Weight Lifting - Understanding Somatotypes

An understanding of human biology is key to success in muscle gains as it helps a weight lifter appreciate exactly what their body does and how they can gain the most from it. One of the first things a weight lifter needs to understand is their own body type so they can set their own realistic goals and work with what they have.

Body Types

A quick way to gain an understanding of your own body is to look at the three somatotypes; these are basic classifications of different body types that explain in a simplistic fashion how a person of each classification is genetically made. The three somatotypes are Endomorphic, Ectomorphic and Mesomorphic, below is a detail of what each classification means.

Endomorphic – Those who are endomorphic have an increased amount of fat storage, have a larger waist, large bone structure and tend to put muscle and fat on one particular half of the body. Those who are endomorphic can be split in to two categories:

Apple – Those who have a larger amount of muscle and fat on the upper half of the body.

Pear – Those who have a larger amount of muscle and fat on the lower half of the body.

People who are endomorphic will find it fairly easy to build muscle naturally but will find getting definition from their muscle gains the most difficult of the three categories.

Ectomorphic – A person who is Ectomorphic normally has long limbs, narrow shoulders and a short upper body. Generally the Ectomorphic body type has long lean muscle and very low fat storage giving a very tall and slim appearance.

People who are ectomorphic will find it the most difficult to build muscle naturally but will find getting definition from their muscle gains quite easy.

Mesomorphic – Those who are mesomorphic enjoy the ability of gaining muscle quickly, have large bones, wide shoulders and a narrow waist. Those who are mesomorphic also tend to have low fat storage.

People who are mesomorphic will find it the easiest to build muscle naturally.

You may look at these three clasifications and feel that you fit in to more than one by the description and this could be true. You have to remember that everyone in the world is made differently so its difficult to put everyone in to three categories, but these will help you gain an understanding of how easy it will be for you to gain muscle.