Intro:

Some say looks don’t matter, it's just frame and game. "She rejected you? Its your game bro, just work on your game".

Some say looks are all that matter and no game can make up for lacking looks. "No game can compensate for being under 5'10, its over for average height-cels"

Both are wrong.

Looks are part of the SMV pie chart alongside other factors such as game, frame etc.

Is it 33% looks?

Is it 25% looks?

Is it looks only matter at the very start of the interaction but then ceases to?

I don’t know man, I’m Apollo not Zeus. All I know is it’s a part of the SMV pie. And since you want a bigger SMV pie, it helps to work on ALL parts of the pie.

Remember, girls don't evaluate male SMV the way guys evaluate female SMV. Their evaluation is more holistic whereas with guys, it trends towards being binary. Thats why guys will always want to bang the hot girl unless something is extremely off e.g BPD or believes in MUH patriarchy. Whereas with girls, the guy with the good body can still get rejected for acting like a bitch but the fat confident guy can get still laid.

"But wait Apollo, doesn't that mean-"

No.

"I can get laid whilst being-"

No. Don't try it....I have the high ground. To become the unattractive confident guy, its going to take a hell of a lot more effort than if you just went to the gym. To be that, you are going to need to max out everything else of the PIE, whereas if you just lifted, you wouldn't need to.

Lifting isn't up for debate so just lift m'kay?

Now, lets start from the top to bottom on how to maximise looks.

Body:

Hair:

Make sure you have a certain hairstyle. Don't just "leave it". Don't just let it hang.

Your hair matters. If right now, you don't have a certain style and are just winging it, i'd recommend getting a classic fade undercut. Something like this. Anything with really short sides, and more hair on top. This is what I show to any new barber before I can just say the usual. This does require some upkeep, however, you have to go every 3 weeks to keep the sides short. Ideally every 2 weeks if you can to keep it sharp. Don't get lazy.

Why this hairstyle? Its classic, fashionable, and accentuates your face/head making it more angular. You tell me, what looks more masculine: any of these hairstyles or these hairstyles?

"But Apollo, I want a unique hairstyle, I don't want a basic hairstyle that everyone has!"

Unique doesn't mean good, good means good. And right now, an undercut fade is "good". Now is not the time to find some really cool unique hairstyle...that comes later.

Hair loss/balding/prone to hair loss: I'm no authority on hair loss, Zeus blessed Apollo with a head full of hair...for now. But here's what I do know. If you have early signs of hair loss, just know....YOU CAN STILL FIX IT.

Hair loss is very preventable at the early stages, but you need to act fast and do your research. There are plenty of treatments out there, think Rogaine is a good one, but again, do your research, they each work differently. Use youtube and reddit for this.

If you know you are prone to hairless but haven't started losing hair, I'd recommend taking zinc (more on supplements below). Zinc, b vitamins and vitamin D all have been shown to prevent hair loss. Probably avoid creatine as well since creatine can accelerate hair loss....if, and only if, you are already prone to it.

Eyebrows:

If your eyebrows can overgrow to become a monobrow, just get a pair of tweezers and pluck those hairs out (never shave the gap in). Or do you want to be this guy? Thought so.

Eyes:

If you wear glasses, get big/medium sized frames. Don't wear grandma glasses like these or this. Ditch any really small frame. They are unfashionable these days. Instead go for bigger frames like club masters, aviators (or aviator inspired), anything similar to those size-wise.

Or just wear contacts.

Beard:

The best type of beard women like and looks the best on most guys is the stubble beard. Think like the 4/5th day after shaving. That 5 o'clock shadow. Something Like this.

So... how do we achieve that? Get a trimmer and trim it anywhere between 3-5 mm, twice a week.

With this type of beard, you cannot afford to get lazy.

You need to define your beard by shaving/trimming off stray hairs on your cheek. Now, if you are a real red pill supreme 9000 dark wolf alfalfa , you use a straight/cut throat razor for this as such. If not, use a safety razor although I find using a straight razor easier for defining these lines. Both safety and staight razors are MUCH cheaper in the long run compared to normal cartridge razors. You pay upfront $10-30 or whatever for the razor, and blade refills cost something less than $10...for 100 of them.

You can get 100 blades (which cut better than normal cartridge blades and don't irritate) for about the price of 2 cartridge refills.

You also need to make sure the neckline is taken care of regularly. Don't trim the neckline completely straight, trim them with a V/U shape like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IAMYLHz7Kk .

Why?

When you trim your neck to follow your natural contour of the jaw like such, it really accentuates your jawline and makes it look better than it really as you see with that guy at the end of the video.

This is where the twice a week bit comes in, you can probably get away with trimming the beard once a week, but with the neckline you won't. At 3-5mm, your beard hairs are quite short so just a little neck hair growth is enough to make everything blend in and boom...now you have lost all the angles and definition and got yourself a neckbeard. Congrats.

Thats why you need to trim the neckline twice a week without the guard or just shave it off. If you are going to shave the neck hairs instead of just trim without the guard, I'd probably recommend the safety razor over straight razor. Straight razors cut too close on the neck for me.

Guess the straight razor just mogged me, so I am no longer a real red pill supreme 9000 dark wolf alfalfa :(

Whatever you use, just a trimmer, trimmer+cut throat or trimmer+safety razor, just DON'T USE GILETTE.

They gave you the middle finger, remember?

Neck:

Take the neck pill, and train your neck.

Why?

Look at this guy, he's probably pretty jacked right?

Wrong.

He's not

Thats the effect of neck training. Makes you look more jacked than you are. That and also increased stability of the head decreasing risk of concussion. Just ask Mike Tyson about neck training.

It’s no coincidence that no professional fighter has a pencil neck.

Deadlifts alone won't give you a neck to write home about. So..how do we achieve a strong and yoked neck?

Neck extensions, neck curls, and side neck extensions. Do these. Start off easy, couple times to few times a week. And use light weight at the start. You don't need much weight to train those muscles. Don't start training your neck everyday.

Don't do neck bridges, these place a lot of pressure in the upper spine, it's a nice party trick...but thats really it. Not worth the risk when you have these other exercises.

Physique:

Lift. Nothing new here. The programme you do matters little especially at beginner-novice stages, any solid programme will give you good growth as long as you are eating and resting right.

If you don't think lifting is worth it, then under the decree of Mount Olympus, I, Apollo, sentence you to eternal damnation in the pits of Tartarus aka r relationship advice. They'll tell you all the lies you want and how you just have to wait to find the right one who will appreciate your bubble gut bonanza.

The one caveat I would add is geared towards those doing 5x5 or similar programmes. There's nothing necessarily wrong with the programme, but I do feel it doesn't address supplementary body parts enough. This applies even more for the upper chest and side delts. Normal bench and barbell shoulder pressing don't engage these parts enough imo.

I would recommend adding just a few sets of incline dumbbell benching on the days you flat bench. Put the incline only one or maximum two above flat. You don't need crazy inclines, that is a shoulder waiting to pop. And please, tuck in the elbows, keep them at 45 degrees. For some reason, everyone remembers to have good form on the flat barbell bench but then everything gets thrown out the window with dumbbell incline benching.

It's the same movement so keep the same form as flat bench.

With side delts, I recommend adding a few sets for them on the day you barbell shoulder press. I like to do a super set where one set is doing a cheat lateral raise up and controlling the negative one delt at a time (look up athlean x shoulder raise) and then doing strict y raises where I lean chest facing on a bench set one/two notches below vertical and raise the dumbbells to make a y position with my arms (Ie raise your arms at about 45 degrees each). Youtube "Y raise" for more info.

These two muscle groups will really help creating that V-taper which is synonymous with masculine men.

But don't skip calf training okay?

Posture:

I know my fellow e-sport gaming athletes like their vidya games but you got to know, they aren't good for you. They are mentally bad for you: they harness the fact men are human doings and know men derive purpose by doing shit so they put you on square 1 with nothing and make you grind on their game tricking you into thinking you're conquering challenges, and accomplishing something when in reality you are not and instead depriving you of chances of real masculine growth. u/Thotwrecker left an amazing comment about this here. Summarising it wouldn't do it justice.

They are physically bad for you as well. Sitting for extended periods of time isn't good for the glutes, and also promotes ugly forward head posture. What happens is the muscles on the back of the neck get tight and the muscles on the front of the neck get weak creating a feedback loop where you naturally sit more and more with this bad posture.

When you sit, make sure you sit back straight, head back. Be conscientious of your posture.

Thats a preventative measure , but how do we fix this?

Well if you did your neck curls, your front neck muscles would be strong, that just leaves the tight neck muscles. These require stretching. Stretch these before you go to bed for the best results.

This video is good for sorting out tight neck muscles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA3O0NVb-sk

I also do a similar variation on top of this (couldn't find the video for that), but I'll briefly describe it. Put your head, shoulder blades, hips, glutes, and heels in contact with the wall (like the video except this time, put the glutes and heels on the wall as well). Then, tuck your chin in and hold for 45-60 seconds. Breathe deep and on each exhale or so try to tuck your chin a little bit more, you will feel the neck muscles light on fire. For a stronger stretch, keep everything the same but this time let the heels come out forward a bit and hold again for 45-60 seconds tucking your chin in more and more. Do this for 3 sets before you go to sleep.

With this picture, we also see that rounded shoulders is part of the problem and therefore need a corrective stretch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02HdChcpyBs.

I do the stretch he showed for the first minute but just on the floor with a stick. But you can try this with a towel as well. Its much harder on the floor, as you can't cheat as much. Flex your quads above the ground if you struggle to get the bar over your shoulders.

This is a great and very difficult stretch if you have never done this before and have even slightly rounded shoulders. If I miss just one of these stretching sessions after benching, I dread the next session because I know how sore and hard it will be to do it at shoulder width grip. Start off wide do 12 reps, rest and do 2 more sets. The goal is for you to eventually be able to take a shoulder width grip and be able to bring the stick/towel up and over your head touching your lower back/glutes. Do this after a bench day and you will see how sore your shoulders/upper chest will be. Thats all the tension getting released.

This and the neck stretch will correct your posture letting you stand tall with your chest out naturally without needing to consciously adjust it every few minutes.

How do you prevent rounded shoulders in this first place?

Again, posture. Be conscientious of it when you sit, don't let them hunch over. But also, its how you train at the gym. You do flat bench, incline bench, decline press, close grip bench for triceps, shoulder press, Arnold press...you know what all those exercises work?

The front delts. The front delts are getting over-developed (any push movement will use the front delts no matter how hard we try to take them out) and leaving the rear delts under-developed. Have you ever seen a bodybuilder with under developed front delts? No, such bodybuilder doesn't exist, but I can find you many with lagging calves, hamstrings or rear delts. Most exercises naturally work the front delt but most exercises do not naturally work the rear delt. So what do?

Implement rear delt specific exercises such as face pulls and rear delt rows. (I prefer face pulls but each to his own). Just a few sets a week alongside those stretches should prevent rounded shoulders.

I don't know any really good rounded upper back stretches, will try to find some and may edit it in later.

Fashion:

Keep to more neutral/dark colours. Black, white, grey. Have the odd colourful item if you want.

But ultimately, your casual wardrobe should consist of white, black grey t shirts. Uniqlo do some good t shirts for fair prices.

Pay attention to the fit, the best fit would be one that fits somewhat close to chest, shoulders accentuating them but looser around stomach. Also, check the sleeve length. You want a slightly shorter sleeve length that way bitches can check out the gun show/at least give off the illusion of one. Ideal length is covering only the top third of the bicep . If you get lucky, some t shirts will have a sleeve length which just cover the the shoulder and barely anything else.

With bottoms, have a few denim jeans. Get dark blue wash, black and lighter blue wash denim jeans. Then you can buy whatever chinos you like or anything else you want to experiment with. Just make sure its tapered from the knee down, having straight/bootcut jeans don't look good anymore. Fit matters these days. Not saying you should buy skinny jeans either, just get tapered/slim jeans. Hollister/abercrombie and Uniqlo do a range of jean styles and are all fairly stretchy.

Get your t shirt sleeve length and jeans tailored if you can't find the perfect length/fit off the shelf (you probably won't).

Jackets- bomber jackets, pea coats, Canada goose-style jackets (you know... the one with the fur on the hood) shearling jackets (faux shearling jackets aren't bad either) are all in fashion right now.

Again, nows not the time to get all unique and creative. That comes later. Check r male fashion advice for more info.

Accessories:

Now, this won't make or break you but its nice to have one accessory piece or two. Think like a cuban chain, a watch, a ring or a bracelet.

Avoid fashion brand watches eg MVMT, Armani, vincero- ie any watch a fashion youtuber promotes. Those are overhyped and shitty Ali express watches with a high mark up. Their normal fashion advice is fine though.

Go for anything from Casio, Seiko, Citizen, Orient. All of these are good watch brands and have many watches for different budgets. Or just go to amazon and see what you like.

You'd be surprised how many times girls would say "nice watch" or "where did you get that watch" for a simple $100 watch.

Supplements:

Zinc- Great for testosterone, sperm production and to prevent hair loss. Its quite difficult for most people to get their daily zinc since it is only found plentifully in seafood like oysters which isn't part of most peoples daily diet. Take zinc picolinate, zinc citrate or cheleated zinc (ie zinc bound to an amino acid). Most zinc supplements are shit since they use zinc oxide which isn't bioavailable.

Vitamin D- also required for testosterone production and hair growth. If you are in the West, taking a vitamin D3 supplement should be mandatory regardless of your skin since we get so little light due to the weather for half the year and how we spend most of our lives indoors. If you live near the equator and spend a fair bit of your time outdoors then you can probably skip this .

Magnesium- this also helps testosterone but mainly it’s for helping your body use vitamin D. Helps with sleep. It also strengthens bones and prevents osteoporosis, perhaps more so than calcium. Again, avoid magnesium oxide, it’s not very bioavailable. Magnesium citrate, or glycinate are your friends.

Whey: Grass fed organic whey isolate. It’s the best, and barely more expensive than regular whey isolate.