The Ectomorph Body

Are you sick of being the skinny guy or girl?

Written by Vince DelMonte, the hardgainer's hero, it is just what you need to flesh out your skinny shape.

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Now, back to the birth of the skinny body type. The ectomorph body type was classified in the 1940s by American psychologist William Sheldon who devised a theory linking body types to personality traits.

Physically the 3 somatotypes he classified are the mesomorph body (chunky, attractive and well proportioned) the endomorph body (big, rounded and inclined to run to fat) and the ectomorph body, which is known in bodybuilding circles as "the hard gainer" (slight, slim and resistant to muscle gain, lean or mass).

While his body/mind links have been mostly discarded, Sheldon's somatotypes are still frequently used as benchmarks for body types.

The somatotypes are often seen as blended, where people have more than one type evident, so you can be an ectomorph with aspects of the classic mesomorph body.

Mesomorph being the ideal, the more you eat and train properly, the more traits of a mesomorph you will take on. With muscle gain, you will widen your shoulders and back and shape up your legs and arms.

Correct diet will allow your body to make the best use of all the food you present it with.

The lean looking female of this body type is often the envy of her endomorph friends because no matter what she eats, she never seems to put on weight. The male of this body type is the long limbed slightly built guy who cannot seem to put on muscle, no matter how much he works out.

While this body type does not gain fat so easily as the other 2 somatotypes, ectomorphs find muscle gain a problem because of their metabolism.

This body type has a high metabolism and need to graze all day long to avoid energy slumps. The trouble is that many ectomorphs eat whatever is at hand rather than food that is good for them.

You really have to make sure that whatever you put in your stomach is the best fuel for it - that means you too must cut the saturated fats right back in order to be fit and healthy and for optimal muscle gain, whether lean or mass muscle.

Do your body a great big favour and make the commitment to cut deep fried food from your regular diet. No more hot chips (french fries). You will never regret it.

You should eat a high carb diet. This diet should focus on the best carbs for you - keep simple carbs to a minimum and concentrate on complex carbs that will give you long term energy to sustain your highly metabolised body.

Try eating twice as much protein as fats and twice as much carbs as protein for a hardcore high carb diet to suit your body type.

Keep peanut butter or raw nuts or protein bars or protein shakes handy for healthy, energy packed fast food.

With regard to exercise, you should concentrate on resistance workouts to gain muscle mass. Heavy weights with longer than average breaks between sets for best recovery will suit your workout to gain muscle mass, whether you are after large or lean muscles. 2-3 minutes between sets is ideal.

You do not need to worry too much about aerobic or cardio workouts. It fact, due to your rapid metabolism, these workouts could be detrimental.

You may lose rather than gain muscle mass because your body will eat into your hard earned muscles if you do too much cardio.

To get hold of specific detailed information on weight training as an ectomorph, download this FREE report from Vince DelMonte. It is a fantastic read, set out like a magazine with great photos and plenty of the information you are looking for as a hard gainer.

Vince is an ectomorph success story. Once a spare and scrawny triathlete, the former "skinny Vinnie" is now a champion fitness model with a very credible muscular physique. Check Vince out for yourself and read my review of his No Nonsense Muscle Building program for hard gainers.

If you are looking for a diet and exercise program specifically for your body type, you cannot go past Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle For more information about this widely acclaimed fat loss program, you can read my review of the Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle E-Book.

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