4 Critical Steps to an Ectomorph Workout

how many calories

Are you eating enough calories? Many ectomorphs are wrong, they think they can follow the same diet plan as their friends at the gym and that’s why they don’t see weight gain.

The ectomorph has to eat more per pound of body weight than the average man. There is some debate about the exact number, but this is a good place to start.

The skinny guy should multiply each pound of body weight by 20-24. So if you weigh 150 lbs. multiplied by 20 equals 3,000 calories a day.

This is where you should start, and if you don’t see weight gain at this level, start adding 150 calories a week until you do.

The other part of this equation is the breakdown of the diet. Now, most people would limit their carb intake, so the diet based on percentages of calories per day would be 45% protein, 30% carbs, and 25% fat. Because the average man is afraid that carbs will increase body fat.

The ectomorph doesn’t have to worry about that because of his high metabolic rate. So for the ectomorph, I would start with 40% protein, 40% carbs, and 20% fat. This should help pack on weight and muscle.

You can always make adjustments to this as you see how your body responds.

how much sleep is right

Too many weightlifters underestimate the importance of rest and sleep. They put so much focus into their training that they end up hurting their gains due to lack of rest.

When you sleep, your system releases natural growth hormones that help build and repair muscle fibers that are broken down during training.

Without this all-important process that only happens when you rest, the less you rest, the less you earn.

Of course, the other side of the corner is sleeping too much. Because an ectomorph has such a high metabolism, it makes it harder to gain weight and muscle. Getting a solid 8-10 hour rest is enough to help your gains.

Once you start to exceed this amount, you risk hurting your profits.

Remember that you need to eat a lot of calories each day and you need to eat often. When we are sleeping we are not eating. If you sleep too much, your body will start to need fuel to survive, remember that fast metabolic rate?

While sleeping too much, that is, more than 10 hours, your body is looking for energy to keep going and muscle mass is what it is looking for.

Therefore, you need to maintain a healthy balance between calorie intake and rest to ensure that you are getting the optimal muscle building process.

full body workout

Something that happens all too often to ectomorphs is going through a workout that just doesn’t meet the needs of a skinny guy.

The ectomorph will not benefit from a workout that most bodybuilders do these days. It’s not their fault they just don’t know any better.

They go to the gym and follow the training that their friends do. They see their friends packing on muscle every week and can’t understand why when they look in the mirror after months of training they see the same body they had when they started.

This is what makes most skinny guys give up, they think they just can’t gain muscle, end of story.

But it’s just a matter of using the right exercises in combination with the right number of reps and sets. You see, an ectomorph body type responds to compound exercises and a full body workout.

Compound exercises allow you to work as many joints and muscle groups at the same time. An example of a compound exercise is the squat. Think of all the joints and muscles involved in doing a squat.

You have your hips, knees, and ankles engaged, and at the same time your quads, glutes, back, hamstrings, and core are engaged, and that’s not counting all the little stabilizing muscles that are connected. These are the types of exercises that an ectomorph thrives on. When you do a full body routine with compound exercises you will start to see muscle gain.

Less is more

What do we understand by less is more? Well, this is a very important point to understand if you are a skinny guy. Because just like the skinny guy who’s doing the wrong exercises by following his friends, he’s also exercising while they’re doing it.

The problem is that the ectomorph frame is not designed to take a lot of stress. Your friends may be putting in 2 or more hours during a workout and they may be doing this 4-5 times a week.

This is a disaster for the skinny. Because your frame and bone structure are smaller and more fragile, the amount of stress this type of training will put on your body will help hurt and not help any type of muscle gain.

That’s why for the skinny less is more. His body will thrive on a 45 minute routine doing a full body workout with compound exercises as above 3 times a week.

Your rest periods between sets should also be longer than the average guy. If he’s only been resting for 30 seconds between sets while trying to keep up with his friends, you’ve probably noticed that he can’t keep up with the rep level.

Rest longer and make sure you get 7-10 reps on each exercise for 3-4 sets.

Forget about what your friends are doing and don’t consider it some kind of competition. You have to come to terms with your body type, when you do and start working out according to your body type you will see gains quickly.

And that’s not really what you want. And think of it this way, how good will it be when you gain muscle fast and train half as hard as your friends. They will soon turn to you for advice on muscle building, and working out How sweet is that?