Know your Body

How would you describe your body? Words like lean, bone-thin, muscular, fit, fat, flabby, obese might come out.

Actually there are 3 main body types, namely ECTOMORPHS, MESOMORPHS and ENDOMORPHS. They are named after the 3 germ layers of embryonic development. The ectoderm forms the skin and nervous system, the mesoderm develops into muscle and blood vessels and endoderm is where the digestive tract originates from. It sounds profound, but let me break it down for you.

By knowing your body types, also known as somatotyping is a method of calibrating workouts and diet to your advantage. You can personalize your goals according to your body type.

Firstly, Ectomorphs.

They are tall with a narrow body, thin arms and legs, little body fat and wiry muscles. Due to their thin stature, they tend to excel in endurance type of activities such as long distance running, or activities requiring flexibility and agility. Their metabolic rates are high, even if they try to gorge themselves, they find it hard to gain weight.

Our recommendations: Keeping cardiovascular exercise to a minimum, ectomorphs should concentrate on gaining weight and size in the form of good lean muscle tissue through resistance training. To promote size and strength gains, use fairly heavy weights and longer rest periods in between sets to allow for the workout volume to be reached. Diet wise, lucky you! You can eat anything you want however sustain your calorie surplus from good whole food please, no junk! Some of you might find it difficult to eat more due to the bloated feeling, thus you might like to try taking mass gainers.

Next up, Mesomorphs

They have strong built, broad muscular chest and shoulders, very muscular arms and legs with little body fat. Their body respond well to training and will be able to gain or lose weight easily depending on their goals. These people tend to populate the sporting arena (bodybuilding, soccer, etc) as their easy-going muscle making body allow them to be very versatile.

Our recommendations: Being a natural athletic, dont slack! To maintain or improve your body, you will still have to work out and eat a balanced diet. Due to your body’s encouraging response, you might tend to overdo it, putting yourself in the risk of injuries. So watch out for that! Be consistent, keep a record of your progress. For maintaining of your current physique, stick to having healthy whole foods in your diet and keep to your daily calorie limit.

Last but not least, Endomorphs

Stocky with large round body, short thick neck, short arms and legs and with a tendency to store body fats. These type of body type is good for power sports such as rugby.

Our recommendations: Lower your calorie intake, instead have frequent but small meals. Combine resistance training with cardiovascular exercise to achieve a better muscle to fat ratio and increase metabolism rate. A healthy balanced diet is definately important!

A simple estimate if you can’t figure out which body type you are…

Take your middle finger and thumb of your right hand, and wrap it around the wrist of your left hand.

If they overlap without any effort, your frame width indicates you are an ectomorph. If they just touch, you are mesomorphic and if they can’t touch, you are probably an endomorph.

Good luck with your training!

By Amelia (http://www.fitnesssutra.com)