pecs, visible abs, a v-line down your abdomen, and lean muscular legs.
Note these proportions and aspects are subjective. The ideal body is the one you want, not what is even defined by me. However, pursuing what is generally approved of as “aesthetic”, these are a good guide to go off of. In general, we aim for longevity, strong heart and lungs, and an athletic body fat level. These are values that lead to a long and healthy life with a good looking body that anyone can achieve.
How Do We Get There?
We have now defined what the “Greek Physique” actually is. Now how do we get there?
The two main aspects to the physique are your overall muscle mass/proportions and your body fat percentage.
Today, we’ll discuss the development of muscle mass.
In a previous series we discussed progressive overload. This will be the foundation we will build upon in our quest of muscle development. The end result is actually quite simple to achieve. It will come down to consistently lifting weights and progressively increasing our strength over time.
Consistently lifting weights means lifting 4-5 times per week optimally, however could be reduced to 3 sessions per week. The split you run could be any of the following: full body, push/pull/legs, or upper/lower. At the end of the day, the type of split you run will have little impact and your consistency in training and nutrition will have the most impact.
In AG PRO, we currently run an aesthetics cycle for Push/Pull/Legs with a 2-on, 1-off training cycle. This means training for 2 days, resting one, then training for an additional two days. This cycle is optimally run for 8-12 weeks before taking a de-load week with reduced days of lifting.
In training for aesthetics, we will aim to get as strong as humanly possible in the 6-15 rep range. This differs from the camp that pushes for building the highest max for our core lifts. Although you will certainly develop muscle by building your max lifts, focusing on the higher rep ranges will be the most optimal methods to achieve the desired physique results. However, regardless of the cycle you run it will be crucial to pair with a proper nutrition plan to gain muscle and reduce body fat.
Body Fat
As mentioned, the two main aspects to the physique are your overall muscle mass/proportions and your body fat percentage.
Next, we’ll discuss body fat. In a previous series we discussed nutrition and determining your macros to develop a meal plan for your needs. Your needs will vary. We highly recommend getting your body fat tested using a BodPod to get a solid benchmark of where you are currently. If you are relatively skinny or lack the muscle mass for your desired physique, you will need to eat in a caloric surplus, recommended at 500 Cal per day. If you have substantial muscle mass and a higher body fat percentage you will need to eat in a caloric deficit, recommended at 250-500 Cal per day to start. We do not want to jump into a heavy deficit to prevent rapid declines in performance and hormones, as well as plateauing in your weight loss.
Once you understand your current body fat percentage, most will need to eat at a surplus for a period of time prior to dropping calories. Unless you are currently obese, gaining muscle at the beginning of your hunt for the Greek God physique will be imperative. But how long? We recommend bulking until you are 14-15% body fat. Eating at a surplus of 500 Cal will lead to an average gain of 1 pound per week. The time to achieve this body fat will be largely dependent on your current body and training habits.
Following this bulk phase, we’ll want to eat in a deficit until we are 9-11% body fat. Again, this will be largely dependent on your body type, training habits, and size of the deficit you are at. We’ll continue this cycle of bulking and cutting to maintain a healthy body fat percentage
ATHLETICISM.
Although the Greek Physique is predicated on shallow looks, the actual Greeks maintained an excellent aerobic capacity and ability to utilize the muscle on their frame. Although looking amazing is an excellent goal to achieve, it is equally important to maintain heart/lung health and your overall athleticism.
During our training, we’ll want to incorporate “functional” movements as well as consistent aerobic training to ensure we maintain athleticism as well as a strong heart and lungs. Functional movements we will include are the clean+jerk, and the snatch. These two movements require broad strength, coordination, and skill which we will develop over time.
To develop our aerobic system, we will do conditioning 3-4x per week on top of our lifting each week. These do not need to be extremely long sessions, rather we will focus on efficiency. 2x per week will be sprint/interval sessions, rotating between sprints, airbike (AAB) or rower sprints in duration of 30 seconds or less. We’ll look to start at 5 rounds of 30 second intervals with 90-120 seconds of rest between each, and over time build up to 10 rounds of total work. The other 1-2 sessions per week will be 20-30 minute cardio sessions, either extremely easy jogging or on the stationary bike.
By combining this training in addition to our lifting we’ll maintain an adequate amount of overall aerobic capacity and athleticism to pair with our Greek Physique.
Putting It All Together
We have now discussed muscle development, body fat, and athleticism. But how do we combine this into a well-built program to get us where we need to be?
We’ll layout a simple plan that anyone can execute regardless of background utilizing a push/pull/legs split, olympic lifts, and conditioning work.
MONDAY: Push, Clean+Jerk, Intervals
TUESDAY: Pull, Snatch, Easy Conditioning
WEDNESDAY: Full Rest Day
THURSDAY: Legs, Clean+Jerk, Intervals
FRIDAY: Push, Snatch, Easy Conditioning
SATURDAY: Legs
SUNDAY: Full Rest Day
Over time we will progress this cycle with built in de-load periods. You’ll notice we did two full complete mini-cycles of the push/pull/legs split. You could optionally do 3-4 sessions per week instead of 6. To do this, just lift on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Continue rotating the workouts so you will hit Push, Pull, Legs, Push, then the following week continue the cycle with Pull, Legs, and so on. Every 4 weeks, we’ll incorporate a de-load week where we’ll either drop the intervals all-together, or replace those days with a short, easy conditioning day. Additionally, during the de-load week we will go extremely light on the olympic lifts or do none at all.
We will pair this training with the nutrition we mentioned in our previous post. We’ll either be in a deficit or surplus depending on where you are in the cycle, but maintain a similar training cycle regardless.
This is an overall simple plan to implement to accomplish your goals. We are working on a full book to walk you through the steps in detail, and provide examples depending on your body type and current physique.
For more from AG, check out the main site acidgambit.com. There we have 1:1 coaching called AG VIP, daily programming on Discord, AG PRO, and programs. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions!