Ectomorph Workout Guide for Muscle Gain

Gaining lean muscle mass is a difficult challenge for anyone, but ectomorphs have a particularly hard time adding it. This is due to their increased metabolism and lack of ability to effectively store fat, which means that they have less energy to work with - think of it as having fewer rollover minutes. This means that ectomorphs have to eat more consistently and over longer periods of time than their meso- and endormorphic counterparts. Also, due to their small frame, ectomorphs will want to focus on building up their small foundation so that their frame can support greater muscle mass and not fail under high levels of exertion.

The three main lifts that ectomorphs will want to focus on are the fundamental power lifts: the bench press, the deadlift, and the squat. These exercises are the most basic compound lifts that can be performed and are absolutely essential for anyone lookin to gain serious mass. The bench press will add mass to the shoulders, chest, and lats. This will help you appear larger in the upper body, although it'll do nothing for the lower body. The deadlift will put stress on the entire body, but specifically targets the lower back, hamstrings, and glutes. The squat is similar to the deadlift, but also places a ton of stress on the quads - something the deadlift doesn't really hit too hard. These three lift are absolutely essential and your entire workout should be based around them, although it's certainly recommended that you add a few others to help increase stability and symmetry.

Some other good compound movements that you'll want to consider are the bent over row, pull-up, barbell lunge, and shoulder press. These movements will help fine-tune the shape of your body, by increasing mass in areas that the big three don't hit quite as hard. Bent over rows and pull-ups will place particular stress on the lats, while the barbell lunge will hit the glutes and quads from different angles, and the shoulder press will hit the medial and anterior deltoids near the top of the fiber, which will create a nice cut at the insertion point on the clavicle.

While the compound lifts mentioned above are great for adding mass, there is a limiting factor that they are incapable or inefficient at correcting. In order for ectomorphs to really gain mass and increase overall strength, they need to focus on the smaller, weaker muscles and hit those in order to increase overall stability. In the legs, such muscles are the abductor and adductor muscles, which can fail when doing deep squats, making it much more difficult to complete the motion. In the shoulders, you have the rotator cuffs which often fail when bench pressing - strengthening them has been shown to increase people's bench press by as much as 30%. The rhomboids are another example of a muscle that fails due to inadequate strengthening, and will often decrease how much can be lifted with the lats during pull-ups or rows. I recommend doing external and internal rotation with a dumbbell in order to strengthen the rotator cuffs. For the adductors and abductors, you can do cable ab/ad-duction or side lunges, both of which will strengthen the muscle.

Having a good exercise plan is important, but you'll also need to follow a good diet and make sure you get plenty of rest in order to really gain mass. With your metabolism chugging away at above-average speeds, you'll really need to get plenty of rest in order to slow it down a little bit and conserve some energy. If possible, ectomorphs should get at least 8 hours of sleep a day.