Knowing our body type helps us, not only to choose the clothes that best suit us, but to know how to enhance the good parts when training in the gym. There are many body types for both men and women and we are going to explain them all.
Throughout this text we are going to talk about the body and the sport and how each body fits with a type of sport and training. And it is that having a good musculoskeletal system, or having long legs, accumulating a lot of fat, being short, everything influences our day to day and sports.
It is also true that each body is unique and is a kind of identity mark like fingerprints, what has been done throughout history is to study the common characteristics of bodies and classify them. Hence, today there are 3 somatic types, also known as somatic types.
In turn, women have other types of bodies, although everything from pear, hourglass, triangle and such is not so focused on sports, but we are also interested in knowing how to highlight our figure and learn more about our body and how we can enhance it. or anticipating the accumulation of fat, for example.
Body types
The types of bodies have common characteristics and that is why they can be classified and it is done based on bone mass, muscles and fat, mainly. This is popularly known as the body’s constitution, which is sometimes confused with metabolism. The key is to identify our body type and based on it develop a training plan , only then can we achieve maximum performance and perfect results.
Ectomorph
It affects men and women equally, and is characterized by being a tall and thin body type with long limbs, flat chest. A body with little muscle mass and that performs very well in swimming, athletics, cycling and all performance tests and cross-country tests.
Here we recommend a nutrition plan and strength and hypertrophy training to increase muscle mass. Aerobic workouts are counterproductive because they will cause the body to lose more weight and more muscle mass.
Some identifying characteristics: short torso, long limbs, long feet and hands, little body fat, narrow shoulders and flat chest, very fine hair, very tall people, very thin bodies, fast metabolism and very little muscle mass.
Endomorph
It is a body type that also occurs in men and women with the difference that it is totally opposite to the previous body type. Here the bodies are characterized by being short and rounded, with slow metabolism and accumulation of fat.
As a positive point, they are bodies that easily gain muscle mass , and here aerobic and anaerobic exercises with varied intensities are recommended. For this type of body, the most suitable sports are those that need power and balance, such as weight lifting, boxing and contact sports.
Some clear characteristics: slow metabolism, short limbs, short neck, soft and smooth skin, wide hips, fine hair, low height, lots of body fat, large hands and feet, easy to build muscle and easy weight gain.
Mesomorph
It is the best body type for sport, as there is a high chance that everything you do will work out for you. It is best to find a sport that combines strength, physical background and power, for example, tennis, soccer, rowing, etc.
A body with a tendency to accumulate fat , but it is not the endomorph and neither the ectomorph that burns everything it eats. It is a body type halfway between the previous two.
Main characteristics: strong hair, very distinctive facial features, long torso, great physical strength, strong bodybuilding, large hands and feet, medium metabolism and little fat that, if not controlled, accumulates in the hips and abdomen.
Types of bodies in women
Women have other types of bodies that sound more familiar to us than the somatic types that we have seen in the previous section. These types of bodies help us when it comes to improving our physical appearance with sports and when choosing the clothes that best highlight our curves.
Hourglass
It is the most desired body, since it is balanced above and below with wide shoulders and hips that measure practically the same. It tends to be the body that has the most curves, although it depends on body mass, of course.
In this type of body, the waist is narrow and there is a clear difference between the 3 points, that is, between shoulders, waist and hips. It’s the famous 90-60-90 body , but we don’t have to obsess over it. Each body of each woman is a temple and just as perfect and beautiful, here health matters, not measurements.
This type of body is given by genetics and it is difficult to achieve it only with food and sports. If we already have this body, we just have to perfect it by doing training routines where we highlight the curves even more by doing push-ups, sit-ups, squats, weight lifting, aerobics, Pilates, dance, etc.
Pear
The pear-shaped body type is wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, that is, our hips will be wider than our shoulders. A body with a tendency to accumulate fat in the hips and abdomen , but with a little effort we get very good results.
We can perfect our hips and glutes by doing squats, leg strength, knee extensions, hip lifts, etc. Remember that training must be complete and not focus exclusively on one area.
Rectangular
A body that is very hated for not having each area well defined, but as we say it is still a beautiful and special body, you just need to pamper it in the gym and do specific exercises to define the waist . For example, using hula hop helps a lot, also dance, yoga, Pilates, aerobics, cycling to strengthen legs, etc.
It would also be good to accompany these workouts with exercises for shoulders, thighs, buttocks and arms, that is, training the whole body. Achieving our goal of setting the waist is not an easy path, but let no one tell us that we cannot achieve it.
Round or apple
The apple body is a round shaped body. For this type of body, a training with high energy consumption is convenient and interspersed with training of objectives such as marking the waist, for example.
This type of body differs from the previous one, it is that here our legs do not have much volume, so we have to focus on not losing leg volume , but reducing hips and buttocks if that is what we are looking for. Intense exercises is the best option, create high poicos that have a high energy consumption and burn fat and shape the figure until we achieve our goal.
Inverted triangle
This body is characterized by being wider at the shoulders than at the hips . There is also the normal triangle which is wide at the hips and narrow at the shoulders, but the inverted triangle is usually the most common.
In this case, we need to increase the mass at the hip and shape the waist, so that we compensate the entire figure. Here you have to have a very good diet, as in all workouts and do very specific exercises to gain muscle mass in your legs, buttocks and hips.
