If a man is wearing armor, how can you tell if his torso is rippling?
And if you can see his rippling torso, because he’s too vain to wear armor (or even a shirt) then he must be gay.
Actually that is a myth.
A real warrior of the period would not have rippling muscles. Not because he was not muscled but because he would carry enough subcutaneous fat to both have energy stores for fighting extended battles and water for the loss of water through perspiration.
The exaggerated “cut” physique of the low body fat super fit male bodybuilder would not survive long in the hand to hand battles of the medieval period.
He would quickly exhaust the energy stores in his muscles and sweat away the little stored water in his meager body fat. This would cause him to lose control of his muscles because of electrolyte imbalance in his blood. He may even suffer a heart attack or stroke.
Unless he has frequent access to water, fruit and salt during the battle I suspect he would quickly parish.
An army marching and in battle consumes a huge number of calories a day. Many a war has been lost because the loosing army’s supply lines were cut or could not keep up with the advancing army.
A certain amount of body fat is absolutely essential in a line soldier for a number of reasons.