Ectomorph Workout Plan for Bodybuilding

The goal of most ectomorphs is to put on mass. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. WIth that in mind, there are a fair number of things you can do to speed up the process or to break past an early plateau that you may have reached. While rest and nutrition are important for gaining mass, the focus of this article is going to be on weight training itself. As an ectomorph, you need to focus your workout on intense core training. With that in mind, you shouldn't completely forsake cardio training. Contrary to what you might have read elsewhere, this will also help increase your energy levels and will help you add mass in certain areas, like your calves and hamstrings.

Your beginning workout routine should focus on a few heavy lifts each day. Most people like to use a three day split when weight training. I recommend that you do heavy weight training three times a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday, you can use bodyweight exercises to help get blood flowing into your muscles and to increase your cardio. Some of my favorite bodyweight exercises are v-ups, planks, and burpees. All three are necessary for building a powerful and strong body.

The three main lifts that you'll want to focus on are the bench press, squat, and deadlift. The latter two are the most important, although the bench is arguably better from an aesthetic point of view as it will build up your shoulders and chest. Other important lifts include barbell rows, chin-ups, and the military press. I do not suggest using isolation exercises early on as these are completely unnecessary. You will gain a ton of mass from just doing heavy compound lifts.

How many sets and reps you do is entirely dependent on your overall goals. If you want to gain strength and become powerful for your size, you should focus on training in the three to five rep range as hypertrophy is minimal with that sort of volume. If you want to build muscle and strength, I suggest doing six to eight reps. Anything more than eight will build muscle but will not aid much in strength gain - that's not to say that you won't gain any strength, but the gains will come more slowly than if you used lower reps with higher weight. Your first two weeks should consist of relatively light lifting with high reps in order to get your muscles used to the motion and to correct your form. I suggest getting an experienced lifter to go with you so that they can critique you.

After you've been doing compound lifts for eight to ten weeks, you can begin to incorporate isolation exercises. Some that I recommend are the incline dumbbell curl, pulley pushdown, calf extension, wrist curls, lateral flies, front raises, and flies. These will help create separation in your muscles and promote growth in individual groups. When doing isolation exercises it's recommended that you use freeweights as they will help build stabilizer muscles that are important for joint and muscle health. If you only do machine workouts, you'll create a muscular imbalance that may come back to haunt you.