A V taper is the shape of broad shoulders and wide lats narrowing into a small waist. You build it from both ends. The side delts and lats create the upper body width, trained with a pull from overhead, rows through a different shoulder path, and lateral raise variations for the side delts. Then you bring the waist in with lower body fat, waist control work and presentation on stage, because a smaller waist makes the width you have look more pronounced.
A V taper is the line your upper body draws from broad shoulders and wide lats down into a small waist. The side delts and lats create the upper body width, and a smaller waist makes that width appear more pronounced.
Across the men's divisions, judges look for a small waist and a taper. Men's physique competitors wear board shorts, so thigh development is not displayed and judged in the same manner as classic physique or bodybuilding, and the focus stays on a V taper and broad shoulders. Classic physique puts a much bigger emphasis on the taper.
On the women's side, figure is better described as an X frame than an hourglass: broad, round delts and substantial back and lat development tapering into a small waist, then widening again through the lower body with developed quads. Fitness is similar to figure from a muscularity and shape standpoint, although it includes its own division specific criteria.
Part of a V taper is an illusion. An athlete with no size advantage over the guys next to him can still look wider than them because of the way his back comes into his waist.
Waist control is an easy way to make your V taper more accentuated. If you can make your waist small on stage, it is like adding muscle to your delts, your lats and your quad sweep.
| Part of the frame | What it does | How to build it |
|---|---|---|
| Side delts | Contribute to upper body width | Lateral raise variations, placed first in the session when they lag |
| Lats | Add width and carry the frame into the waist | A pull from overhead, plus rows through a different shoulder path |
| Waist | The narrow point everything comes into | Waist control work, lower body fat and control on stage |
You need lats to make your front double biceps, back double biceps and lat spread as wide as possible on stage. Lat development also carries the taper into your rear shots, not just the front ones.
For width, put lats first on back day and open with something that pulls from overhead, because that is the big ticket for getting wide. Pick the pulldown that gives you the most range: the arm starts overhead and comes down close to your torso, with the elbow driving to the hip.
Match the handle width to your shoulders, so your hand, elbow and shoulder joint line up when your arms are overhead. Keeping the elbow closer to the torso biases the lats through shoulder extension and adduction, while letting the elbow travel farther from the torso shifts the emphasis toward the upper back and greater scapular retraction. Those are biases rather than one muscle switching off and another taking over.
Then row as well. Pulldowns and rows train the shoulder through different paths and can complement one another when you are programming for complete back development.
Give each movement a reason to be there. Terminal elbow position alone does not determine whether two exercises provide the same stimulus, since they can differ in resistance profile, stability, shoulder path and range of motion. What you avoid is adding exercises that provide essentially the same function and resistance profile without a clear reason for the variation.
Partials can extend a set once you reach failure, and a pulldown you can no longer finish is a reasonable place for a few. Justify them by the exercise and the stimulus you want rather than by an assumption that the back recovers better than other muscle groups, because recovery capacity varies between athletes and exercises.
The best lat exercises covers the full setup for each of these movements.
For side delts, more width generally helps, and it is rare to see a competitor on stage whose side delts are too big. Even when delts are already a strong body part, you can still make them bigger.
Pressing can involve the side delt depending on the movement and setup, but it generally provides substantial front delt work, which your chest pressing already covers. Lateral raise variations provide a more direct way to prioritize the side delts, though they are not the only movement that trains them.
A machine lateral raise is a strong first pick and a cable raise a good second. With a dumbbell the external moment arm generally increases as the arm moves away from the body and approaches horizontal, and there is relatively little external torque near the bottom. Machines differ in their cams and lever arms, so none is automatically even across the whole profile, but cables and machines can load positions where a dumbbell provides relatively little.
Raising in the scapular plane rather than straight out to the side tends to be comfortable and effective, because it generally corresponds well with normal scapular orientation and shoulder mechanics. The upper traps normally contribute to scapular movement during arm elevation, and that is not something to try to remove.
If your delts are lagging, put the raises first in the session. Take one raise to full effort, then come back to it on another day. Because most direct side delt training is built around shoulder abduction, there is usually little reason to run several nearly identical raise variations in the same session. Spreading your side delt work over two or more sessions a week is one way to do that.
Rear delts matter too. Rear delts wrap around into your side chest, give your delts depth in three dimensions, and show the full capped delt look in your back shots.
The best delt exercises has the full setup for each raise.
Your hip and rib cage structure is the biggest factor in your waist size, and training will not take you past that limit. What you can train is control: holding your waist at the smallest your structure allows.
Vacuums are primarily a waist control and posing tool. They can improve your ability to control the abdominal wall and present a smaller waist on stage. There is not strong evidence that they permanently reduce anatomical waist size, and structure and body fat remain major determinants of what your waist actually measures.
Keep waist control work going through the offseason, and keep an eye on digestion. Very high food volume, poor digestion and chronic bloating can make the waist appear more distended and make abdominal control more difficult, so managing those helps you hold your presentation as food and body weight increase.
As body fat comes down, the midsection gets tighter and the V taper gets sharper.
On stage, the judges watch your waist the whole time, including between turns when they tell you to relax and while you wait on the sidelines, so you need a breathing strategy to hold it at every point.
Practice your vacuum standing and inside your poses, not just on its own. When you let a vacuum out on stage, go straight into another pose instead of letting your gut hang out.
One routine I use with athletes goes like this.
How many sets per muscle group per week covers how to set your weekly totals. Here is how to spread those sets for a V taper.
A common shape is back twice a week with lats first, legs twice a week and some push work twice a week. Your split does not have to fit into a single week, and it can run over eight or nine days depending on your recovery.
You do not need every angle in one session, so divide the angles across your sessions and add sets to a movement rather than adding an exercise that repeats the same function and resistance profile. Volume tolerance is individual and depends on exercise selection, effort, frequency, training age and recovery.
To push your delts in the next block, adding about 20 percent to their weekly sets is an example of a measured increase. Run that block and reassess, and judge the increase against your current volume, performance, recovery and response rather than treating it as a rule.
If your abs need development, direct abdominal training can be added and progressed according to need and response. Figures such as 8 to 12 sets a week building toward 12 to 20 are one way to structure that rather than a universal recommendation, and in a physique athlete the objective is not to maximize every trunk muscle indiscriminately when waist appearance matters.
| Body part | How often | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Lats | Commonly twice a week | First on back day, opening with a pull from overhead |
| Side delts | Usually two or more sessions a week | First in the session when they lag, one raise taken to full effort |
| Waist | One morning routine I use | Ten sets, fasted, alternating with abdominal contractions |
| Abs | Added when they need development | 8 to 12 sets a week is one starting point, progressed by response |
An X frame starts with the same upper body as a V taper: broad delts, and lats that carry the width into the waist. Then the quads and adductors bring the frame back out below the waist, so the silhouette narrows to the waist and widens again. A V taper describes upper body width narrowing into the waist, and an X frame extends that visual effect below it.
Almost every division needs some degree of X frame, with wellness the exception. An X frame comes down to four points: waist, quads, lats and delts.
For the quads, chase size rather than a sweep exercise. Unilateral work does not inherently bias the vastus lateralis or create more sweep, so make your quads as big as possible with the largest range you can actively control and stable foot pressure through the midfoot. Exercise selection, range of motion, stability, your structure and progressive overload determine the development you get.
If you just want a plan of what to do, the X-Frame program lays out the whole frame, and my morning routine for training the waist is in there too.
A V taper is the shape of broad shoulders and wide lats narrowing into a small waist. The men's divisions all reward it, and in men's physique the focus is a V taper and broad shoulders.
Pull ups work the lats, but a pulldown generally does the job better for bodybuilding. You have to stabilize the rest of your body while you pull, hanging straight down at the start puts little tension on the lats until you lean back, and many people do not get the full range. A braced, stable pulldown lets you direct the tension where you want it, so make pulldown variations your main vertical pull. You can build the back you need without pull ups.
A V taper is wide delts and lats over a small waist. An X frame adds the lower half, with the quads and adductors sweeping back out below the waist, so the silhouette narrows and then widens again. Almost every division needs some degree of X frame, with wellness the exception.
Only within your structure. Your hip and rib cage structure and your body fat remain the major determinants of what your waist actually measures, but you can train the control to hold it at the smallest your structure allows. Vacuums are primarily a waist control and posing tool, and managing digestion and bloating through the offseason makes that control easier to hold as food and body weight increase.
My X-Frame program is built around the whole frame: wide lats, capped delts, sweeping quads and a small waist, with the waist routine included.
See the X-Frame program
John Jewett is an IFBB Professional bodybuilder and physique coach, and the founder of J3 University. He has spent his career competing at the professional level while coaching competitors and everyday lifters through the same training, nutrition, and recovery principles he uses himself.
J3 University exists to make that process teachable. Every course is built on the reasoning behind the method, not just the method, so you can make better decisions about your own physique long after the program ends. The article above is drawn directly from the J3U course curriculum.
