The three main female body types and how to target your workout to maximize benefits and results without frustration or unrealistic expectations.
Make no bones about it–to be your healthiest, fittest and looking and feeling your best you need to exercise–in some form or fashion.
What you are training for will, to a large degree, determine your exercise program.
Every program no matter the goal or sport must have an element of strength training and metabolic conditioning.
We throw into the equation flexibility and mobility work to maintain joint health, range of motion, and stress reduction. These basic components present will make any person/athlete better prepared for their activities of daily living or sport.
Sounds simple, doesn’t it?
Yes, until we throw individual genetics into the mix; we come in many shapes and sizes and a one size fits all exercise program doesn’t work.
Sport specificity aside with the goal of most people being general physical preparedness (fitness), genetics will favor heavily in the mix.
3 Female Body Types
Just like with nutritional protocols, different people require varying amounts of calories and macronutrients and certain body types respond better to varying volumes and intensities of exercise.
The ECTOMORPH Body Type – The Cardio Queen
We all know someone like them; they can eat whatever they want and never seem to gain a pound.
Typically tall, thin, and longer limbed, “ectos” are often referred to as ‘hardgainers’.
They struggle to put weight on and have an even harder time putting on and maintaining muscle mass. They’re not genetically predisposed to it.
In order to overcome nature, they must load up–at the gym and in the kitchen.
The Plan
- Go heavy with the weights using low reps. Use free weights resting 2-5 min between sets and allow 48 hours between workouts for recovery.
- Limit conditioning. Ectos have high metabolisms so they need to limit cardio to infrequent, shorter duration sessions.
- Diet: Eat–a LOT and often. If they don’t, they will not gain muscle. Quality foods with adequate protein making sure to add in enough of both the right types of carbohydrates and healthy fats to raise calorie consumption
The ENDOMORPH Body Type –The Hearty Girl
Sturdy heavy-set types that have soft, stocky bodies and sluggish metabolisms may feel like they got the short straw.
Gaining weight is not a problem but losing fat is challenging. Endos must make a conscious, concerted effort to do the things their bodies should be doing for them. They need to go hard, fast, and often in the gym paying strict attention to nutrition.
The Plan
- Rev up the engine. Their slow metabolism needs a major boost. For the weights lift in the 10-12 range with moderate weight and little rest between sets. Throw in short, hard bursts of cardio to crank it into gear.
- Superset. That means exercises done back to back or circuit fashion with a reduced recovery time. CrossFit is excellent for this.
- Diet: you need more healthy fats than any other body type and very LITTLE carbohydrates. The higher fat will help to push out the unwanted body fat and the reduced carbohydrates will help you effectively go from a sugar burner to a fat burner. Portions matter.
The MESOPORH Body Type –The Natural Athlete
Mesos are lucky, they hit the genetic lotto. They add muscle with relative ease and gain or lose weight without much effort. Typically they have longer torsos, shorter limbs and tend to be strong athletic types. They are bursting with energy and tend to do well in explosive sports that require power and speed
The Plan
- For the weights, mesos should stick with compound movements that work multiple muscle groups such as deadlifts, chins, presses, and squats. These moves exploit their natural strength.
- Crank it up. They can also handle a higher volume of both weight and conditioning sessions. They can hit the gym with 4 weight training sessions and about 3 met cons each week for max results.
- Diet: Mesos should eat reasonable portions of protein, adequate healthy fat and carbs aren’t really an issue. But stick to the right ones for health reasons.
While some people will find they are a ‘classic’ type many people are a combo of either ecto/meso or meso/endo. We won’t find any ecto/endos.
While we can’t change the basic body type we were born with by implementing these training/nutrition tips you can optimize your body type and ultimately reach your fitness goals.
More Information
I eat a diet high in greens, & drink a lot of lemon water along with coconut oil.. I was wondering, do you mean very little of ALL carbs or just bad carbs for the endomorph?
Just grain and starch based carbs.
Very interesting, Do you think it’s within our genes that make up our body type or is it external factors like what we eat, how active we are, etc. Which play a larger role?
As someone who is an ectomorph (just found this out about a year ago), i had NO idea why i wasn’t able to put on any weight. I thought i was lifting enough, thought i was getting enough food, but NOPE. Apparently as an ecto, you need MORE MORE MORE to make any kind of gains.
Once i found out what an ectomorph actually was, and that I was one, it became a lot easier! I realized i needed to almost double what i ate if i wanted to bulk up.
I like what you wrote about lifting heavy with low reps, because that’s exactly what I did and it worked for me!
I’d recommend everyone figure out what their body type is before starting their lifting/fitness goals, it makes a difference!
Thanks for the article 🙂
I’ve lost 45 lbs since January by doing exactly what is suggested for my body type, endomorph. Now to find the motivation to hit the weights…
I am an endomorph for sure. I believe my husband is a endomorph or mesomorph as well (he’s short and stocky, very muscular when we first met 10 years ago). What books and or websites do you suggest to help me revamp our diets and craft an exercise plan for myself that would take body type into consideration?
This post made me feel angry and hurt. I got “the short end of the stick”. Between that, the drawings, and the encouragement to watch carbs and diet, my mood completely plummeted. I’m discouraged already with my 5 children, 4 Csectioned, ugly flabby body, and then I get to read about others hitting the genetic lottery? I hate myself enough, thanks for pointing out all my flaws again. Can’t we be a little more gentle with word choice? Ready to go cry for a while now.
Don’t feel angry and hurt. Your body is your own there is awesomeness in it YOU are awesome. I am a 220 lb 5’4″ endomorph with a bad knee, 3 kids and no time to myself to exercise. It sucks I was in stellar shape pre-children. It bugs me to no end that now I am fat and out of shape (but even when I was riding my bike 200 miles and swimming laps 3hrs+ a week I wasnt the super slim picture of sex-godessness) I wasnt eating to the benefit of my body- I weighed 150 lbs which put me at borderline overweight (though I could have done 2/3 of a tri without batting an eye- Ive never been a runner).
Do yourself a favor and start by trying to quiet that mean ugly voice in your head. I have my daughter tell it to shut up, and if she verbalizes negative self talk I have her back talk that negative voice out loud then come up with a ways she could improve the thing that she doesnt like. After that I have her give voice to things she likes about herself.
4 kids is hectic and its hard to find me time and even harder to talk yourself into not being lazy with the free time you have (I know all I want to do is sit on my @$$ when I have a moment). I have started riding my bike with my kids (I have three, 7, 3 and 1). I dont get all the exercise I need to drop weight quickly but I have been loosing weight slowly and it feels good. If you want to start riding a bike (its great for bad )
Take the information you’ve gained from this article (most efficient way to exercise and how to boost your metabolism through your eating habits) and focus on what you can do with the time you have.
Carissa
I have the same problems and thoughts about me and my body.
I’m the full blown ectomorph replying to your comment. Please don’t be discouraged. Love your self. Your wonderful body was able to bear 5 children- that’s a beautiful thing. Some folks would say you DID hit the genetic lottery with that accomplishment. You may not know this, but folks who trend really skinny can have fertility problems.
Why not take a tip from 12-Step groups and approach this a day at a time. If you want to get into better shape do a little each day to that goal. And cherish the reaching of your modest goals. Eventually that can put you in a very good mind set. And if very slow and steady is your way, go with it! Something is better than nothing. Small goals are precious. It’s ok to remain forever with your small goals. Perfection is the enemy of progress. There is great value “in the doing” and being happy with modest goals.
I am an ectomorph and I cannot even imagine myself being endo or mesomorph. I can eat everything I want without getting fat. Abs also look great without dieting.
Hi Paula,
This article has really sparked my interest in learning more about my body type. Can you please expand a bit on specific exercises for the ectomorph group? For the others you listed examples i.e. Crossfit (endomorph) and deadlifts, chins, presses (mesomorph). I’m a little clueless on ectomorph. Thanks!
What about us guys? My wife turned me on to this blog. Good info but sometimes directed only to women.
I’m with you.
This is an excellent post. When you say endomorphs need low carb, how much are we talking? I’m eating a paleo type diet with dairy. I can see my overdoing it with fruit and root veges. Do you have a general range? Thanks so much.