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If you saw Lee Labrada or Shawn Ray – top competitive bodybuilders of the 1990s, in their street clothes, you may not even know they were bodybuilders. Blessed with fairly wide frames (albeit a bit short) and carefully crafted bone structure, you would see them at a dieted down body weight of 188 pounds, ready for the Olympia stage, and you probably wouldn’t know they were world class bodybuilders!

This is because they were of small stature, and they didn’t carry much body fat. This is true for many bodybuilders who compete at the local or regional and state levels – Until they take off their shirts, you cannot tell they lift weights. They aren’t carrying 30 pounds of fat and water atop their muscles, so you really can’t get a read on how fat they may be – but they’re big as a house.

Is this a dilemma for you? If you aren’t walking around ‘as big as a house’ with plenty of bulk on you, are others seeing that you lift weights? Is it important to you that people everywhere know you are a bodybuilder when you’re in regular long sleeve clothing? Much of this can be addressed, but some of it cannot.

Remember that much of how you are perceived is in how you carry yourself. A man loses 2 inches of height, 15 pounds of size, and a whole lot of respect from the room, when he slouches. If you move, talk, and act like a bodybuilder, then others will probably just think “oh, he must lift weights”. A dead giveaway would be Zubaz striped shorts and a gallon of water in your hand, but you can be more subtle as well.

If it is important to you to ‘look’ like a bodybuilder, in your clothing all of the time, then you may have to bulk up. Is this something that works within the constraints of your personal, health & physique goals and strategies? If you are trying to add new muscle to your frame, then a bulk can be a great idea. However, if your intent is to compete in a few months, then you may just have to accept you are going to be seen as small.

If you are a smaller frame athlete, focused only upon self-improvement & bodybuilding conditioning, and not quite concerned if people at the grocery store realize you work out, then you shouldn’t worry about it. However, if your self-confidence or performance at work, or even romantic pursuits, are dominated by your ability to look like you work out – then you only have two options: Get fat, or wear tighter clothes!