This article is for all the people who have ectomorph body type. If you are hardgainers and can’t gain weight easily, probably you belong to ectomorph body type. So how to know if you belong to this body type, following are the characteristics of an ectomorph:
- Skinny or shredded
- Hardgainers
- Delicate frame or small body structure
- Less muscular mass
- Less body fat percentage
- May look like a marathon runner
The main reason why ectomorph have difficulty in putting on muscle mass is because of their ‘fast metabolism’. Metabolism is a process by which your body coverts what you eat into energy. Fast metabolism means that your body burns calories fast.
So how can an ectomorph gain weight, here are some points to keep in mind if you want to gain weight and boost your confidence:
- One of the reasons you are not gaining weight is because you are not eating enough. If you want to gain weight you should eat in calorie surplus. Eating in calorie surplus means you should eat more then your maintenance calorie. Taking in 10-15% more calories than your maintenance calories will help you in putting on muscle mass. For example, if your maintenance calories are 2500, 10% of 2500 is 250, so you should eat atleast 2750 calories in a day to gain weight.
- Low carbs and high protein diet is tending nowadays, but different things works for different peoples. If you are an ectomorph you should follow a ‘high carb and high protien diet’ inorder to gain weight and make sure that the protein you are eating is complete protein. Complete protein means that it should have complete amino profile.
- For gaining muscle mass you should eat at least 1.5g multiplied by your body weight in kg of protein in day.
- Eat at least 5-6 meals a day, stay away from simple carbs and include good amount of complex carbs from different sources like oats, rice, multigrain, etc in your every meal. Complex carbs will provide an energy source to your body for a long time. This will also spike your insulin levels for longer, high insulin levels creates an anabolic environment in your body and will make it grow.
- In your workouts try to include comound exercises in your workout plans. Compound exercise are those exercise in which more than one joints or muscles works. Some examples of compound exercises are deadlifts, bench press, barbell rowing, pullups. Stay away from cardio sessions and try to burn less calories in gym while training the muscle properly. Follow a good split workout program designed particularly for your body.
- Another reason you are not growing is that maybe you have poor gut health. Gut health plays an important role in absorption of nutrition from food, so also focus on your gut health if you want to grow.