Muscle Gain for Skinny Guys

Every body type has different characteristics and limitations which affect how they respond to activities like weight training.  Naturally skinny guys don’t necessarily have trouble increasing their strength thresholds, but they are often limited in how much weight and bulk they gain.  This is typical with the Ectomorph body type.

Ectomorph is one of three body types that are used to describe the bone structure and rigidity of your body.  Mesomorphs are larger individuals with thick bones who often carry excess weight.  Endomorphs have average to athletic builds and would be considered “in shape” by most people.  Ectomorphs are characterized by a light bones structure, skinny shoulders, and general fragility.  They are faced with the most challenges when it comes to building strength and mass.

As disheartening as the scientific description of an Ectomorph is, there is no reason that anyone should settle for being this way their whole life.  A good weight training program and diet is enough to overcome these genetic roadblocks.  They key is to plan both of these elements to suit the goal of increasing strength and size.

Skinny guys should focus their workouts around performing exercises with maximum resistance and lower numbers of reps.  For example, a man who can bench 125 pounds 10 times might change their approach to 6 reps of 100 pounds.  The goal is to work the muscles to failure at the highest possible level of weight.   This philosophy is applied to all exercises and muscle groups.  To realize the fastest results, the first few months of training should focus on the largest muscle groups (shoulders, back, chest, and legs).

Another important part of a muscle gain routine is intensity.  Many people fall into the trap of allowing too much rest between sets.  Making this mistake loses the momentum and compounding effect achieved with the first set.  To effectively increase muscle mass, the workout should maintain an accelerated pace with only 1 to 2 minute breaks in between.  This also applies to the times between stations or exercises.  Again, the goal is to work all of the major muscle groups to the failure point.  This will spur enhanced growth on the rest days. 

All of the weight training in the world won’t do much good if proper diet habits are not kept.  Adding weight to an Ectormorph frame requires high daily doses of calories and protein.  Both of these elements should come from healthy and lean sources, and be divided amongst 6 meals per day.  Not only is important to give the body an increased amount of nutrients, but they must be spread out to provide a constant flow of energy to work with.

Being skinny is a natural result of genetic and environmental factors.  What most people don’t realize is that this can be changed by simply adjusting the activities and diet that shapes the body.  Anyone can become bigger by taking a proactive and consistent role in manipulating the body’s intake.