Even the best boxer in the world knows how to train for his body type. We may not all be pro athletes, but we all can keep our bodies fit and strong if we have the right information about how to train for our body types, combined with some discipline in our training and eating habits.

The most frequent excuse given by hard gainers and obese people is genetics. Genetically, our body types can be divided into 3 main categories:

  • ectomorph
  • endomorph
  • mesomorph

Our genetics or natural body type is not an excuse for us not to achieve our fitness goals or to look healthy. However, it is well understood; it is a massive weapon to have a great physique and body.

training tips for ectomorphs endomorphs and mesomorphs

Training and nutrition tips for ectomorphs endomorphs and mesomorphs to help achieve your fitness goals

The first rule in building a great body is understanding your body type and how it works. Genetically we have different body types with different proportions and rates of metabolism. What works for an ectomorph might not work for an endomorph.

The 3 main body types:

  • Ectomorphs: this is the type of body often described as a modeling stature that we see on various pages of fashion magazines. They are slim boned, long-limbed, lithe and have very little body fat and little Ectomorphs tend to have fragile, delicately built bodies and find it difficult to gain weight or add muscle. They are typically skinny with a lot of lean muscle mass.
  • Endomorphs: An endomorph is a person whose bulking period is marked by a significant amount of fat gain in addition to muscle gain, and whose cutting period is marked by a long and challenging attempt at fat loss. This body type is characterized by prominent stature, high body fat, often pear-shaped body, high tendency to store fat easily, difficulty losing fat. If you notice that you add weight easily and have trouble losing them, you belong to this category.
  • Mesomorphs: This is individuals with a balance between the two body types.  They are often  Muscular and well-built, with a high metabolism and active muscle cells..they have the popular athletic and muscular body type. They are naturally strong with well-defined muscles. They gain muscle and fat easier than ectomorphs.

best workout for ectomorphs

Best Workout for Ectomorphs

Due to the smaller frame, fast metabolism and difficulty in gaining weight of ectomorphs, their kind of workout needs to suit their body type. Are you the skinny type and tired of going to the gym every day and eating everything that comes your way, and yet you have no body mass to show for it?  An Ectomorph’s workouts should have the following characteristics:

  • Duration and intensity: The workout must be short and intense to allow enough time for recovery due to their fast metabolism. Ectomorphs do not need to spend too much time in the gym; you only need to make every second count while working out and fuel your muscles with a lot of nutrients for it to grow.
  • Exercise types: Ectomorphs need to focus on compound exercises ( chest press, squat, deadlift, shoulder press) to work for all the major muscle groups. An ectomorph naturally has a smaller muscular frame; you need to build an overall more significant muscle mass first, with compound exercises, before the split or specific exercises. 
  • Diet: Ectomorphs needs to eat a lot of good food to match the raising of their metabolism. It is advisable to eat before bedtime to prevent muscle aphasia and catabolism.

The Best Boxer In the World Knows How to Train for His Body Type

best workout types for mesomorphs

Best Workout Types for Mesomorphs

Mesomorphs are genetically gifted with a naturally athletic, muscular frame; they gain muscle and fats easily. Have you ever had a friend that seems to workout less or never, and has this muscular frame or stature? They are called mesomorphs.

The workout types of mesomorphs must include the following characteristics:

  • Exercise type: Due to their genetically orchestrated muscle mass, and ability to gain muscle and fats easily, mesomorphs respond better to weight training and cardio. Cardio exercises increase your heart rate and make you sweat a lot within a short duration. Mesomorphs respond better to weight training due to their body characteristics and metabolism.
  • Calorie intake: Mesomorphs needs to watch their calorie intake because of their ability to gain fat quickly. They need to eat the number of calories necessary for them to build or maintain their body weight. This is the primary problems of mesomorphs, the ability to eat without overindulging.

What is an Endomorph?

Endomorphs put on weight quickly. Some people would kill to be classified as an endomorph. For rapid muscular growth, this sounds like a blessing. Unfortunately weight gain, in this case, leads to the excessive accumulation of body fat, particularly around the midsection, unless you take the proper action.

Chris Farley was an Endomorph

Far from falling within the realm of physique artistry, Chris Farley is the classic endomorph. Endomorphs can usually be classified by soft and round bodies. Before weight training, their muscles are very underdeveloped. Endomorphs are identified by a very robust girth. The arms and legs of an endomorph are short in length, further exacerbating the look of squatty, small individual.

If this sounds like you, don’t fret. You’re not alone. And it’s not all grim, either.

Weight Loss and Muscle Gain Challenges Faced by Endomorphs

The good news is endomorphs can gain muscle fairly quickly. The bad news is this body type is prone to excessive accumulation of body fat, especially in the form of a giant “spare tire” in the midsection.

Endomorphs cannot afford to consume excessive carbohydrates. For the endomorph, low carb diets will produce vastly superior results. Protein consumption should be more than 1 gram per pound of target bodyweight each day, with a relatively high dietary fat consumption. A great place to start nutritionally is consuming 10-12 calories per pound of bodyweight and adjust accordingly up or down, based on your appearance.

Protein consumption post-workout is excellent, but while mesomorphs and endomorphs benefit from a protein/simple carbohydrate mix, endomorphs with excessive body fat do not. Therefore, carb introduction should be minimized post-workout.

training tips for endomorphs

Best Workout Plans and Training Tips for Endomorphs

If you’re ready to look less like Farley and more like Franco (Columbus), then you need to plan your training right – in conjunction with the nutritional guidelines  below:

  • Perform eight sets or more per body part. A higher proportion of work, relative to mesomorphs, will help you break down muscle and burn calories at a pace more conducive to slimming you out.
  • Majority of reps should be in the 8-15 range. This is a general prescription for hypertrophy. By adding more muscle, you make your body more metabolically active.
  • Recovery is faster than the mesomorph but slower than the ectomorph. If you feel ready to train a body part again, feel free. Teaching sore won’t hinder your body’s ability to benefit from workouts. More frequent training will help to nuke more calories per week.
  • Limit carb intake. Your body is likely to store a lot of your carbs as fat. So instead, reduce carb intake throughout the day, the exceptions being pre- and post-workout. Those servings should still be modest. Drastically reduce or eliminate carbs in the evening so that you start each day with something of a carb deficit, leaving your body to search for fuel elsewhere. You can compound this benefit by training in the morning.
  • Train with a mixture of steady state cardio and high-intensity intervals. Both have benefits that can help you tighten up. Steady-state helps to increase total intra-workout calorie burn and HIIT cranks up your post-workout metabolism. A mix of both will help increase results

Endomorphs responds mostly to weight training and cardio, but they are advised to watch their calorie intake due to their metabolism type and high tendency to gain fat easily.

For most guys, when they think of conditioning for fat loss, it means either nausea-inducing sprints or churning away on a treadmill for hours like a hamster. Fortunately, there’s an alternative style of training that’s as time-efficient as sprints and doesn’t require you to stray away from the weights. Furthermore, because this form of training emphasizes high-volume technical exercises, you’ll be able to get more skillful repetitions for different lifts that many guys struggle with. What this means for you is that this program will help you get stronger at technical lifts while also improving your body composition. How do you go about achieving this goal?  With High-Intensity Power Training.

Researchers wanted to examine what effects Crossfit-style High-Intensity Power Training had on body composition and aerobic fitness. They had a 43-person group consisting of healthy men and women participate in a 10-week High-Intensity Power Training program. The program included various lifts performed as quickly as possible, combined with skill work for select gymnastic exercises, and Olympic lifts. The study results showed that both genders were able to improve their aerobic fitness as evidenced by improvements in their VO2 max numbers. In addition to this, both sexes were also able to reduce their body fat percentages to the tune of 3.3% less body fat in the female participants and 4.0% less body fat in the male participants.

The Proper combination of High-intensity interval training(HIIT) and compound exercises (bench press, squats, deadlifts, and shoulder press) is an efficient way to build muscle, keep fit, and have a good physique irrespective of your body type. These results can only be achieved if the exercises are correctly done.

 3 best ways to improve your squats

3 Ways to Improve Your Squats

  • Proper technique: Above all, you need to dial in your technique. If your technique is weak, it makes no sense to start adding more weight and injuring yourself further. There are 3 very simple cues you always need to be thinking when you squat; chest up, hips back, and knees out. Most people squat straightdown, instead of pushing their hips back into a hip hinge pattern while driving their knees out, which forces them into a vertical and more quad-dominant squatting pattern. This squat requires excellent mobility at the upper back, hips, and ankles and a strong core and upper back. If you don’t have all of these qualities and your movement is limited, you are more likely to fall forward when the weights get heavier.

Two drills to help you keep your chest up, push your hips back and drive your knee are wall squats  (which will load your posterior chain to a greater extent) – where you face a wall with your feet about 6” away and squat down without hitting the wall, trying to go as deep as possible . Goblet squats: where you hold a dumbbell vertically on one end and squat down keeping your chest out and driving your knees outward – will teach you proper positioning during the typical squat pattern.

  • Bar position: Try different bar positions on your back.  If you have a higher bar position – right at the base of your neck – you will need to have good mobility in your upper back, hips, and ankles to be able to keep your torso vertical during the squat exercise.

If you don’t have this mobility and you are weak, you will more than likely tip forward as you descend into the bottom of the squat.  It is simple physics. The longer the distance from your hips to the bar (high bar position = increased moment arm), the higher the torque at the hips.  If you have a lower bar position (around mid-trap) and slightly wider stance (slightly wider than shoulder width) – you will decrease the distance from the bar to your hips (shorter moment arm), and you will have better leverage. This might allow you to stay more vertical when you squat if you have excellent core stability and enough hip mobility. Play around with the bar position to find the one that works best for you.

  • Get stronger: If your core is weak – all of the muscles that surround your torso from the shoulders to the knees – then you will be more likely to fall forward when you squat. You need a strong core to stay tight and keep your torso as straight as possible when you squat.  And setting the tension in the torso all starts with breathing. Before you begin the squat, you should take a full deep breath – expanding your abdomen and your chest – and hold it to set intra-abdominal pressure or IAP and to help neutralize your hips. Starting the squat movement with a better position at the hips and with good intra-abdominal force will be essential to moving through a vast range of motion with a more vertical torso angle. After you complete one repetition, repeat this deep breath and hold before you hit the next rep. Treat each repetition in the set like its own single set. So, instead of thinking of 10 reps, think 10 singles.

Getting the best out of any training regimen and body type requires proper understanding about them. Discover your body type and do what it needs, success is guaranteed.you can tell your fitness story after applying this. If you have any unusual symptoms or pain contact your doctor.

References

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Ilman, M., Zuhairini, Y. and Siddiq, A. (2015). Correlation between Body Mass Index and Body Fat Percentage. Althea Medical Journal, 2(4).

Karunasena, N., Bulugahapitiya, U., Chulasiri, P. and Ariyawansa, S. (2014). Use of visceral fat percentage and body fat percentage compared to anthropometric parameters in predicting obesity and cardiovascular risk in Sri Lankan population. Endocrine Abstracts.

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Stanner, S. (2012). Is a high-carb diet ‘poison’ to people with diabetes?. Nutrition Bulletin, 37(4), pp.350-354.

Vermaas, E. and Fattaey, A. (1998). A green fluorescent protein tool for cell-cycle research. Technical Tips Online, 3(1), pp.13-16.

Weichselbaum, E. (2011). Dairy and the 21st-century diet: nutrition and sustainability. Nutrition Bulletin, 36(2), pp.276-279.

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