The best shorts for short guys who lift are shorts that are a little bit shorter. What I mean is, if you’re in a standing position and the bottom hem falls just above the knee, and a little bit higher than your vastus medialis, that’s going to give you the best look. You also want a tighter fit. Let me explain why.
Before I give you my reasons, I should preface this by saying that I grew up at a time when shorts cut above the knee were considered ‘gay.’
Back in the 90’s, if you were wearing shorts that showed your quads at all, it was like you were a girl in a Muslim country showing her ankles. It was not to be done.
You would be mercilessly made fun of and shunned. You would be treated as if you had leprosy or like you were mentally deficient or something.
So, as a result of all that, I’ve lived the last twenty-five years of my life wearing gym shorts cut below the knee, always. And not only were they cut below the knee, they also had to be extremely loose-fitting.
See, guys who are tall look better with longer and looser-fitting shorts, but for us guys who are short, longer and looser-fitting shorts end up making us look short and fat.
And, yeah, I’m including those of us who are 5′ 8″, like me, as being in the short category because, even though it’s on the higher end of the short spectrum, it’s still considered short by the majority of people out there.
How to own your shortness
For a lot of people, being short has no effect on their ability to relate to others. These types of people typically have highly dynamic personalities and lots of redeeming qualities etc. etc. etc.
But, for some, and I was like this, being short could be a source of insecurity and something that prevents us from putting our best foot forward.
When you’re the shortest guy in your friend group, it’s easy to feel like you’re the oddball, but just remember, this feeling has nothing to do with reality.
What I mean is, the only one who cares about your lack of height is you, frankly. Other people don’t really care how tall you are unless you’re unnecessarily drawing attention to your shortness.
But, the key is, there must be a mental shift in you that, first and foremost, rejects the idea that being tall is better than being short.
Being short or tall is irrelevant to who you are as a person. What matters is what you do with what you were given.
If you learn how to highlight your own attributes instead of trying to emulate guys who are taller than you, you’ll be a lot better off.
Even a small change, like wearing appropriately-sized gym shorts that fit your body type, can vastly improve your looks.
Shorts with a 5″ inseam, for example, usually look awesome on short guys because they show off our quads better and give us the appearance of having longer legs, which helps to even out our proportions and make us look more balanced. Especially if we’re sporting muscular, striated quads.
What you want is for the bottom of your vastus medialis, otherwise known as the teardrop muscle on your quads, to peak out when you’re wearing your shorts.
You also want to look for shorts that are more fitted, so they show off the bottom half of your physique better, instead of billowing out like a sail on a sailboat.
Trust me, if you take my advice, you’ll look one thousand percent better than if you were to wear long skirt-shorts that make you look like a midget.
Even if you aren’t that lean yet, like in my case.
How to train your vastus medialis ‘teardrop’ muscles
When I was a trainer, I’d get clients on the leg extension machine with their toes pointed slightly outward in order to isolate the vastus medialis, but if you don’t have a gym membership, or prefer to train at home, I’d recommend some narrow stance bodyweight squats graduating to a Bulgarian split-squat graduating to a pistol squat.
You might also want to try a wall sit with your back up against the wall and your quads perpendicular to the wall, but with your feet positioned on an incline. Sometimes you can find some triangular-shaped foam blocks to stand on that will give you the correct incline to best target these muscles.
The beauty is, you don’t need tremendous amounts of weight in order to train the vastus medials muscles.
Personally, I find that doing sissy squats on my sissy squat bench with a narrow stance using bodyweight alone is enough to give me some really good muscle activation and gains.
Here’s a great video Steve Cooke did on some other ways to target the vastus medialis muscles.
Best shorts for short guys who lift
This section is a work in progress, but so far, I can tell you that if you shop around the clearance aisle at places like Walmart, or Target, which is what I sometimes do, you can sometimes find very good deals on shorts for under $10.
The shorts in the picture above this post, the one on the left, are from Target. They’re a brand called, ‘Original Use.’
There are also some promising-looking shorts on Amazon, but I haven’t tried them yet. When I do, I will update this post.
Your training partner,
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