Any suggestions for an ectomorph to gain muscle mass?

[JHL]

As the title suggests, I am an ectomorph (skinny build, fast metabolism) and struggle to build muscle.

I've been training on and off for over a decade and have maintained a decent build. However I still look skinny and have never been able to put on more than a few kg's of muscle.

A couple of questions -

1 - would you say 4 times a week of weight training is too much for my body type? I spend about an hour in the gym and try to train with intensity.

2. I realise diet is critical. I have recently started taking a weight gain shake once a day. But what are the key foods I you would recommend I eat to pack on muscle?

3. I train two bodyparts per day, with 3-4 exercises per bodypart. Is this too many exercises per bodypart? I try to start each bodypart with a basic movement like bench press for chest, or pull ups for back.

Many thanks.

[duhshuh]

JHL,

I am also an ectomorph and struggle putting on muscle mass; however, there are a few things that seem to work for me:

I'm not sure what kind of workout routine you are following at the moment, but I have had the most success training each muscle group only 1 day per week, rather than the 2-3 times I had been previously. All of my workouts are focused on building muscle rather than toning. For example, I will do 3 sets of a particular exercise performing at least 4 but less than 8 repetitions per set. If you need a better explanation you might want to look up "Max OT".

If you are a runner, cut way back on any distance running you may be doing and do sprints instead. Take a look at "Guerilla Cardio".

My final bit of advice... start eating more and more often. You can't build muscle if the calories aren't there.

Good luck!

[bylto]

I'd like to give some advice. I weight train 4 times a week and am ectomorph/mesomorph. You can build solid muscle no matter what your body type is.

Train each body part once a week

Train 2 parts in each session e.g. biceps/triceps

train 3-4 times a week

Train for no more than 45 mins a session

You should be able to do no more than 8-10 reps before failure. If you can do more, the weight is too light.

4-10 reps. 6/7 per body part sets. 2 minute rest between sets

Get around 1 gram protein per lb bodyweight a day.
Take 30-60 grams glucose post-workout
5grams creatine post-workout

Keep workout logs and get better every single workout, either more weight or more reps - very important

For bulking, get at least 3000 calories a day. This depends on your weight at the moment, could be more.

I will be posting exercise articles at my blog soon as I have built a body I am very pleased with today (used to be very skinny too). This is a simple post but effective if implemented.

All the best

[JHL]

Hi guys,

thanks for your advice, I appreciate it. Seems like my program is pretty much on track but I think I need to work out how many calories I'm consuming - I have no idea at all at this stage.

From some other threads I've been reading, there doesnt seem to be an exact consensus on whether low reps (4-6) or higher reps (8-12) are better for mass building, as opposed to strength. Maybe the bottom line is to just hit the muscles as hard as possible irrespective of exactly how many reps.

Anyway, thanks again!

[bylto]

Yep JHL, there is no consensus. All I can advise about is my personal experience which seems to be that muscle responds better (grows quicker) to 4-8 reps. However, every few months I switch to higher reps for a few weeks as this 'shocks' the muscles and hits different fibers. Then I switch back to low reps so that they don't adopt and they keep growing.

[hazerfazer]

John Berardi - Scrawny to Brawny. Check that book out.

[Kristoffer]

I am also built like you, I am fit but it is difficult for me to gain a lot of muscles. I have two points that I would like to add:

1. Weight lifting is not everything. I gain more muscles from boxing than WL. Punching the bag and hand held pads/mits is very good training for arms, biceps, shoulders and back.

2. It is not all about protein. Eat more of everything. I read this in a book on training and it works for me. I eat a lot or rice before and after training.

This works for me.

[JHL]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your input!

I'm giving it all a good go, and will let you know how things work out in a month or so.

[Uplift]

I reckon 3-4 times a week is way too much training for a true ectomorph. The proof is in the pudding, you know yourself you haven't gained as much as you would like after 10 years, listen to that voice inside you. Change. Try something different. My advice would be forget 'times a week' and work on figuring out the number of days needed between workouts to recover. Start at working out every 3rd day, see if every fourth or fifth is better. Also make sure you are training hard enough, and right. Around 30 minute workouts, not including warmup. Learn to squat and deadlift, PROPERLY, STRICTLY. Workout A: Squat 2 sets, 1 x 8-10 reps, 1 x 4-6. Second set, bomb. When you honestly think only 1 rep left, get tough, breath hard, keep strict, 3-5 partials at top, then isometric hold around half way down for ten seconds, then fight to the bottom of the rack. Think strong, power, focus. Tough at first but you'll soon adapt, awesome for metabolism, hormones, fitness and recovery. Bent rows. Same deal. Focus your will. Dips, use negative (lowering for 6 secs) if you aren't strong enough, hang weights if you are, same thing. Hyperextension, ditto, (partials at bottom of movement). Get psyched. You have days to recover, your testosterone will be up during the workout, adrenalin too, use your mind, be all over it. Once you have technique down, work. Workout B: Same pattern. Deadlift, Chins, 1 set palms facing, 1 palms away - alternate. Partials are in the hanging position. Use negative (lowering for 6 secs) if you aren't strong enough, hang weights if you are). Incline bench press (think about upper chest and shoulders, keep shoulder blades partly together, good, safe for shoulders), Hanging knee raise (hang by hands, or use some type of ab-original style of gizmo). Again partials are in the hanging or bottom position. Alternate workouts. Eat 6 -10 small meals a day. Get some gymnasts/weightlifting chalk, no straps, develop a grip. Work on bracing core, erectors. Technique and breathing is crucial or you'll get hurt. When you are fit enough, learn about holding breath, or panting when exerting, increases tension, tightness, no lifting belts, get strong. Focus everything into 8 sets, rest as much as you need to, 2-3 minutes between sets. Go for more reps, weight everyworkout. Remember, 1 rep extra in one set of one exercise is progress. Focus on continual tension, protect your joints. Eat enough , especially straight after your workout. When you dramatically increase your strength, workload, size will follow. Go for it. What ever you decide, a different outcome needs a different approach, change and variety is fun.

[Uplift]

I reckon 3-4 times a week is way too much training for a true ectomorph. The proof is in the pudding, you know yourself you haven't gained as much as you would like after 10 years, listen to that voice inside you. Change. Try something different. My advice would be forget 'times a week' and work on figuring out the number of days needed between workouts to recover. Start at working out every 3rd day, see if every fourth or fifth is better. Also make sure you are training hard enough, and right. Around 30 minute workouts, not including warmup. Learn to squat and deadlift, PROPERLY, STRICTLY. Workout A: Squat 2 sets, 1 x 8-10 reps, 1 x 4-6. Second set, bomb. When you honestly think only 1 rep left, get tough, breath hard, keep strict, 3-5 partials at top, then isometric hold around half way down for ten seconds, then fight to the bottom of the rack. Think strong, power, focus. Tough at first but you'll soon adapt, awesome for metabolism, hormones, fitness and recovery. Bent rows. Same deal. Focus your will. Dips, use negative (lowering for 6 secs) if you aren't strong enough, hang weights if you are, same thing. Hyperextension, ditto, (partials at bottom of movement). Get psyched. You have days to recover, your testosterone will be up during the workout, adrenalin too, use your mind, be all over it. Once you have technique down, work. Workout B: Same pattern. Deadlift, Chins, 1 set palms facing, 1 palms away - alternate. Partials are in the hanging position. Use negative (lowering for 6 secs) if you aren't strong enough, hang weights if you are). Incline bench press (think about upper chest and shoulders, keep shoulder blades partly together, good, safe for shoulders), Hanging knee raise (hang by hands, or use some type of ab-original style of gizmo). Again partials are in the hanging or bottom position. Alternate workouts. Eat 6 -10 small meals a day. Get some gymnasts/weightlifting chalk, no straps, develop a grip. Work on bracing core, erectors. Technique and breathing is crucial or you'll get hurt. When you are fit enough, learn about holding breath, or panting when exerting, increases tension, tightness, no lifting belts, get strong. Focus everything into 8 sets, rest as much as you need to, 2-3 minutes between sets. Go for more reps, weight everyworkout. Remember, 1 rep extra in one set of one exercise is progress. Focus on continual tension, protect your joints. Eat enough , especially straight after your workout. When you dramatically increase your strength, workload, size will follow. Go for it. What ever you decide, a different outcome needs a different approach, change and variety is fun.

[Reyv]

I'm not an expert on the topic, but I've gone through a lot of material within the past few months, and these are some of the opinions that I currently hold:

1. The body grows for around 36-48 hours after hitting the gym, provided that the conditions are right (anabolism).

2. Without proper workout nutrition, growth may be delayed for up to 24 hours after leaving the gym (during which the body continues to be in a catabolic state). By proper workout nutrition, I mean at the very least some simple carbs so that the muscles can replenish their glycogen.

3. New muscle mass is created from the proteins you eat. You can't grow more than what you're eating. On average, 100 grams of meat contain 20-30 grams of protein. (There's a limit on how much protein the body can use, so don't go bananas.)

4. Digestion of a meal takes around 3-4 hours, after which you need to eat again, so that the body has the raw materials it needs for growth. (Actually, this isn't entirely true, and depends on what you eat. Casein, for example, takes up to 7 hours to digest.)

5. You cannot really grow without a caloric surplus. Your muscles will become more optimized, and they might look better, but you won't experience any significant growth.

6. Caloric surplus. Caloric surplus. Caloric surplus. Not kidding. Your body uses a lot of energy just to operate itself. If you're not eating a sufficient amount of calories, you body simply won't have enough energy for muscle growth (which happens to be less important than keeping your brain operational).

For nutrition info, probably the best place to start would be with John Berardi, particularly the articles section on his website.

For both workout and nutrition info, I know nothing better than T-Nation.

[nicko1981]

I am a true ectomorph. I have also been working out for years and going nowhere. I thought it was impossible to put weight on.

What you need to understand is that your body is torching through calories like an overloaded saudi arabian fuel tanker all the time. Like me you could probably eat 3000 calories a day and still get that stomach rumble mid afternoon. Your body is like a car. You need to keep that tank full or it will not run properly. Your body will not build muscle when you are hungry. Simple as that.

Increase caloric intake (and I mean eat 6 times a day, no junk food, count your calories) until you are eating enough to feel full ALL THE TIME. Make sure it is good food with plenty of protein and carbs.

Cut out as much cardio as possible. This is essential for keeping your "motor" at idle - not revving hard and burning fuel.

Get a good gym program together. Twice a week is good, no more than 40 mins per session. Aim for 2 sets of 12 reps per exercise. A split program works well for me - back and shoulders Monday, chest and arms Thursday with lunges before both workouts to get the testosterone flowing.

Listen to what Uplift (above) says - clearly an experienced campaigner and probably the reason I figured out my problem.

Good luck mate.

[Cory]

Yea ectomorphs do have a lot harder time putting on muscle than the other soma types. It is possible though, but you have to workout smarter and not harder. Certain ectomorphs have a tendency to get hurt easier lifting heavy weights, I think this is due mainly to the smaller bone structure compared to the other soma types. But if you are serious in gaining muscle I recommend going to this Hardgainer site and reading all of the free articles that are on there. And signing up for the email class too.
Alot of great information for ectomorphs...

good luck to you my friend,
~Cory

[sundog]

I'm a "hardgainer" too and the book "brawn" by Stuart McRobert helped me quite a bit. Amazon.com: Brawn, 3rd Edition (9789963916313): Stuart McRobert: Books

The gist of it is:

1. Add weight in small increments per week. Even if you add 2 lb a week that's a 104 lb in a year more than you were doing. He says that for "hard gainers" its easier to plateau than for "easy gainers." This seemed to hold true for me.

2. Even if you mainly want upper body strength/size you need to do squats or dead lifts because they seem to help trigger overall growth. Overall focus on the big combination lifts like bench presses, dead lifts, squats and rows or if you can chin ups with weight.

3. Eat like nothing else.

4. Cut out cardio until you've got the size/strength you want.

[Mogget]

My friend was 6'7" and 70kg and has managed to bulk up and get to 90kg of pure steak (over 2 years) by lifting heavy weights in the manner described by previous posters and having extra protein in the form of 3 or 4 eggs in a chocolate shake daily.

[ginkgo]

Be more consistent and also experiment with different techniques to find the ones that work best for you. When it comes to bodybuilding-- cheating and failure are good.

[Raymond Burton]

My biggest challenge when I WAS an ectomorph was the eating and guessing won't cut it. Get an excel spreadsheet, put in your foods you eat. Go to nutritiondata.com and look up all the macro nutrients like protein, carbs and fats in each portion you eat. Total it up and see how close you are to your caloric requirement. If you don't know what that is, look up B.E.E. and you'll find a a calculator.

Depending on your metabolism and activity level, you'll multiply that by 1.3-1.5 ect depending.

As far as training goes, any imposed demand that causes your body to adapt will do. It's not rocket science at all. Having said that, 2-3 full body workouts a week have always worked for my clients and worked for me as well.

I usually shoot for "the 25". Just a guide for the volume and lets me switch things up a bit. Do either 8x3, 3x8-10 or 5x5. All classics that work as long as you progressively overload the muscle.

That will get you started.

[Mariam]

What i can tell you is this,For Ectomorph, gain mass for his body is not a small thing. An ectomorph needs to work hard to have just little muscle covered in his bone. As your body simply isn't wired for being fat, you can change through a combination of good eating, good weight training, and sleeping.You should get plenty of sleep to gain mass. Not only are all those weight training and eating for ectomorph important, we should keep balanced with a good sleep. Getting 8 hours of sleep each night is the healthy plan to do for you. You cannot build quality mass without enough sleep. When you sleep, your natural growth hormones are released. So if you want to build muscle and see the growth you should give your body what it needs.

Too much sleep isn't good either. For an example, we sleep for 14 hours. For about 14 hours our bodies survive without food. That inevitably means your body will have to look into other sources of energy to sustain itself, and muscle mass is high on the menu. There's a fine balance between too much and too little sleep.

Rest and sleep more to gain mass. Yeah, Ectomorph needs more sleep. Always remember that sleep is your ally in your quest for quality weight gain. Give your muscles time to grow. You can be big if you stay with midnight activites like watching dvd till morning or in front of your computer chatting overnight, what you have done in fitness centre like bench press will be useless.

[rocketman]

1. if you don't know exactly how many calories you are consuming each day, then it's likely you're not eating enough.

2. a lot of people in this thread have suggested 2 workouts per week for ectomorphs. i am curious as to how this would be possible? the general rule i have followed my entire life is 9-12 sets for each muscle group per week. so if you are hitting chest, bis, tris, shoulders, back, quads, and hams, how could you possibly squeeze this all into 2 workouts?

i would greatly appreciate if someone could expound on this as it would be really convenient for me to be able to cut down to 2 workouts. i'm currently lifting 4x a week, but when i'm in school, i go 3x.

[sirkinm]

I just made a thread about the Beyond Diet Podcast. I remember an episode where nutritionist Keith Klein talks about his transformation from rail thin guy to bodybuilding compeition winner. Go here: Beyond Diet Podcast (though I'm not sure if that topic is listed in the show notes).

Again, I have no affiliation w/the podcast (I just love it!).

[Majesticzero]

I also had this problem when I started with weight training.

My solution:

Training Schedule:
http://www.elitefts.com/ws4sb/WS4SB.pdf

This schedule is made by Joe DeFranco (in my opinion the best coach there is).
Checkout movies about his gym on Youtube or buy his movie "Strong". It will give you a boost to start lifting weights

The schedule isn't the most important part about your training. I think more important are diet and rest.

Diet
To gain muscles you need to eat... eat alot! I eat around 3500 calories a day, but ofcourse that is good for my body, you need to calculate what you need. Also you will need a lot of protein. Proteins make muscles grow. My coach tells me to take around 1.8 x bodyweight as grams a day. For me that'll be 1.8 x 80kg = 144 grams.

Rest
You need to take a lot of rest and sleep to let those muscles grow. Muscles will only grow when resting!!


I'm not sure if this all works for you. But it helped me and a couple of friends.

[accounting genius]

I was very much like you. A skinny kid who wanted to put on some muscle. At first, I followed the hype. I got myself a gym membership, did some weight lifting, spent a ton of money of sports supplements and did not see any significant gains. I justified my purchases of these supplements because they promised magical muscle growth. They didn't deliver much.

Then I stumbled on Starting Strength. It is exactly what it sounds like. It's for people who have skinny arms, and can't bench press worth a damn. I have seen constant strength gains in all of my lifts by approximately 5-10 pounds per week. I went from barely being able to squat with a bar (45 pounds) to 160 pounds. Needless to say, that is incredible amount of growth.

It's an old school workout that revolves around three things: proper weight training, nutrition, and rest. If you want to see gains, you need to do these three things right on a REGULAR basis.

If you have some money, I would seriously recommend purchasing his book:

Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe

There are only a few exercises to master, however, this book goes in detail on what proper execution should be for each exercise. He covers exactly what each muscle in your body should be doing, in each position, of each exercise. The section on Squats alone is over 30 pages! I found the information in there extremely valuable. And quite frankly, if you are doing weight training, you really need to have the right form. Otherwise, you will end up doing more harm than good.

However, if you happen to be a broke college student, I would check out this post:

Guide to Novice Barbell Training, aka the Official RIPPETOE-STARTING STRENGTH FAQ - Bodybuilding.com Forums

This is a good introduction to the Starting Strength. It is very long, however, if you are serious about increasing your strength, you better read up.

Again, I would like to emphasize that you should perfect your form before you try and put on the weight. Otherwise, you're going to face some pretty serious injury.