Just like it sounds, that is the hormone that helps you grow muscle and bone but it also helps regulate your body composition, body fluids, sugar and fat metabolism, and heart function. This content does not replace the professional judgment of your own health provider. Please consult a licensed health professional for all individual questions and issues. Jump to Navigation. June 27, All content here is for informational purposes only. About the Author. Brock Armstrong was the host of the Get-Fit Guy podcast between and Follow Facebook Linkedin Pinterest.
When you go to the gym, you can see a pretty good cross-section of these body types. In general, there are three basic body types, although middle-ground cases do exist. These three types are:. The ectomorph is the long, lanky body type. Ectomorphs tend to be naturally skinny, which makes them the envy of those who wish to lose weight. These kinds of people can eat a lot more without gaining weight because they tend to have a faster metabolism. At the same time, ectomorphs can have a hard time putting on muscle and maintaining it over time.
The endomorph is the shorter, stubbier body type. People like this tend to be a little more rotund, but not necessarily overweight or obese. Endomorphs will usually have a harder time losing weight, but they tend to have an easier time packing on muscle.
These body types will usually have shorter, stubbier limbs and digits and a slower metabolism. On the upside, endomorphs have an easier time retaining muscle than endomorphs.
The mesomorph is the classic bodybuilder type. These individuals can be spotted by the fact that their shoulders are slightly wider than their hips. Those will often end up being some CRAZY huge meals, especially for someone with a below-average appetite to begin with. So whereas something like IF intermittent fasting can certainly be a useful approach for some, it might not be as ideal for higher calorie intakes like ours as it is for those with lower-moderate calorie intakes.
I personally find I do best with meals per day currently 4 on rest days, 5 on workout days because my calorie intake is just too high to eat any less frequently and not explode during each meal. And trying to eat even more frequently than that is just pure lifestyle torture I actually spent some time years ago eating times per day… it sucked. But of course, this is nothing more than a suggestion based on a personal preference.
Just a suggestion to keep in mind. Yours will too. Just give it time. And they are:. Yes, good tips for everyone regardless of genetics. But, as with virtually everything else, the ectomorph and extra especially the skinny-fat hardgainer just handles stress and an insufficient amount of sleep worse than most people do. Or, it hits us harder and negatively affects us more. I know the problems. I know how you think.
I know how hard it is and will be. I know what you need to hear. I know what you need to do. I know what you need to avoid doing. And I know that the majority of the diet and training information out there directed at people with our body type and genetics is absolute garbage.
My advice? Read it, understand it, and most importantly… put it all into action. I promise you, it… WILL… work. Come back here and tell me about it. I love all success stories, but success stories from people like us with genetics like ours… I love those even more.
Some thanked me for writing it. Some had additional questions to ask me. And some wanted to tell me how well their progress has gone since putting this advice into action. That means a program designed to maximize our ability to gain lean muscle mass as quickly and effectively as we can… but WITHOUT gaining excess body fat along the way.
Feel free to check it out: Superior Muscle Growth. Don't waste another minute of your time searching for what to do. I've already done the research for you and created step-by-step plans that work. Select your goal below I Want To Build Muscle If you want to build lean muscle without gaining excess body fat, spending all of your time in the gym, using a diet or workout that isn't customized to you, or doing myth-based nonsense that only works for people with amazing genetics, check out: Superior Muscle Growth I Want To Lose Fat If you want to lose body fat without losing muscle, feeling hungry all the time, using stupid restrictive diets, doing hours of cardio, or struggling with plateaus, metabolic slowdown, and everything else that sucks about getting lean, check out: Superior Fat Loss Facebook Twitter 83 Pinterest SHARES ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jay is the science-based writer and researcher behind everything you've seen here.
Thanks again!!! Glad you liked it though! Good read. I then got talked into single body part training and that was my temporary demise. In other words, varied rep ranges from and , long rests on heavier weights, shorter rests on lighter.
One last thing: What has saved my elbows from years of abuse is gymnast rings. All dips, chins, pullups and hanging inverted rows are done on rings. Sounds a lot like my story I have the wrists of a 9 year old girl , except for the part about never going above a inch waist. Now if only most gyms actually had them. Oh I had to buy my own rings. My current gym has no rings, but they do have a couple of good belts around… the exact same leather Grizzly one I bought myself years ago.
Excellent article. Thanks for the valuable tips. Regarding dips on rings: I agree that dips put a lot of stress on the shoulders. But with a little tweak to the technique I think dips are quite awesome! If you bring your knees up in front of you, the torso rotates forward which emphasizes the chest in stead of the triceps. In my experience that puts a lot less stress on your shoulders and you get a nice contraction in the chest.
But sometimes, even after those tweaks, dips or any other exercise, for that matter are still an issue. Experimenting is key. Okay I am confused! Just change in diet and stress. At I felt alive and great, seems it is a natural weight for me. Then I started to workout, track my calorie intake and protien and adjust as needed.
Now I am Been at this weight for 6 months, still eat and track my food. I would like to gain more, but it is slow, however I have gained a lot of muscle. Nah, relax… nothing to be confused about at all. They are just 2 different approaches to putting the same principles and guidelines into action. Wow, that was some awesome piece of work Jay. I feel like some of what you described hardgainers with fits me but not all. I have a remark though. You always have been a strong advocate of following whatever diet that you are more likely to stick with, which is the correct approach in my opinion.
However, you insist that once you hit your protein and fat targets you should fill the rest with carbs. I have personally tried to bulk on a TKD Targeted Ketogenic Diet and was working much better for me weight up with no fat gains , I eventually dropped it due to the crappy food choices. Interesting timing.
I just asked Jay a similar question today. And yes, I went about it the idiotic way… no doubt. Recently, I started following a simple CKD template. This approach has, for the first time, allowed me to experience what is described as recomp. Losing fat while adding muscle. Both at a very slow rate, but simultaneously.
That is huge for me. Just replied to your email, by the way. Your article on the subject of ectomorph and hard gainer was really great. It definitely explained a lot of what a skinny fat person has to do. For years and still currently I have been making the mistake of only eating clean instead of eating smart.
I eat a lot of food meals a day but my caloric intake does not reach anywhere near the goal. In the beginning of my routine I had gained a little weight and muscle size.
But over the last 4 weeks my weight has remained the same but strength continued to increase. I thought okay I look leaner so the fat is melting and being replaced by muscle so the weight is staying the same. No matter how much I eat I still feel hungry five minutes later because everything I eat is either meat and vegetables or a bowl of oatmeal, tuna and lettuce.
I feel like I walk around all day and my body is like can I have some real calories please. Then I have to control myself because I start to crave everything. I added these large sweet potatoes you buy individually in the supermarket and large whole avocados to my diet. I eat the whole sweet potato and whole avocado. Unfortunately I have problems with all dairy and protein supplements so everything has to come from real food.
I want to utilize my time, money, and meals wisely so I can add some calorie dense foods instead of just all meat.
I am determined to succeed at this routine so if I have to eat two large sweet potatoes a day I will. Is there any calorie dense foods you can suggest in your experience that I can add? Thank any help would be appreciated and again your ectomorph article was very good and informative. The most calorie dense foods are foods high in fat, since fat contains more calories per gram.
So various nuts and nut butters, olive oil, etc.. And of course, 1g per pound or a little more from protein. So if sweet potatoes are a food like that for you, then yeah… eat 2 of them. Eat 3 or 4 or 7 of them if you need to. I was in a similar situation so I decided to try it, and found much the same result. After I started taking digestive enzymes before most meals, without changing either my diet or my workout routine, and I shot up to lbs, gaining 30 pounds over the last four years from ages 30 to 34 , most of it muscle.
So for any other struggling ectomorphs, I would not underestimate poor digestion as the root cause. I believe digestibility explains this; there may be a cap on how many calories you can actually absorb, regardless of how much you consume, and perhaps enzymes increase this cap. The problem is how to train the long head of the triceps without the skull crushers, since the cable press downs dont work the long head. Great no BS article. Or would you recommend the surplus on workout days be increased to cal so that the weekly surplus is back up to cal?
Holy crap, Jay. EPIC article here! Really throwing down some knowledge. You might be amused to know that for a while I suspected you could be Jason Feruggia in disguise, putting up another site for some reason. It seemed to make sense…2 guys more or less named Jay, who write quality, hard-nosed articles about lifting weights. You could really build a name for yourself with quality content like this. Just a thought. Also, I have one question.
Thanks dude, glad you liked it! I was actually almost going to include a whole section about this in the article, but no true guideline was going to come out of it other than to experiment with both and see which works better for you. Being naturally lean is a much easier problem to deal with.
True, you did mention that. But I suspect the latter kind of ectomorph discussed, is even more rare than the first type. I really liked that one. I have never heard of it, but it came to my mind, i made some research and now a lot of things make sense, thanks for sharing.
My body type is between an endomorph and mesomorph. I can put on weight easily, but is harder to lose when i want to. Are you planning to write an article about this population? I second the endo article. I can pack on like 20 lbs so easy, but losing the weight is tediously hard. But I might give it a shot anyway at some point.
But seriously, I think the routine will work best as written and without much extra stuff added to it. Hey I appreciate all honesty. Truth be told the routine as a whole murders me, but apart from throwing in some shrugs, different style curls, your routine is murderous. Must admit I was always partial to barbell snatches which I do every now and then on Lower B days.
Just want to say thank you for sh! Question: when I buy your book does it have other routines like the intermediate routine? Like an advanced routine or something? As for an endomorph-specific article in the future, maybe. I must say, this is the first site that actually made sense. Keep on giving us the right information.
Thank you! And I have gone to several gastroenterologists, try removing lots of several foods meat, wheat, diarys, etc. The weird part is that I seem to have a good digestive system besides the bloating because I go to the bathroom like 2 o 3 times a day, instantly after my biggest meals. Or maybe with the face blurred? So my question, what can I can I do to up my healthy calories with out going overboard? Also, do you subtract the amount of calories burned during workouts?
Awesome article mate, I love all your articles, just a quick question though, down the line will you be doing an article like this for Endomorphs? Waiting for ur reply…. I need ur suggestion on an ARM prioritization workout!! I really really want my arms big!! Hi i read the whole article but i was wondering whether there is a way to gain muscles even with cardio.
Because it is definitely not possible for me to stop cardio activities being a soccer player. So i was wondering whether there is actually a way to carry on with cardio activities but also gain muscles.
Yup, it is. Certain things just need to be adjusted accordingly. Stay tuned. Jay, Loved the ariticle. I was just getting ready to adjust my workout…. I was considering hitting the same body parts twice a week and adding some isolation for my arms and you confirmed it. This should take me to the next level.
Your humor kept me reading, and I have a very short attention span. Or stay mostly on the rep range? And as always keep up the amazing job! Beginners would be an exception to that one. Pick one rep range and stick with it. Good to know that, really! Just some concerns I would want you to clear out haha. And…keep it up! I am an ectomorph? I work only with basic exercises, 3 times a week, the weight of the barbell and dumbbell is large enough.
I recover well, sleep Why Precious? Because, my friend, apparently, has an endomorphic physique, he has already dried out a long time and is working on his program. As a result, I gained kg in the same time , but relief for some reason is given to him with the same difficulty as the mass of me Hello, I have a height of , weight I am a typical hard gainer. My training experience is 1. During the year he gained 12 pounds in weight. Now my weight is 67 kg with a height of cm. Over the past six months, the weight has not changed.
Weight and strength always grew poorly, given the fact that I was always serious about observing the diet, rest and training, doing only basic exercises. To be honest, my hands are already dropping, I dont see the results from training, I dont know what to do.
I read an article on strength training on your website, I want to try to apply it in my training, can you give any advice, what could be the reason for the stagnation? You yourself answered your question by writing that you are a hard gainer. Good afternoon! Im still unable to determine exactly what my structure is.. Growth: weight 79, worked mainly with basic exercises 3 months I gained 4 kg.
My name is Aleksey, height cm, weight 72 kg, in March weighed 54 kg, scored by July 66, and threw out of jaundice in August, paused until November, in November starting from 64 he scored 71, I didnt use the sport, bought a gainer because weight does not go any further.
For more than a month now I have not seen any weight gain, working weights in basic exercises are growing, but it seems to me that I just have not reached the peak of my abilities and use low weights.
Squat - 90, Bench Press - 70, standing up for biceps - 35, standing - 90 added to training only 2 weeks ago. But I dont see any changes on the scales, what can you advise? Alexey, use the information on our website articles, sections of the main menu , including the proposed training programs. High probability that you are a hard gainer.
I am 16 years old, my weight is 73 kg, my height is , I work out on a rocking chair three days a week, I try to eat more protein cottage cheese, milk, eggs. I am an ectomorph by physique, but my friend is training with me and I am much wider and heavier. Press 60 no longer works no matter how hard I try to just rape my body. I tried the protein to no purpose, the relief is drawn but very small, everything stopped on one thing.
I tried to load myself up to the gag reflex. Do not despair! Forget about raping your body. Start training competently. We recommend working on our training programs. You will succeed! I look just like a beginner pitching, although I have been training for several years, and the last 2 years are generally regular. Height , weight 73 maximum 75 , bench press 80x12, x1. Biceps from 20 kg per arm, depending on what exercise. Deltas, back, press are fine, but I cant gain mass in any way.
If you stop training - the weight drops to
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