How to Build a V-Taper Physique: Workouts, Muscles & Training Tips

What Is A V Taper | How To Get V Taper | Muscles | Fat Loss | Gym Exercises | Calisthenics Exercises | Workout Split | Full Body Workout | Nutrition | Common Mistakes

Exercise has hundreds of physical and mental health benefits, and one of these benefits is the ability to help change your body composition and physique.

For some, this might be as simple as losing a few pounds or creating an overall more toned appearance. For others, this could be something more specific, such as building a V taper physique. If this is your goal, read on to find out how to achieve the V taper body.

The V tape physique is a body shape that has wide shoulders and upper back that tapers down to a narrow waist, creating a V silhouette.

The V taper is a widely coveted physique among body builders and fitness enthusiasts alike as, unlike washboard abs or bulging biceps, having a V taper back can be easily spotted even when fully clothed and shows that the person is committed to training.

A V taper body also signifies a balanced training approach as the shoulders and back are clearly worked, vs the more obvious muscles you see in the mirror such as the chest and biceps.

There are two elements when it comes to getting a V taper physique:

• Increase the width of your upper back and shoulders. This step involves gaining muscle in the upper body muscles through dedicated strength training.

• Reduce the size of your waist. This is achieved through losing fat. While it isn't possible to spot reduce from the waist alone, reducing your overall body fat percentage can help to decrease the size of the waist.

As the upper back and shoulder width increases and the waist decreases, the difference in size helps to create the V taper.

The key muscles you want to build to create the broad shoulders and upper back needed for a V taper body are:

• Latissimus dorsi (lats) - large muscles running from the lower and muddle back, around the side, to the upper arm

• Deltoids - group of muscles that cover the front (anterior delts), back (posterior delts), and sides (lateral delts) of the shoulders

• Trapezius (traps) - trapezoid shaped muscle covering the neck and upper mid back

• Rhomboids - a pair of muscles (rhomboid major and rhomboid minor) in the upper back

• Obliques - pair of muscles that sit on the sides of the abdomen, running from the ribcage to the pelvis

Achieving a V taper physique involves building muscle mass while losing fat.

To increase muscle mass, you need to focus on muscular hypertrophy focused strength training. This involves a high training volume (at least 2-3 times a week per muscle group), with moderate weights, sets and reps. This provides the muscles with the right kind of stimulus in the right amount to encourage efficient muscle growth.

A calorie surplus is also recommended when it comes to building muscle, however this contrasts with the fat loss many people need to achieve a classic V taper. Likewise, a large calorie deficit needed for fat loss can slow down or prevent muscle being built.

There are two ways to tackle this:

• Body recomposition: Eating at, or just below, maintenance calories while training to build muscle can help with body recomposition by simultaneously losing fat at the same time as building muscle. In this approach, the energy used to build muscle comes from breaking down body fat. While this approach isn't the most effective way to build muscle or lose fat, it's useful for people who struggle with eating under or over their maintenance calories.

• Bulking and cutting: The bulk and cut cycle involves focusing on building muscle and losing fat separately. During the bulking phase, you'll eat in a calorie surplus to encourage muscle growth, and during the cutting phase you'll eat in a calorie deficit for fat loss while maintaining muscle mass through training. This is an efficient way to change your physique but can be mentally challenging, particularly during the cutting phase.

To get a V taper, you want to choose exercises that create enough stimulus for the back and shoulder muscles to grow. Including a mixture of compound exercises, which increases the overall load the muscles are exposed to, and isolation exercises, which allow you to specifically focus on individual muscles, is the best approach.

Target the traps, rhomboids, and lats with these exercises.

Compound exercises

• Pull ups
• Lat pull downs
• Seated rows
• Bent over rows

Isolation exercises

• Y raises

• Straight arm pushdowns

• Face pulls

• Shrugs

Work all three deltoid muscle groups with these exercises.

Compound exercises

• Overhead press

• Upright rows

• Incline chest press

• Chest dips

Isolation exercises

• Front raises

• Lateral raises

• Rear delt flys

Core exercises

• Russian twists

• Hanging leg raises

• V sit ups

• Pallof press

• Deadbugs

Weightlifting is highly effective when it comes to muscle hypertrophy, but it's not the only way to build a wider back and shoulders. Bodyweight calisthenics exercises can be just as good as long as you are following progressive overload by increasing the volume or intensity over time.

Some good calisthenics exercises for getting a V taper physique include:

Beginner

• Negative or assisted pull ups

• Pike push ups

• Push ups or modified push ups

• Inverted rows

Intermediate

• Weighted pull ups

• Muscle ups

• Back lever

• Decline push ups

• Handstand push ups

When it comes to significantly changing your physique through exercise, having a solid workout plan is key. Your workout split needs to ensure that each muscle group is hit at least twice a week, without neglecting other muscle groups (to prevent imbalances from occurring). Your workout split should also ensure that each muscle group gets at least a full day’s rest between training sessions, and account for one full rest day each week. Although you can factor core specific workout days, adding a few core and oblique exercises to each workout is a more effective approach. There are a few workout splits that work well for getting a V taper:

If you can only commit to working out three days a week, it's best to focus on full body workouts that prioritise compound exercises as this allows you to expose each muscle group to as much load as possible across the week.  

Option 1

• Monday: Full body

• Wednesday: Full body

• Friday: Full body

Option 2

• Monday: Upper body

• Wednesday: Full body

• Friday: Lower body

If you are training four times a week, you can continue to focus on full body workouts or begin to narrow this down. An upper/ lower workout split is a great option here:

• Monday: Upper body

• Tuesday: Lower body

• Thursday: Upper body

• Friday: Lower body

When you begin training five or more days each week, you can narrow your workouts down even further to focus on specific muscle groups. This allows you to increase the volume these muscles are exposed to, furthering hypertrophy.

Example workout split

• Monday: Shoulders and chest

• Tuesday: Legs and glutes

• Wednesday: Back and core

• Friday: Legs and glutes

• Saturday: Upper body

There are multiple ways you can organise your workouts with a 6 day workout split to get your V taper. Here are a few examples.

Option 1: Push pull legs split

• Monday: Upper body - push

• Tuesday: Legs and glutes

• Wednesday: Upper body - pull

• Thursday: Upper body - push

• Friday: Legs and glutes

• Saturday: Upper body - pull

Option 2

• Monday: Shoulders and chest

• Tuesday: Legs and glutes

• Wednesday: Back

• Thursday: Legs

• Friday: Upper body

• Saturday: Legs

Here's a balanced full body workout you can try that targets all the muscles needed to get a V taper, as well as the chest, legs, and glutes.

Warm up

• Cross trainer 6/10 effort - 5 minutes

• Arm swings - 30 seconds each side

• Leg swings - 30 seconds each side

• Plank - 30 second hold

Workout

1. Superset

• (a) Lat pull downs - 3 x 8-10

• (b) Russian twists - 3 x 12

2. Squat to overhead press - 3 x 8-10

3. Superset

• (a) Bent over row - 3 x 8-10

• (b) Hanging leg lift - 3 x 10

4. Incline chest press - 3 - 8-10

5. Deadlifts - 4 x 6-8

Cooldown

• Overhead tricep stretch - 30 seconds each side

• Standing chest stretch - 30 seconds each side

• Puppy pose - 30 seconds

• Standing quad stretch - 30 seconds each side

• Pigeon pose - 30 seconds each side

Paying attention to your nutrition is important if you want to get a V taper. Without the right diet, it will be difficult to achieve the balance of fat loss and muscle gain needed for this body composition.

Many people will need to lose some fat to build a V taper physique as it requires low body fat to achieve the broad back to small waist V taper, however cutting your calories too low will make it much harder to build muscle. Eating at a small calorie deficit of around 200 calories will help with steady weight loss while still allowing for muscle gain.

• Protein: eating plenty of protein (at least 1.4g protein per kg of bodyweight) across the day will help to keep you full while giving your body the amino acids it needs to build muscle. Aim for around 30g protein for each meal rather than eating it all in one go, choosing foods like chicken, eggs, fish, and dairy where possible and supplementing with protein shakes where necessary.

• Carbs: carbohydrates provide your body with the fuel needed for intense workouts. Prioritise complex, fibre rich carbs like wholewheat pasta, sweet potatoes, and legumes.

• Fats: dietary fats are important for overall health and hormones, as well as satiety (and taste!). Include small amounts of healthy fats in your meals rather than avoid this food group.

• Micronutrients: aim to eat a variety of fruit and veg each day to ensure you are getting the nutrients and minerals needed for optimal health, as well as enough dietary fibre each day.

Before you begin working on your V taper physique, here are some common mistakes to avoid.

To build significant muscle and strength, you need to progressive overload your workouts. This means increasing the intensity or volume of your workouts each week by increasing the weights, reps, or workout duration, rather than doing the same amount each week.

Learn more about progressive overload here.

Changing up your workouts every week makes it harder to be consistent and to increase the intensity over time, making it much harder to see results. Stick to the same exercises and workouts for at least 8-12 weeks, focusing on progressive overload. After 8-12 weeks you can adjust or switch up your workouts if preferred.

Building muscle is hard and requires the body to be sufficiently challenged. You should aim to train close to failure in your workouts, which means stopping when you’re just 1-2 reps away from being unable to lift another rep.

Training obliques is important in building a V taper physique, but you should avoid building too much muscle mass here as it can thicken the waist, making that V shape less pronounced.

Ready to get a V taper physique? Get more workout ideas here or find your nearest gym here to get started.