#somatotype

I was involved in a discussion on Reddit a couple of days ago regarding my reference to Somatotypes in my post titled “The Big Guy… How to Train?”. I was told that the theory had been debunked as junk science years ago and had no relevance to training or diet. This is a long one folks, but bear with me as it turns out this is a topic with some passion behind it.

At ATR, we definitely consider the body type when it comes to training. When the body type gets discussed, it’s easy to throw around the somatotypes and label athletes as being either mesomorphic, ectomorphic, or endomorphic.

There is a large amount of discussion regarding whether or not they have any place in the fitness world. Some say that there are hard and fast relationships between different somatotypes and the way they should be exercising and dieting. Others say that it is junk science that needs to be discarded in its entirety.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Psychological History

Back in the 1940s a guy by the name of William Herbert Sheldon thought that just by looking at a person, he could determine how smart, nice, and aggressive a person was. He said there were three human physiques, while one person might have influences from all three, these body types formed an all-inclusive taxonomy.

1.       Endomorphy was referenced to describe the fatness or the roundness of a person’s physique.

2.       Mesomorphy was referenced to describe how muscular a body was.

3.       Ectomorphy was referenced to describe how lean and slender the person was.

In Mr. Sheldon’s research, he actually believed that these body types were directly linked to three specific personality types. Those were:

1.       Viscerotonia, or a social, complacent, and food loving individual.

2.       Somatotonia, or a physical, aggressive, and tough individual.

3.       Cerebrotonia, or a sensitive, introverted, and intellectual individual.

He basically tried to prove the stereotypes about the jolly fat man, the meat-headed brute, and the lean wise-man. Now I’m sure that we all know that you don’t have to be fat to be social, muscular to be tough, or slender to have an intellect. His own research was considered to be illegitimate, and the idea that body types and psychological temperaments were somehow linked was thrown out.

From Psychology to Athletics

While the physical structure of a person doesn’t necessarily tell you anything about their mind, it can certainly tell you about other parts of their body and how they interact with the world. This led to the development of the Heath-Carter formula and its use in anthropological studies by researchers. The Heath-Carter formula actually took measurements of a person’s body and plugged it into various equations that allowed a researcher to actually assess a person’s endomorphy, mesomorphy, or ectomorphy all on a 7-point scale.

Eventually, professionals in the field of physical education got ahold of the formula and started using it their studies. Most of the studies that were popularized were used to show that athletes built in certain ways were going to be more successful at certain sports. For example, a study performed to see what commonalities were there in the body types of successful tennis players or rowers.

Where It Is Today

What this has turned into in our fitness world is a dispute that is filled with emotion and potentially misunderstanding. While the original theories of Sheldon were debunked, and ridiculous, the images of the endomorph, the mesomorph, and the ectomorph are still in our heads today. Everyone in the industry knows what they are, but there is a wide spectrum of opinion on whether or not anything can be applied from the original taxonomy.

The question is: Which side is correct? Does it belong, or is it all a hoax?

Today if you go to look for research that will definitively tell you the answer to that question, you will find that none exists. There is a lot of research still being done today that analyzes the individual somatotype of elite athletes, likely to be used to seek out potential recruits who bear the physical qualities necessary to be successful at their given sport.

It is difficult to find any information that directly pertains to somatotypes and nutrition, or somatotypes and fitness. Seems strange, especially considering the way that it is either touted as gospel or considered damnable witchcraft by the fitness community.

The Assumptions - Diet

First let’s discuss nutrition. The basic stereotypes surrounding nutrition for the three somatotypes are as follows:

1.       Endomorph – The endomorph has a low carbohydrate tolerance, and as such should be eating more fat, and less carbohydrates in their diet.

2.       Mesomorph – Mesomorphs typically have a reasonable tolerance for both carbohydrates and fats, and should consume a fairly level mix, perhaps slightly weighted towards carbohydrates.

3.       Ectomorph – The ectomorph has a high carbohydrate tolerance, and as such should be eating more carbohydrates and less fats.

The old rule of thumb regarding protein is 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of your goal weight. While this exact figure is often debated amongst professionals, this figure is one that has been utilized in the bodybuilding and elite athletics domains and is the one that ATR has seen the most success with.

There is a debate regarding the amount of carbohydrates and fats that a person should have in their diet. Some would say that a calorie is a calorie, and that as long as you are maintaining a deficit you will lose weight. Others would say that limiting one of either fats or carbohydrates will help you to shed pounds. While both of these are likely correct in their own way, at ATR we are trying to optimize the results of our athletes, not just see weight loss.

If we look to the Bodybuilding world, preserving muscle and losing fat is the ultimate goal for a large portion of the year. These athletes utilize carbohydrate manipulation to drive their weight loss. Frank Zane would bob in and out of a ketogenic state to cut down his weight. In Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, he describes that an athlete should eat as little carbohydrates as possible without going into a ketogenic state. Literally eating as little carbohydrates as possible without becoming carbohydrate deprived. To cut weight down, they cut carbohydrates down.

According to the most recent data from the US Dept. of Agriculture, the average carbohydrate intake for grown men is ~46-53%, and the average carbohydrate intake for grown women is ~49-53%. The average daily caloric intake is ~2400-2700 for men and ~1850-2000 for grown women. If the average American diet is half full of carbs, when I see a classic endomorph, I think that he’s not efficiently handling that carb-load. When I see a classic ectomorph, I think that he’s handling that carb-load very efficiently. These are generalizations that should not be used in a vacuum to prescribe an exact diet, but they do help to point the athlete in a new direction.

Keep in mind that the evaluation of athletes utilizing somatotypes as a tool is an exercise in futility when that athlete is at an extreme end of the spectrum. When you have someone that is excessively overweight, cutting back on food in general is likely the best advice to be given regardless of whether it’s carbohydrates, protein, or fats. It the athlete looks to be skin covered bones that spent the last 30 days in a desert, any food is likely to improve their overall situation.

The somatotypes give us a general idea of what is going on, not a diagnosis. They should be used as a tool to give preliminary understanding, and to guide follow up questions into a person’s health. To throw them out completely is to ignore common sense and

The Assumption - Training

When evaluating the somatotypes with the Heath-Carter formula, the width of the elbow and knee joints are compared to the girth of the arm and calf. In addition, the mass of the athlete is compared to the height of the athlete. There is no actual analysis of limb lengths, or their relationship to other parts of the body. Despite this, when we think of Endomorphs, we think of wide hips and wide shoulders relative to the height. This is likely because for the height to mass relationship to indicate endomorphy, the person simply has to be wider and shorter than a person to which the relationship would indicate ectomorphy.

As such, when we think endomorph, we think short, stocky, like carrying fat over the top of larger muscle bellies. With these wider bone and joint structures, they have a larger capacity to carry weight in general, both fat and muscle. Larger joints displace more weight, offering them more capacity to handle a load. When you look at a traditional powerlifting physique or a large lineman in football, often times it is very similar to that of the endomorph. Their limbs that form the lever when moving weights are shorter relative to the joints that form the fulcrum. Endomorphs have a leverage advantage when performing many exercises.

When we think ectomorph, we think long, lean, slender, and very little mass at all. The smaller bone structures of these people do not have the capacity to carry as much mass, neither muscle nor fat. With smaller joints, they do not displace weight as well, and as such tend to have less capacity to lift large weights. With long limbs and small joints, where the endomorph would see a leverage advantage, the ectomorph tends to be at a large disadvantage. However, with less mass to deal with, their physiology is not strained as hard when performing aerobic activity as the endomorph’s.

When it comes to athletics, the mesomorph is the golden boy of sorts. Their musculature is built on a bone structure somewhere in between the perfect stereotypical endomorph and the perfect stereotypical ectomorph. These physiques tend to be what you see amongst successful bodybuilders, a lot of wrestlers, and linebackers or full-backs in football.

Can We Use It?

Now back to the debate at hand: should this taxonomy have anything to do with the programming of an athlete?

At ATR, we believe it should to some degree. With leverage being a tool that the classic endomorph has at his disposal, manipulating heavier weights will be less of a problem than that of the classic ectomorph. Hitting a squat with short femurs, short tibias, wide hips, and wide knees, is much more mechanically advantageous than hitting a squat with a lack of those traits. The classic ectomorph is forced to move a load that is heavier relative to his or her lever and typically move that load farther because the lever is longer. If we define work as being force times displacement, the ectomorph is doing more work than the endomorph at the same weight.

Combine that line of thinking with the goals of the average endomorph and the average ectomorph. The endomorph typically wants to lose weight, while the ectomorph usually wants to gain. If the endomorph wants to lose weight, then he must increase his relative workload. The quickest way to do so would be to incorporate more of those levers at the same time using compound exercises. These exercises need to be performed to take advantage of their bone structure’s capacity for muscle, while increasing the density of the work through the simultaneous increase of repetitions and decrease of rest times. The ectomorph however would want to preserve any energy that they have to ensure that it goes towards growth instead of output. They need to perform larger movements similar to the endomorph, however they need to perform their sets with ample rest time and less reps.

The mesomorph has the ability to gain muscle easily while maintaining less fat. The Heath-Carter formula literally defines a mesomorph by analyzing the amount of muscle the individual carries relative to the results of their skin fold measurements. This is the athlete that may want to spend some time on isolated movements in an attempt to round out the overall physique. The endomorphs and ectomorphs that have found a caloric balance at a body mass makeup they are happy with can and should also begin the sculpting process, using isolation movements to bring out what they might deem to be lagging body parts.

Regardless of whether or not you believe that a person can be classified as one of the three somatotypes or not, ignoring the attributes of individuals when programming will limit their potential progress. They may see gains, but they will come more slowly than they could be if you optimized their program based on their unique physical characteristics. Even if you don’t believe someone can be an endomorph, if you try to train an overweight individual with a long drawn out series of isolation movements, they will not see the same progress as the overweight individual who trains in a manner conducive to a classic stereotypical endomorph. The same statement applies for the ectomorph.

Productive Application

In the actual instruction manual produced written by Dr. Lindsay Carter for the application of the Heath-Carter formula, the image used to display the somatotype profile was on a coordinate grid of sorts. There were three points that each individually represented a degree of their respective somatotype. Incorporating the three directions, there were countless possibilities of physiques within the triangle that represented all variants. The point is that there are any number of combinations of the three somatotypes in any given individual. Think of the individual who has a lean and slender figure from the waist up, but carries a lot of fat on thick joints from the waist down. There’s also a classic physique known to all best described as a large belly on pair of stilts.

Styles of Body (Somatotype), Know Yours

Getting work and healthy is trending in our youth that may be a smart factor however it is pretty robust.

So before beginning, we tend to suggest you know your body well then set up what fitness/nutrition methods can work for you.

Somatotype, body form and physique kind. The term body-build is employed within the system of classification of human physical sorts developed by U.S. man of science…

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