This week I’m going to teach you all a few body-type specific techniques that you can incorporate into your routine in order to see an increase in muscle strength. Let’s keep this party going with part 2 on how to train your body type!
If you haven't already read last week's post Get To Know Your Body: What's Your Body Type (Part 1), take a moment to go skim that post real quicks.
Now time for the good stuff. Either read the enitre post or find your body type. Enjoy and may the lift be ever in your favor.
ECTOMORPH
- Narrow shoulders and hips
- Small joints (wrist/ankles)
- Long and lean limbs
- Very little body fat
- Small bone structure
- Athletic physique
To Gain Muscle:
You must push your body, create micro tears in your muscle tissue, and reach hypertrophy. The way Ectomorphs can do this is by following these tips:- Leave your vagina at home. Yes this sounds sexist because it is. If you are man or a women Ectomorph, then you’re going to have to train like an animal. So to gain some mass, you’ll have to get rid of the “lift light, do many” mentality. It’s just not going to work. You have to lift like a body builder or an athlete to see gains.
- Start off by mastering the big three. Bench press, Deadlift, and Squat. These multi joint lifts should be your staple as you step into your journey to gaining muscle mass. If you’re not a beginner, then add other multi jointed exercises such as stiff leg deadlifts, lat pull downs, pull ups, etc. MULTI JOINT exercises should be in all your workouts.
- If your shoulders are anything like mine, which are terrible, then substitute the bench press for incline press or push ups. It’ll prevent you from injuring or re-injuring shoulders if there were prior issues. Feel free to add isolation lifts if your more focused on body shaping and aesthetics at the end of you workouts.
- Lift like a body builder, you want to end each last set pushed to your limit. Your last set must always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS be to failure.
- Don’t split your workouts (At first). Start off with low and high intensity workouts that focus on the entire body. Until you get stronger and want to target certain muscle groups, keep it simple by doing full body days in the gym.
- Keep cardio activity to a minimum! Preferably twice a week. Max three. Being leaner naturally with less body mass and fat, your body does not have a huge amount of extra calories lying around as those in Endo and mesomorphs. Too much cardio will no doubt make you more likely to enter a catabolic state. More on countering this in next week’s post.
- Make sure that you stretch your muscles as much as often in between sets to get that extra pull in between. These little things will help you in the long run.
- And always push yourself to the max each week. Try to do a personal record for a max rep atleast once a week. This is a must.
The Fittest Blogger is on Facebook
Frequency in gym:
To gain muscle: Weight lift frequency should be 3-4 timers a week until you reach the size you wish for. Then pull it back to 2-3 times for maintenance.
Sets per muscle group: 4 sets minimum
To burn excess calories: Recommended cardio 1 - 3 times per week
MESOMORPH
- Wide clavicles
- Narrow waist
- Thinner joints
- Long and round muscle bellies
Mesomorphs, you kind of got it easy. Let’s just face it. I’m going to let you all know what we are all really thinking. FU*K YOU GUYS. But seriously though, you all are blessed and there is a nothing wrong with that. I’m sure youv'e gotten use to the hate. Anyhow, the style of training that works best with your body type is HIIT.
- High intensity interval training is perfect for a body that can gain muscle fast and also digest food at a pretty at a fast rate. Well at least while you’re still in prime shape.
- Rep range should be 12-15 with final set to failure to get nice and cut. Bring it down to 8-10 reps, where 10 is failure to gain strength and muscle mass.
- Be efficient with your workout by doing super set training to maximize your effort during your workout. At the end of each set, super set that lift with the opposite exercise. If your first exercise was a push exercise such as push-ups, then super set it with a pull exercise such a back rows from the push-up position.
- Mesomorphs can also see significant gains by also adding multi joint exercises into the workout.
- In case you haven't heard this before, you increase to your one rep max as much as possible each week.
The Fittest Blogger is on Facebook
Frequency in gym
To gain muscle: 3 times minimum per week
Sets per muscle group: 3-5 sets
To burn excess calories:Recommended cardio should include high intensity 3 times per week. 1 day moderate intensity
ENDOMORPH
- Blocky
- Thick rib cage
- Wide/thicker joints
- Hips as wide (or wider)
- than clavicles
- Shorter limbs
Endomorphs, you are the meccas of power and strength. If you’re not training like a bodybuilder then you’re cutting yourself short. You gain muscle easy and increase your power and strength faster than both Ecto and Mesomorph. And if you get your diet and cardio right, you will absolutely fall in love with your physique.
- Training your body includes a lot of low reps and heavy weights. You want to focus heavily on the negative(eccentric) movements. These your movements where you are slowly letting the weight go. Slow negatives will pull your muscles and as we all know will helps you boost you strength since the negative contraction is 40% stronger than the positive movement.
- Last set should not be the heaviest of weights, but should allow you to go long and hard for your last sets. But to failure is still the idea.
- Looking to cut down fat, you may have to work harder than the other body types and increase the amount you do cardio accordingly. But not too much, because too much cardio can have the opposite effects of your goals. Such as slowing down your metabolism in effort to protect the body and cause your body to have a higher chance of entering a catabolic state and eating away at your muscles.
- Cross train your body by continually mixing up your workouts. Cross training will give other parts of your body time to rest and recover. Cross training also has the advantage of keeping you motivated towards a specific goal since your'e taking a break from your usual routine. It’s like how you can go away on a long trip and come back refreshed and more motivated than when you left.
- Test your self and push your one rep max each and every week. Just in case you skipped around in this article, this is a recurring theme.
Frequency in gym
To gain muscle: 3 weeks of 3-8 rep max sets followed by 1 week of High intensity ( rep range 10-13 with short rest times) strength training if you’re looking to cut down some fat. Repeat. Slow negatives as usual.
Sets per muscle group: 3-5 sets
To burn excess calories: Recommended cardio should be between 2 - 4 time a week. It is up to you to define whether or not if 2 days of cardio a week is getting the results you want. If not you must increase your frequency. With a bigger body, naturally you will have more fat in your body. So getting adequate amount of cardio done will help you get rid of excess calories. Low-to-high intensity depending on your goals.
Take the lessons you learned today and go put them to work. Test them out. You don’t have nothing to lose (Besides gains) if you don’t try them out.
Next week will be the finale where we will discuss diet and how to eat in order to cut back those layers of fat. We will discuss how to eat for each body type and whether you want to gain muscle or lose excess body fat. Until then, Happy Lifting!
#theFittest
The Fittest Blogger is on Facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment