Look around your gym and you’ll notice that one silhouette dominates in men who are strong but lean – the V-shape. That’s because muscle tends to live at the top of your torso, while fat camps out down low. The out-of-shape man looks like a doughy ‘A’: a wide waist tapering to narrow shoulders. But if you drop blubber and build strength, that ratio shifts, and the letter turns upside down.

To speed up its spin, you need to hit your big back muscles, says Leo Savage, personal trainer at London’s luxury Third Space gym. It’s a two-pronged attack: you build size and work some of your body’s biggest muscles, which spikes calorie burn. The result? Growth – and width – up top, plus accelerated fat loss, to narrow that wobble round your waist.

“If you want a big back, you’ve got to row,” says Savage. Pulling moves hit the muscles in your upper and middle back, especially your lats – the muscles at the outer edge, beneath your armpits, which create your V-shape’s width. By mixing up your rows you hit your back all over to build more size.

But to craft a killer V you’ll also need to target your shoulders, a notoriously tough place to add size. Grow your medial deltoids – the muscle where shoulder meets arm – and you create the width that makes your V-shape more pronounced. But these muscles fatigue quickly, which means you can’t move as much weight. So focus on tempo, says Savage: “Make sure you lower the weight over at least three seconds.” Slow reps mean your muscle fibres spend more time under tension. Which translates to fuller t-shirts.

The V-Shape Workout

Perform the shoulder workout once a week and the back workout twice a week (with at least two days between them). Focus on form and tempo – slow movements with less weight will build more muscle than hammering out reps, says Savage. And you can’t build a V-shape in a hospital bed.