To maximize the full potential of your body you need to understand us humans are divided into 3 basic forms, once knowing what type you are then you can train smarter and get the most out of your workouts. A) Endomorphs; carry a lot of weight around the midsection, thick upper arms, small hands/wrists and puts on weight quickly. B) Ectomorphs; has a slight build, long limbs, delicate facial features, thin hands and basically the opposite of endomorphs as you can't put on any size. C) Mesomorphs; you have toned muscular body, strong facial features, large arms, hands and wrists, so you have the best of the previous two groups. Finally we can have traits of each category that maybe carry's over into your type, so need to use this knowledge to our advantage. Now if your an Endo i would suggest to be really diligent in your exercising as you have a tendency to put on/hold weight quickly so need to work at it!
( i know life isn't fair sometimes lol) Your body type responds well to training so always start with weight bearing exercises (to use up your glucose first, plus more energy to help tear down the muscle so it grows during the nutrition phase) and do 4 sets per bodypart 8-12 reps to exhaust the muscle. Then cardio after ( fat for fuel) 40 mins in total and broken up into 3 segments to simulate crosstraining (ie..13mins elliptical, 13 treadmill and 14mins bike) Finally you need to avoid the processed foods and stick to the lean meats,
nuts and berries....think nature. Not to generalize but guessing you also need to also avoid gluten and acidity based foods. For Ectos, some may think your lucky to be thin but that doesn't mean your healthy haha. With your training you need to add muscle so the same 4 sets but the 6-8 rep range per bodypart ( please, with proper form to avoid injury.....remember you control the weight not the weight controlling you) Cardio will be no longer than 20mins to work the internal organs but not to shed the hard earned muscle. With nutrition i would say avoid red meat and stick to the whites; chicken, fish, egg whites etc for proteins and for carbs; brown rice, oatmeal, most fruits/veggies Mesos, you have hit the genetic jackpot lol.; train occasionally, see results quickly, everyone envious. Not much to be said here, just don't waste your gift.....exercise smart (don't fall in love with any exercise, remember all routines have an expire date or you will plateau) so to see even better results; change up the order of your training and do more reps with less weight, maybe lift heavy for a while etc. plus be wise with your nutrition and listen to your body. If you get bloaty for example, avoid that food item as its stressing your system to break it down and get rid of it but pretty well every nutrition group works for you except all the processed products made by man. Ok some general rules to follow; A) Long Arms; avoid flat bench for chest, why? Where your upper arm meets your shoulder blade is more vulnerable than with a shorter armed person. Instead set up in the power rack so you start the bar from the 'L' position never exposing your shoulders to the strain of breaking parallel (refer to my past blog/video Sticking Point/Solutions for Bench Feb16/2011) B) Short Arms; not to do deadlifts as the shorter arms forces you to drop into a lower starting position thus changing the leverage point and adds a strain to your back. Instead do a sumo deadlift with your feet twice shoulder width apart and grab the bar with your hands 12in apart. C) Long Legs; if over 6ft i'm sure your having problems with squats as too many things can go wrong in form with that much distance to travel lol and of course putting on size. Instead try holding dumbbells in both hands at arms length with a 18in bench in front, start with your right foot and with your leg bent 90 degrees push your right heel into the bench until your leg is straight and standing on one leg on the bench. That's 1 rep, do 7 more then change legs and repeat.
