I know mine right off the bat. I ad­mit I get a lit­tle jeal­ous of those folk who can lit­er­al­ly eat any and every­thing and 'not gain a pound'. I on­ly have to walk in front of a bak­ery and I swear my trousers feel a bit more snug. Jokes aside, these cat­e­gori­sa­tions of body types were the brain­child of Dr. William H. Shel­don (1898-1977), an Amer­i­can Psy­chol­o­gist whose the­o­ry de­scribed three ba­sic hu­man body types; the en­do­morph, ec­to­morph and me­so­morph, each of which has par­tic­u­lar traits; how­ev­er, most peo­ple are a com­bi­na­tion of all three in gen­er­al, but a few of us can be spot­ted and de­scribed thus­ly.

EC­TO­MORPH:The ec­to­morph physique is a frag­ile and del­i­cate one (think of a tall, slim bal­le­ri­na). Usu­al­ly a thin per­son, their bones are light, their joints are small and their mus­cles are slight. The ex­treme ec­to­morph may have long fin­gers, toes and neck and show a lin­ear physique with long limbs. In­ter­est­ing­ly, some ec­to­morphs may suf­fer from ex­tremes of tem­per­a­ture. Due to the great body area in re­la­tion to mus­cle mass, the ec­to­morph may suf­fer from ex­treme heat, and due to low body fat, they feel cold quick­er.

ME­SO­MORPH:The me­so­morph is an ath­let­ic type and has well-de­fined mus­cles and large bones. The tor­so ta­pers to a rel­a­tive­ly nar­row and low waist. The bones and mus­cles of the head are promi­nent. Fea­tures of the face are clear­ly de­fined, such as cheek bones and a square, heavy jaw. The face is long and broad. Arms and legs are de­vel­oped and even the dig­its of the hand may be mus­cled. Men have a rec­tan­gu­lar shaped tor­so, and the women pos­sess an hour­glass (or what we call a Co­ca-co­la) body. Ei­ther sex has ex­cel­lent pos­ture. Vi­su­alise a well toned ath­lete, such as a run­ner or swim­mer with well pro­por­tioned thighs and calves. There's your me­so­morph.

EN­DO­MORPH:An en­do­morph's physique presents the il­lu­sion that much of the mass has been con­cen­trat­ed in the ab­dom­i­nal area, which is not al­ways true. How­ev­er, the body of the ex­treme en­do­morph is usu­al­ly round­ed and soft. The head of the en­do­morph is usu­al­ly spher­i­cal and some pos­sess round, broad faces. Their arms and legs tend to be short in length and of­ten ta­per, and their hands and feet are com­par­a­tive­ly small. Mus­cles are un­der­de­vel­oped in some, but they can gain mus­cle quite eas­i­ly. In some, the up­per arms and thighs are of­ten more de­vel­oped than the low­er parts of the arms or legs. This body has a high waist; think of pow­er lifters and some shot-put ath­letes.

Now there are ba­sic yet spe­cif­ic groups of ex­er­cis­es that can work for each body type, which may ex­plain why cer­tain ex­er­cis­es may have failed a par­tic­u­lar type in the past. But re­mem­ber, this is just a gen­er­al guide, which means you can speak to an ex­pert re­gard­ing de­tailed ex­e­cu­tion where nec­es­sary.

So, let's look at the gen­er­al types of ex­er­cis­es for each body type.

Ec­to­morph Ex­er­cis­es:

In gen­er­al, the ec­to­morph will need to gain a lit­tle more mus­cle to achieve mass, so pow­er move­ments are rec­om­mend­ed. Ec­to­morphs should de­vel­op their strength and fo­cus on:

1. Weight train­ing

2. Strength work

3. Mus­cle build­ing

4. Core train­ing

Rec­om­mend­ed work­outs for this body-type in­clude:

• Work on but­tock and thigh area to de­vel­op mus­cle

• Walk­ing

• Tread­mill

• Tae-Bo

• Mar­tial Arts

• Kick­box­ing Class

• Core Train­ing

• Squats, lunges and leg press­es

Me­so­morph Ex­er­cis­es

Me­so­morphs are most­ly ath­let­ic types who don't have prob­lems putting on mass, and they gen­er­al­ly have full en­er­gy and are ca­pa­ble of a lot of phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty. The me­so­morph body type stores fat equal­ly in all parts of the body, but they can be­come over­weight if they con­sume high fat and high calo­rie food. So, to com­bat this, they must use ef­fec­tive ex­er­cise strate­gies, com­bi­na­tion work­outs and cus­tom ses­sions which will re­volve around some cir­cuit train­ing, high-in­ten­si­ty car­dio and mod­er­ate weights, in­clud­ing:

1. Strength Train­ing

2. Sculpt­ing

Rec­om­mend­ed work­outs for this body type in­clude:

• Step Class

• Core Train­ing

• Cir­cuit Train­ing

• Do­ing the Stair­mas­ter

• Run­ning

• Crunch Car­dio

• Aer­o­bic Cross Train­ing

• Jump­ing Rope

• Pi­lates and Yo­ga

• Any form of ath­let­ics

En­do­morph Ex­er­cis­es

En­do­morphs need to work to­wards burn­ing off more body fat di­rect­ly from fat cells. To burn off the body fat, low in­ten­si­ty and aer­o­bic ex­er­cis­es are re­quired. All in all, there are many rou­tines that will work won­ders for this body type, but if an en­do­morph has nev­er re­al­ly been in a fit­ness pro­gramme of any kind, they can start with easy ex­er­cis­es and build up to­wards work­ing more on the car­dio ex­er­cis­es. The hard part is stick­ing to the pro­gramme, but an easy way to do this is to work with a train­er who will start them off on rou­tines be­gin­ning with one ex­er­cise per body part. This way they will get the most (and best) re­sults over time, es­pe­cial­ly from rou­tines that in­clude:

1. Body Shap­ing

2. Ton­ing

3. Sculpt­ing

Rec­om­mend­ed Work­outs for this body type in­clude:

• Cus­tom and tai­lored per­son­al as­sess­ment and train­ing fit­ness pro­grams, in­di­vid­u­al­is­tic so­lu­tions

• Weight loss Work­outs

• Walk­ing Up­hill

• Tread­mill Walk­ing

• Tae-Bo or kick­box­ing class­es

• Spin­ning Class

• In­ter­val Step Class

• High-Low Sculpt­ing Class

• Cross-train­ing

• 20 Minute Full-out Aer­o­bic Body Work­out

Bear in mind that this is just a gen­er­al­i­sa­tion of the ba­sic body shape, so don't be too con­fused if you don't fit in­to just one genre. For in­stance, a per­son could have an en­do­mor­phic tor­so, yet pos­sess the well built legs of a me­so­morph. And there have been cas­es where an en­do­morph los­es the fat and dis­cov­ers they can cre­ate a me­so­mor­phic body. Ec­to­morph-en­do­morph shapes al­so ex­ist as the clas­si­cal "pear" shape – slim on top, but with a high waist and round­ed in the hips, thigh and but­tock area.

So, what­ev­er your shape may be, know that at­tain­ing that de­sired physique is pos­si­ble, cou­pled with the right di­et and fit­ness rou­tine. Have a chat with your doc­tor and the train­er at your lo­cal gym about us­ing the ide­al set of ex­er­cis­es that will fit your shape and help you to bring about a bet­ter, health­i­er you.

With in­for­ma­tion from fit­nesshealth­zone.com