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What Are The Most Attractive Muscles On A Guy According To Girls? (Scientific Analysis)

by Jeremy Ethier - August 10, 2024

Today, we answer the most important question known to gym bros worldwide. What are the most attractive muscles on a guy (according to girls)?

To find out, I’m hitting the beach to gather data from a bunch of girls, then running a full statistical analysis to determine what are the most attractive muscles on a guy according to girls — and finding out which muscle ranks the highest and which ones they just don't seem to care for along the way.

At the end, I’ll also reveal the one unexpected personality trait that actually outperformed all the muscles we surveyed.

Do Guys Know What Girls Think Are The Most Attractive Muscles On A Guy?

But to start things off, I want to first ask the guys what they believed to be the most attractive muscles on a guy that girls would pick.

Do we really understand what women want?

After talking to the guys, our leading predictions for the most attractive muscles on a guy were chest ...

And shoulders.

Asking Girls

This means it’s finally time to start talking to ladies what they really thought were the most attractive muscles on a guy, but I’m gonna need some assistance.

This is Max.

Max has one of the best-proportioned physiques I know and is going to be our Muscle Model for the day, just in case the girls need a visual reference before making their choice.

But what Max doesn’t know is I'm secretly playing matchmaker!

Max is as nice as he is buff, and he's single too. As we interview girls to find out what they think are the most attractive muscles on a guy, let's see if we can find someone truly special for him.

Turns out our first couple attempts didn’t go that great — even though Max is in amazing shape, he’s also incredibly shy.

And while I was failing in my role as a wingman, we were at least getting some really valuable answers from the girls.

In addition to having the girls pick their #1 muscle, I also had them rate each muscle on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most attractive. 

After we get enough data, I’ll be using a scientific tool called ANOVA to determine which muscle is not just the most attractive, but if it actually reaches statistical significance. 

This way, we can confidently say if certain muscles are genuinely more attractive and which muscles are not. 

A Preliminary Analysis Of The Data

By this point, I was already finding one muscle group that was doing surprisingly worse than I expected. Abs.

But before you guys ditch the diet and jump on a bulk for the rest of your life, I did notice something interesting with the data. 

Although abs score low on average, when I count how frequently girls pick them as the most attractive muscle, they’re actually in the top 3. 

This suggests that while, on average, girls don’t really seem to care much for six-pack abs, the ones who do find them attractive and score them as a 10. 

Which just goes to show that even if a muscle doesn’t score high on our study there is still someone out there who may be attracted to just that.

With Max’s body and my skills as a wing Man I was finally able to set Max up with some potential first dates. 

How Much Do Muscles On A Guy Factor Into His Attractiveness?

But how much of his success was coming from his muscles? 

Well, this goes back to our ancestral times.

Back then, strong muscles showed that a man could protect and support his family. But it wasn't just about fighting ability; since building muscle needs protein-rich food, it meant these men were good hunters too. So today, even though most men get muscles at gyms rather than hunting, attraction to muscles should still be hard-wired into their DNA.

While having some muscle was definitely seen as positive by almost every girl we spoke to, they were generally seen as far less important than most guys predicted. 

So, if you are hitting the gym, you're probably better off picking a goal that’s important to you rather than just trying to impress girls. I won’t say muscle doesn’t help, but in my experience, it typically leads to a lot more compliments from gym bros rather than the ladies. 

Results Time

As for the results of our survey, we managed to collect over 50 responses from our interviews about the most attractive muscles on a guy on the beach. 

But based on a statistics tool called G-power, it recommended we aim for at least 200 to make our results statistically valid. 

So after sending out a quick online survey, we had all the data we needed to determine the most attractive muscles on a guy.

And here’s what we found.

Calves came in dead last with only 3 first place votes out of 205 responses. As it turns out, not a lot of girls really love calves. Next were glutes, legs and abs.

Most Attractive Muscles On A Guy

Now, while those muscles significantly outperform calves, their scores were much lower than the upper body muscles, chest, back, and shoulders.

But there was only 1 muscle that reached statistical significance when compared to every other muscle.

Arms.

In fact, on average 1 of every 3 girls we surveyed picked arms as their number 1 muscle. 

(By the way, here's how I blew up my arms.)

TL;DR

  • Guys thought girls would pick chest and shoulders as the most attractive muscles on a guy.
  • Turns out, they were wrong. What eventually won as the most attractive muscles on a guy were the arms.
  • Other muscles of interest in order, from most attractive to least, were the chest, back, shoulders, glutes, legs, abs, and, finally, calves, which came in dead last.

But even though nice arms still won't guarantee the girl of your dreams, there was one personality trait that outperformed every muscle we surveyed.

Humor.

I Can't Teach You How To Be Funnier, But ...

So while I can’t teach you how to be funnier, I CAN help you get lean and muscular as fast and as efficiently as possible using science. We’ve helped countless people transform their bodies and lifestyles with proven meal plans and workouts using the best data available.

To sign up today, just take our quick, free analysis quiz below to discover the best Built With Science program for you:

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Isn’t that right, Max?... Max?  Where’d he go?

By the way, here’s the article summed up into a YouTube video:

What Muscles Do Girls ACTUALLY Care About?

What Are The Most Attractive Muscles On A Guy According To Girls? (Scientific Analysis)

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