Training program for ectomorph: set of exercises and nutrition

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What you need

• Dumbbells
• Barbell
• Exercise equipment
• Horizontal bar

Not all gym goers achieve results at the same rate. The indicators are influenced by many factors: sufficient and regular nutrition, individual characteristics of recovery, regime, sleep and training. But what to do if, even with an ideally selected regimen, progress in gaining muscle mass, strength and functionality is minimal or non-existent?

Athletes with this problem are called ectomorphs or people with an asthenic body type. Simply put, they are simply not genetically designed for strength sports - that’s what nature ordered. Accordingly, their results from training are much weaker and slower. But don’t despair - a special training program for ectomorphs in combination with proper nutrition will help you achieve the desired result.

What is an ectomorph?

An ectomorph is a person genetically inclined to have a thin physique.

It differs from other body types (mesomorphs and endomorphs) by its accelerated metabolism, due to which it has practically no subcutaneous fat layer. Ectomorphs are often tall and have long legs and arms. Ectomorph muscles are less prone to hypertrophy, but adapt well to high-intensity aerobic endurance work.

Body Features

His body works like a stove - “burns” all the calories consumed. Thanks to this, he can easily have ripped abs 365 days a year without any special dietary restrictions. There are both disadvantages and advantages to this.

Disadvantages of an ectomorphic body shape

To gain muscle mass, an ectomorph needs a lot of calories. If an endomorph needs a surplus of 10% of the daily calorie intake (the number of calories that a particular person spends per day), then for an ectomorph it is at least 20%. And we are not talking about “empty” calories from fast food, sweets and carbonated drinks. To gain high-quality muscle mass, you need to eat accordingly - junk food in the diet should be no more than 10-20%. The basis should be animal proteins, complex carbohydrates and unsaturated fats.

Advantages of an ectomorph

Oddly enough, ectomorphs make very outstanding fitness models and bodybuilders. This body type is less suitable for powerlifting and crossfit, although in practice anything can happen.

Thanks to the high metabolic rate, it is much easier for ectomorphs to get rid of subcutaneous fat. They are able to effortlessly maintain a relatively dry and sculpted shape all year round. In addition, ectomorphs have a fairly narrow bone structure. In combination with hypertrophied muscles, this gives excellent proportions: wide, ball-shaped shoulders and voluminous quadriceps with a narrow waist, round biceps against thin wrists.

There are other advantages too. Relatively low body weight and a low percentage of subcutaneous fat do not overload the cardiovascular system. Ectomorphs are least prone to diseases such as arterial hypertension and arrhythmia.

Features of training and diet

A special figure requires a special approach both in the training process and in creating a diet. A well-designed training program for an ectomorph is not all that is needed to obtain the desired result. Proper nutrition for this body type is of paramount importance.

Diet

The issue of nutrition for ectomorphs is extremely important - without a normal diet and healthy food, no amount of training will help .

Nutrition should be balanced, there should be at least 4-5 meals. Everything here is quite simple - it doesn’t make much difference how many times a day you eat, but it’s quite difficult to eat the entire required amount of food in 2-3 times. In addition, this can stretch the stomach.

Misconceptions about nutrition

There is an opinion that ectomorphs can eat anything. Like, the main thing is to eat the right amount of calories, then growth will occur.

This is a big misconception for a number of reasons:

1. Firstly, you can’t get your daily calorie intake from sweets and fast food and not get health problems.
2. Secondly, such a diet will slow down your metabolism over time, and you will gain excess fat. In this case, there can be no talk of any muscles: muscles do not grow from fat and sugar, they need protein, which is practically absent in such products.
3. Thirdly, over time, the gastrointestinal tract will begin to reject junk food. You will want to eat normal healthy food. But since you are used to stuffing everything into yourself, proper nutrition will not cause much appetite, and you will eat a maximum of 2 times a day. This will make you even thinner than you were before you started training.

If on any one day you reach your quota from such food, it’s okay. But you can’t eat like this all the time.

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Distribution of BZHU in the diet

This does not mean at all that ectomorphs should adhere to the strictest diet, which will consist of 100% healthy foods. On the contrary, a small amount of simple carbohydrates in their diet will definitely not harm them. For example, immediately after training.

There should be a lot of carbohydrates in the diet, at least 5 g per 1 kg of body weight . If the weight does not grow, gradually add 0.5 g of carbohydrate per 1 kg of body weight and monitor the changes. With protein, everything is simpler: consistently eat 2 g of protein per 1 kg of body weight. This is enough to restore and grow muscle mass. Consume about 1 g of fat per 1 kg of body weight - this way you will increase the total calorie content of your diet and consume enough “fuel” for the normal functioning of the hormonal system.

Recommended Products

The most desirable products for consumption are:

• proteins: chicken, turkey, eggs, white and red fish, beef, pork, cottage cheese and other dairy products, whey protein;
• fats: fish oil, flaxseed oil, avocado, nuts;
• carbohydrates: oatmeal, durum wheat pasta, rice, buckwheat, pearl barley, vegetables, fruits.

Of particular importance are breakfast and pre-workout meals (1.5-2 hours before training). They must be rich in carbohydrates to charge the body with energy for fruitful work. After training, it is advisable to take a gainer or whey protein with a small amount (about 50 g) of simple carbohydrates. Protein is also recommended to be consumed between meals to maintain constant protein synthesis in the body.

Before going to bed, it is recommended to drink casein (long-absorbing protein) or eat 250-300 g of cottage cheese to protect yourself from catabolism during the entire night's sleep. Do not forget to consume enough fiber for normal absorption of food, then any problems with the gastrointestinal tract will bypass you.

Workout

The central place in the training program for gaining mass for an ectomorph is given to basic exercises. Include isolated movements to a minimum, since they are not so effective and involve only one muscle group. Cardio should be excluded altogether, unless you have a health indication for it.

Three workouts a week will be more than enough, but it’s better to start with two at all - in the first workout, load the entire top, and in the second - the bottom. Training should be intense, but short - no more than 1 hour, maximum - 1.5.

Try to constantly increase your strength. The stronger you are, the more potential your muscles have to grow. Therefore, exercises such as bench press, deadlift and barbell squats cannot be ignored. By progressing in these exercises, you are sure to become stronger and bigger over time. But under no circumstances increase the working weight to the detriment of technique.

And when you gain the necessary foundation of muscle mass and strength and visually look more like a mesomorph, you can slowly add cardio and isolated exercises to locally work out certain muscle groups.

Military bench press in a power rack

As in the case of a bench, the flimsy shoulders of an ectomorph are not adapted to lifting large weights above their heads. Naturally, you can succeed, but it will take you a long time to do the classic military press week after week.

Instead, spend a few months doing military presses in a power rack. The reduced amplitude eliminates the limitations of your long arms and stabilizes the shoulder joints. This way you can increase your working weights while feeling the positive effects of the military press on your body as a whole.

The basic exercises discussed above will build muscle by hitting fast-twitch muscle fibers and stimulating a large number of muscles through the optimal range of motion for your ectomorphic limbs.

Training program

I developed a four-week mesocycle, a mass-gaining program designed for three workouts per week, which best meets the needs of ectomorphs. You'll notice that it's fairly straightforward, but why the extra complexity? Everything again comes down to the main goal - to come, train, grow.

Notes

• Aim to increase the weight each week on your basic strength and accessory exercises.
• Determine your one-rep max (1RM)—the maximum amount of weight you can lift for a single rep—and use adequate weights to allow you to complete that number of reps. If you don't do this, you are unlikely to be able to control the outcome. Numbers are very important in this matter.

Moreover, the less time you spend in the gym, the harder you will be on every rep. Never miss a single rep due to lack of concentration or poor technique. This is why you are allowed to rest for the required amount of time between sets.

If this training program for gaining muscle mass does not seem effective to you and you do not feel any effect at the end of the training, then you simply did not work hard enough.

Rest at least 48 hours between workouts. At the end of the four-week cycle, evaluate how you feel. If you want to reduce your load for a week, do it. Otherwise, start the program again from Week 1.

Day 1 – Focus on Deadlifts

Training programs for men

Without strength training, there will definitely be no muscle growth; the body has no biological need for this. Why waste resources on restoring microtraumas in muscles if you can put them into adipose tissue and keep them in reserve?

Workout in the gym

The training program for two days a week for an ectomorph is as follows:

This ectomorph training program is perfect for beginner athletes. The entire training process is built around basic movements - you will not overtrain and will gradually progress.

For athletes with basic training, the best option would be a three-day split:

Here, the breakdown by day of the week occurs by synergist muscles, for example, triceps work in all chest presses, and biceps work in back rows. Heavy basic movements will be enough to work these small muscle groups, so isolation is not necessary at this stage.

Exercises at home

Don't be discouraged if you are an ectomorph and don't have the opportunity to go to the gym. You can play sports and improve your physical fitness without leaving home. A minimum set of equipment (prefabricated dumbbells and a horizontal bar) and desire are enough.

The principle of training will be the same - it makes no difference to the muscles whether you work them at home or in a fitness club, the main thing is to work in the same mode and try to increase strength indicators. Training with your own weight will sooner or later lead to a lack of progress, so at least dumbbells or kettlebells should be available.

A home training program for an ectomorph for two days should look something like this:

If push-ups or pull-ups are easy, do them with additional weights, for example, wear a backpack with something heavy.

A three-day split for home workouts looks like this:

Basic training

How to gain weight for an ectomorph should be considered in a separate training program consisting of basic exercises. There should be few isolated tasks because they are not effective for this group of people.

The regime should include three classes per week; to begin with, you can limit yourself to two workouts. For example, one day can be devoted to loading the upper body, and the second day to train the lower part. The training program for an ectomorph can be intense, but you should spend no more than an hour on the training.

In training, it is necessary to purposefully increase strength indicators. Confident strength will lead to muscle growth.

If you can train an ectomorph in the gym, you can choose from the following exercises:

• bench press;
• deadlift;
• squats with additional weight.

If you make significant progress in these exercises, you can gain mass over time. However, it is important to observe technical nuances and not increase the number of weights at the expense of correctness. When gaining the necessary muscle foundation, you can include cardio tasks and isolated techniques in your home workouts, locally working out muscle groups.

Training programs for girls

Not only men, but also women are ectomorphs. Many people think that this is their huge advantage and they can eat whatever they want and not gain weight. But we have already looked at this issue - any excesses have consequences, including disordered eating. Ectomorph girls need to work on themselves no less than men.

Exercises in the gym

The training program for an ectomorph girl for two days should look something like this:

Three-day split option:

Despite the fact that the split coincides with the men's program, it is not a classic ectomorph mass training program. Here we introduce some isolation exercises to protect the fragile female joint and ligament system from unwanted injuries. In addition, there is significantly less axial load on the spine, there are no heavy deadlifts and squats with a barbell, as in the program for ectomorph men.

Plan objectives:

1. Fat burning

2. Detailed muscle work

3. Development of strength endurance

Execution methods: supersets, combined, in a circle

Duration: about 4 months.

Difficulty: (hard)

Now I will try to explain what I mean. Until now, all my plans consisted of weekly cycles. That is, during the week you did several different workouts, then the cycle repeated again at the beginning of each subsequent week. The same plan, in addition to the fact that each week consists of 3 different workouts, the second week is also different from the first, and the third is different from the second. That is, the cycle consists of 3 weeks.

Namely, the first week all workouts are performed with supersets. The second is combined, and the third is a circular method. Then, from the fourth week, the cycle repeats again. Thus, a full cycle takes 3 weeks. In total, you will have about 55 different exercises, so you won’t get bored.

A superset is two exercises under one number. For example, do 1 set of dumbbell deadlifts, then immediately do 1 set of hyperextension without rest. Then rest for about 2 minutes and repeat all over again. And so on until you have done 3-4 such approaches.

In fact, the first week differs from the second in that supersets are interspersed with work on a cardio machine. Such a system is called combined. The distribution by muscle groups in the first and second weeks is the same. However, the exercises are 50% different.

Rest between supersets for about 2 minutes. Thus, workouts in the first week should take approximately 60 - 70 minutes, and in the second week - 80 - 90 minutes.

In the third week, all 3 workouts should be done in a circle (one set of each exercise without rest). After each circle, rest for 3-5 minutes. Each workout uses all the muscles of the body a little. After the third week we start the first again. Etc. Since the full cycle is 3 weeks, you can train according to this plan for about 4 months.

The number of approaches and repetitions is indicated next to each exercise. If you can’t do some exercises, or there are no simulators, then use the “analogs” button. If many people like this approach to the training plan, then I think I will do many more similar complexes. Good luck!