Personal Trainer Explains 3 Body Types in Orange County
If you’re new to body building or are simply concerned about your overall health, you should acquaint yourself with some basic know-how on body types. If you’ve ever wondered why it seems to be quite impossible for you to get buffed and muscular if you have a slim or lanky build, or why you just can’t seem to become slim enough despite dieting in extremis then you are probably misled by commercial ads and fake diet programs that promise to turn you into a model-esque person in no time. But let’s face the facts: people are built differently, and it is wrong to try and change how you are built to be in the first place. Regardless of the diets, pills, and exercise regimens your body will be how it is built to be. The only thing you can do to change it is to maintain a good and healthy physique with a balanced diet and a good exercise plan. To dream of looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger if your body isn’t built for it is not only outright vain – it can be harmful for you! We’ve all seen it time and again in news reports on the tele and in the papers – models trying to be too thin so they suffer anorexia, athletes wanting to become big and buff so they suffer from side-effects from the supplements they take to bulk-up – you don’t want that happening to you.
Contrary to popular belief, we can’t all be the ideal of masculine or feminine physical perfection – the only thing we can be is our own ideal us. Our bodies come in three different body types, each with their own specific needs, capacities, and limitations on how it can look, how it can push itself, and how much it can be pushed. The three basic body types are as follows:
Ectomorphs – ectomorphs are individuals who have a thin, usually lean frame. They can often posses delicate builds characterized by small shoulders, and long limbs. Ectomorphs are classified as ‘hardgainers’, meaning they find it very hard to gain weight because their bodies are geared to having fast metabolic rates. Because ectomorphs have a fast metabolism, they’re not large and muscle-bound, and rarely do they get to that point. It shouldn’t be expected that ectomorphs are skinny wimps though, because with the right training they can tone their muscles into a very impressive physique, but to do so they must focus on high caloric and high protein intake with exercises focusing on building major muscle groups.
Mesomorphs – mesomorphs are the characteristic ‘jockey’ build. Characterized by large bone structure, wide shoulders and a rectangular shaped body, mesomorphs are more suited to building major muscle because they are able to gain muscle mass and fat easier than ectomorphs. When it comes to weight training, mesomorphs benefit best from weight lifting and power lifting as it will give them that ‘buffed’ look which their bodies are already predisposed to. Because they gain weight faster, they must be cautious about their caloric intake, and should focus on an exercise regimen which combines cardio and weights.
Endomorhps – endomorphs are what people would commonly term as ‘fat’, although they’re not really that specifically speaking. Endomorphs have large bodies predisposed to being rounded and soft because their metabolisms are slow and they tend to store fat more easily. The good thing about endomorphs is that they can be very strong, possessing good endurance. Because of their slow metabolic rate, they find it hard to lose fat, so careful dieting and a strict exercise regimen will help them reach their peak physique.
These three body types have a tendency to overlap, with a person sharing one or two characteristics. Finding out what body type you have and training to reach your predisposed peak physique instead of hoping for fantastic results will make you feel better about yourself without having to strive for unreachable ideals.