Which Body Type are You?

Setting up your goal is a vital factor in transforming to a healthier and fitter you. However, your goals should be realistic enough to achieve it. By doing so, you need to know which body type you belong to because let’s face it, we are all unique, we all have different genes and each of them reacts differently. An example is fat loss. Doing the same workouts and having similar time frame with your friend, you may find it hard to lose weight while your friend was able to cut hers with ease.

Knowing your body type will help you set realistic goals so you won’t get disheartened if ever you see no results yet. And you can alter your physical appearance by finding the right regimen that will fit your structure.

There are three human body types, the ectomorph, endomorph and mesomorph. American psychologist William Sheldon popularized these categories and became widely accepted through the years.

Ectomorph. This body type is thin, lean and long and has low fat storage. They can eat everything in huge servings and still look the same, even if they want to gain more mass. People who fall in this category are also known as “hardgainers”. They may be able to put on weight but still look skinner. Hardgainers would stay lean even if they went to the gym for long hours.

If you’re an ectomorph, it doesn’t mean that you’re forever weak and thin looking. You can still achieve that muscular physique and get stronger. You can be as fit as those you envy in the gym, but it would just take you longer if you want to gain muscle weight. You got to train harder than the others and eat like you’ve never eaten before.

Endomorph. The curvy, big and often pear-shaped with a high tendency to gain body fat faster. People in this category have wider waists, hips, thick ribcage, shorter limbs, large bone structures and can easily store fat instead of building muscle. They have hard time playing weight loss and often struggle in gaining muscles without accompanying body fat.

Endomorph can be healthy also and be as strong and capable as the other two categories. They may even have some advantage in strength due to their additional muscle mass. However, if the ectomorph or hardgainers struggle to bulk up, endomorph struggle to lean out and lose body fat. It will require total disciple in diet and hard work in your exercise to get top form.

Mesomorph. Muscular, well-built physique that are envied by the majority. They are called “lucky ones” as they can easily and quickly add muscle but not store fat. They tend to have medium bone structure, wide shoulders, solid torso, narrow waist, round muscular bellies, thin joints and have low fat storage. Their high metabolism and responsive muscle cells give them the best of both worlds which unfortunately for the ectomorph and endomorph don’t have.

You probably might see or know somebody in the gym who does his/her workouts not as hard as you do and still get stronger and bigger. Yes, these are the lucky ones!


Side Note:

Although there are existing three classifications, it’s important to know that they’re not in totally pure form. In reality we have some parts of each of those in our structure. There some bodies that efficiently burn calories, some are less efficient and store more energy as fat, some can build muscle with ease, some don’t have same capability.

To boil it down, some are just lucky enough to have great genes to win easily on the game of fitness while some don’t that they have to play it harder and have difficult time.

Genes may play a big role but despite our genetics, we can still determine our body shape through our lifestyle choices, on how hard we train, the foods we eat and the amount of sleep we have.

It may be an uphill climb, but changing the way we look, our body physique, metabolism and muscle fibers, we need the right training. Changing our body composition meanwhile requires the right diet or food intake.