In the past, muscular men have been relegated to wearing hoodies, t shirts and sweatpants no matter where they’re going.  Going to a nice dinner?  Throw on the hoodie.  Taking someone out on a date?  Better put on your nicest sweatpants.  This is due to the wild proportions of the physique they have worked so hard for.  Consider this: an average man has a chest/waist ratio of 1.10 - 1.15.  That means if a man has a 44” chest, he will likely have a 38”- 40” waist. 

Now if we look at an athlete, these ratios can be drastically different.  A man with a 45” chest and a 32” waist would certainly exude the characteristics of an athletic man.  This works out to a ratio of 1.41.  If we go even further and look at a bodybuilder, the ratio can be even more extreme.  A ratio of 1.50 or higher is not out of the question.  This would be a 48” or bigger chest paired with a 32” waist.

 Do you know your chest to waist ratio?

 


Man wearing a hoodie in the gymIf you have a muscular physique, you understand this all too well.  You try on dress shirts but can’t seem to find anything that fits.  If the shirt fits your shoulders, you have excessive bagginess around the waist.  And conversely, if it fits your trim waist, you will end up ripping through the shoulders when you try to move. Big clothing manufacturers look at these ratios when they decide how to construct their clothes.  They want to target the largest possible market so they can generate the highest possible number of clothing sales.  Unfortunately, they aren’t going to make their money on athletes with a high chest to waist ratio.  The sad fact is that there just aren’t as many athletes as there are men with lower-ratio bodies. 

Several innovations have come about recently that help an athletic man with this problem.  New fabrics with stretch have become more readily available.  Some companies, like Atlas Menswear, incorporate these flexible fabrics in their clothing to add comfort and function to their clothing.  One thing to remember, a flexible fabric isn’t a “fix all”.  The basic construction and fit of the shirt have to be dialed in before adding a flexible fabric.  Atlas Menswear spent months in the gym measuring athletes, so the fit of the shirts is perfect for muscular men.  The flexible fabric should be icing on the cake when everything else is done right. 

 

Another innovation is performance fabric.  Performance indicates the fabric has some kind of functionality.  Moisture wicking, active cooling, and active drying are the top performance characteristics that add to the comfort of a shirt for athletes.  Most men who are regulars at the gym are accustomed to wearing a gym shirt with some of these performance features.  Atlas Menswear dress shirts boast performance features that make the shirts incredibly comfortable, even in hot weather.  If you’re accustomed to wearing a gym shirt then an Atlas Menswear dress shirt will be an easy transition.  It’s one reason people call it “The dress shirt with the heart of a gym shirt”. 

Ecommerce has significantly shaped the way clothing brands are able to do business.  Niche markets allow a company to focus on a specific type of customer and serve them better than companies that try to appeal to a wider market.  It is difficult for a brick and mortar store to serve a niche market because the geographical limitations make the market so small.  Ecommerce allows a company to niche down yet still have a large enough market to be successful.  Atlas Menswear solely focuses on making clothes for a muscular build.  With access to the vast geographical space that ecommerce provides, Atlas Menswear can narrow its focus to one specific type of customer and still have a large enough audience to thrive. 

Traditionally, it was hard for men with muscular builds to find well-fitting clothing without spending hundreds buying the clothes and then taking them to a tailor and having them altered to attempt a muscle fit.  Today muscular men have much better options so they can look as great in the office or on the town as they do in the gym.