[Juri] Somatotypes

Hi! It's Juri here ~ 
Today I want to tell you something about the body types! 
Workouts should depend on our own body type, so it's really important to learn its characteristics. Before we start talking about our own workouts and diets, Gabriella, Momo and I, would like to give you the largest possible amount of informations about body structures, so you'll be able to choose the workouts and the alimentation more suitable to you. First of all, there are mainly three types of body: the endomorph, the ectomorph and the mesomorph. 
As you can see in the image below, they're really different in shape, and so they have different qualities.

The endomorph has an underdeveloped musculature, strong bones, and generally a protuberant abdomen and a wide waist (it depends on your shape). He easily accumulates fat, due to his slow metabolism, so he has difficulties in losing weight. Anyway, the endomorph has a good muscle growth and a great digestive capacity.

The endomorph, for its ability to endure work and its need to burn calories, must train a lot to get an improvement in his physical form. It's necessary for the endomorph doing 5/6 workouts per week, because it's difficult for him to reach overtraining seeing that it fails to work at high intensity. The endomorph is a very strong athlete and then raises big loads, but hardly he's able to give his best. If we compare the loads of an endomorph with loads of the other somatotypes and their body weight, we see that the endomorph has less relative strength. His training should provide a good dose of cardio activity (30/ 40 minutes) in each session. The strength training should be developed with many exercises and many series using fundamental exercises that complement each other. Hitting the muscles in different ways allows you to stimulate them to maximize their potential for growth and encourages the consumption of fat, especially the intramuscular route. It typically takes 3/5 exercises per muscle. The rest between sets should be short, a maximum of one minute, firstly because this must hold high the pace of the workout to burn calories, secondly because failing to develop high intensities doesn't need big recovery, and thirdly because of his nature endomorph has high resilience. The endomorph can even train each muscle 2 times a week.

The endomorph tend to accumulate fat and gain weight, so he must pay attention to calories and especially carbs with high glycemic index (he tends to develop insulin resistance). This subject should try to have a constant caloric intake slightly less than its requirement. The muscles in these people grow equally well with a few calories, it's enough to have an adequate protein intake. The ideal intake for this body type might look like 25% carbs, 35% proteins and 40% fats.

The ectomorph has a fragile structure, thin bones, long limbs, surface areas developed, underdeveloped musculature, extremely low levels of body fat. He is ong-limbed and thin. Thanks to these qualities, people with this kind of body have a hyperactive metabolism, so they will find difficult to accumulate fat and weight and to make muscles grow. Ectomorphes have also problems in digestion, and generally catabolic trends.

The ectomorph is suitable for endurance sports more than strength trainings. Its body needs long recoveries, therefore training days must be absolutely less than those of rest ( you must train 2/3 times a week ). It is not brought to accumulate fat, so he doesn't have to do aerobic activity more than once or twice a week (it depends on train days), because this removes the already scarce energy recovery capacity of this athlete. Workouts for this body type should be short and based on the basic exercises. The ability of these individuals to build muscle are closely related to the development of strength. Ectomorph should forget high-intensity trainings: these types of training do nothing on him, but only overstress his body and slow down his progresses.

To have good performances, a diet with 55% carbohydrates, 25% protein and 20% fat is recommended. 
The ectomorph needs to push his body to the anabolism dabbing as much as possible the effects of catabolic hormones. For these reasons, it is recommended the use of omega 3 fatty acids, phosphatidylserine, acetyl-carnitine and glutamine to counteract the production of cortisol. It is important, after the workout, go quickly to restore internal balance by integrating with branched, antioxidants (carnosine and / or vitamin C), small quantities of glucose and fast absorbing proteins.

The mesomorph is the athlete's body for excellence. He's suitable for physical activity and has a good muscle strength, an active metabolism, thick skin, broad shoulders and narrow hips. He easily grow in muscles and change in weight. His muscular system is developed, as the skeletal system and the connective tissue. He has little body fat.

The mesomorph could train in any way, so get results anyway. He can do everything without any problems or overtraining, nor fat accumulation. His hormonal profile is brought to anabolism. His ability to train with high intensity and his high muscularity allowed him to lift incredible weights. He has an excellent recovery so he can workout a lot, but the high intensity workout that is able to develop , however, involves the need of a long recovery. Therefore for this somatotype is optimal a training frequency of 3/5 days per week. The cardiovascular workout serves to the mesomorph not so much to burn calories but rather to maximize the capacity to train with weights or carry out specific intensity training. Basically aerobic work allows him to express the maximum in anaerobic training so it is ideal for this subject play 10/20 minutes of aerobic activity everytime he trains. The rest between sets of exercises should be discreet (90/ 120 seconds) as his ability to train intensely require further recoveries.

The mesomorph, because of its favorable hormonal profile, could eat anything and develop muscle mass losing fat simply by exercising regularly. However, even for these people some dietary recommendations may be useful to accelerate results. Carbs for these athletes are not a problem: they can assume a high glycemic index without risking much of gaining weight; in fact after training they are absolutely suited to promote anabolism, their high sensitivity to insulin pushes sugar muscle and fat cells. The mesomorph to maximize the results still need a high-protein intake, about 33% of the total caloric needs. Assuming then about 50% of calories from carbohydrates remains a 15/20% from fat.

Obviously, these body types are generic: in fact there are also the intermediate somatotypes. To be honest, is almost impossible to find a pure somatype in nature. For exemple, theoretically, I'm a mesomorph, but I have also characteristics of an ectomorph: I hardly gain weight and, as I build my muscles in a short time, I also lose them in that time. However, the mesomorphic component is the prevailing one in my body.

So you don't have to try to find the somatotype with all your qualities, but you have to understand what one is the proponderant in you. It is really important to eat well (nutrition, as you see, change from a person to another) and to train well! Don't trust the friend who tell you he have discovered a miraculous diet, it is a totally wrong thing: it might work on him, but it's not sure it'll work on you. Personally I couldn't live without a generous amount of carbs, while Gabriella is ok eating mostly proteins. I would collapse following her diet, really. 

I hope to have helped you with this post! I'll write another post about the body shapes associated with each kind of somatotype (triangle, apple...), so stay tuned to have more informations about your body ~

Have a good day, and remember to smile and be happy even for the little things ♥