I’m 6’4 and currently around 97 kg. I’ve been training for roughly four years. My frame is pretty skinny and narrow with long arms, so even though I’ve put on weight over the years and sit around ~15% body fat, I still feel like I don’t really “fill out” my frame yet. Physique wise, I think I could benefit from carrying quite a bit more mass. I look decent with a pump in the gym, but in normal clothes I still look pretty lanky.
My question is: what bodyweight did other tall lifters need to reach before they actually started to look properly “big” or filled out? What bodyweight did you find was the turning point where you started looking like a proper gym bro rather than just tall and lean?
I also like chasing numbers, so strength benchmarks would be useful too. If you’ve got rough standards like bodyweight multiples on bench, squat, deadlift, OHP etc., that helped you build size, I’d be interested to hear those as well.
Being taller and having a filled out frame is largely genetic. When I think full framed tall dudes I think American football players. Rob Gronkowski played at 6 foot 6, 265 pounds.
I am 6’5 and have been 218 to 270, currently 255 aiming for 240. I still feel small compared to guys who are naturally carry more muscle than me.
Best thing to do is not waist your time worried about things you can’t do much about which is genetics. Either you have them or you don’t.
AIM to add a little year to year, and don’t get too fat chasing a “full” frame.
Most Bodybuilders consider 6’0" tall for Bodybuilding. (In fact, every Bodybuilding contest that I have entered that had height classes, I was in the Tall Class.) That is the height that I grew to, at my tallest, if you add 1/8th inch. I started lifting weights when I weighed about 165lbs (74.8kg) and 19 years old. At 22 years old at around 200lbs and 15% body fat I entered my first Bodybuilding contest (once I got there and saw the first competitors that I had ever seen in person, I realized that I was not in good condition for competition. But I was there, so no backing out.)
As the years went by and I was adding more muscle and getting in better body composition, I began visually comparing how much mass was needed for your height. At around 6’ tall it looked like about 10lbs for every inch of height. (Lately I have heard that 8lbs for every inch of height was the best number.)
I have been told by many people that I have a pleasing, symmetrical physique, so I am going to use my weight and weight as standard of what I would need to weigh if I were your height to look to have the same amount of mass as my 6’0" frame, if I were 6’4". These are a few mathematical calculations to get there:
My best competition weight was 218lbs at what I measured as 5.5% body fat. That is a fat free weight of 206lbs.
I trained at 242lbs, which is 15% body fat with 206lbs of fat free weight.
Let’s use 8lbs for every inch. That means a 6’4" person needs to be 32lbs heavier (competition weight) than a 6’0" competitor. That is 32lbs heavier than 218lbs, or 250lbs.
250lbs at 5.5% body fat is 236lbs of fat free weight.
If you take that 236lbs of fat free weight to a 15% training body fat, you will need to have a training weight of 278lbs.
This is my perspective on weight needed for your height to look similar mass per height as others. Most important is that you don’t get fatter than 15% body fat in an effort to put on mass faster. It took me 11 years to get to my peak competition weight.
I know you are not shooting to get on stage, but just to look like a gym bro. But the general idea of relative weight to height still holds true.
Many of us idle minded STEM’s venture into these strange mathematical mind trails to connect life quests to mathematical models in various degrees of success.
Actually, I expected the math to fairy closely align. but I the only used my 10lbs per inch (linear) between 5’10" and 6’2", because I felt the function might not be linear over all heights, thus become of less value the further I ventured from my 6’0" reference point. Maybe up to 6’4" wouldn’t be a stretch too far, at least for fairly close approximations.
Happy to throw a bit of STEM logic in the mix.
Here is a thought: Considering muscle mass is cubic and height is linear, might the pounds per inch in height increase as your height gets taller. I used a constant rate of change, where variable rate of change might be most accurate. Just a STEM thinking out loud.
I’d agree. Once I hit 280 putting on weight and increasing lifts really got difficult (in hindsight that might have been a smart time to use AAS or start cutting) but I got frustrated and switched goals.