exercise right for your bodytype
In the 1940s the American psychologist William Sheldon categorized the human body into three broad categories called somatotypes: the lean ectomorph, the big and curvy endomorph, and the muscular mesomorph. Knowing the best exercises, reps performed and rest periods taken for your body type will help you train smarter to maximize your potential and get closer to building the body that you’ve always wanted.
slender ectomorphs
Narrow hips and clavicles
Small joints (wrist/ankles)
Thin build
Stringy muscle bellies
Long limbs
Being naturally leaner and finding it harder to gain weight, ectomorphs are encouraged to focus on resistance training while limiting cardio and endurance exercises. The best way to achieve this is to slow down their training by resting longer between sets (90 to 120 seconds) and by doing fewer reps (4 to 8) using heavier weights. Compound movements are great for ectomorphs, as they maximize your workout time by working multiple muscle groups at once.
They should do resistance training three times per week, resting a day in between sessions. Ectomorphs should not be doing high-intensity cardio on their off days, but they can stay active with low-intensity activities like walking or yoga.
muscular mesomorphs
Narrow hips and clavicles
Small joints (wrist/ankles)
Thin build
Stringy muscle bellies
Long limbs
Mesomorphs are considered lucky because they have natural muscle definition and build lean body mass easily. They do however have a tendency to put on body fat. For this reason, mesomorphs will want to train along the whole performance spectrum, focusing on strength, size and endurance.
In most cases, dedicating a block of exercises to strength, a block to hypertrophy and a block to endurance works best. Mesomorphs have to be careful not to gravitate to far to one end of the spectrum: They’ll lose muscle mass if they’re too focused on endurance conditioning and will gain excess fat if they’re only performing heavy resistance training.
curvy endomorphs
Wide clavicles
Narrow waist
Thinner joints
Long and round muscle bellies
Endomorphs find it easy to gain size and strength but difficult to lose weight. They thus need a workout schedule that balances resistance training with endurance training. Resistance training should be done three times per week. During their training sessions endomorphs should try to keep an elevated heart rate to help burn fat. They can achieve this by completing more work in less time (shorter rest periods of 30 to 60 seconds), and performing more sets of moderate to high reps (8 to 15).
Endurance training should also be done three times per week: two days of low-intensity cardio such as inclined walking or light jogging, and one day of high-intensity cardio such as rowing or sprints.
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