ECTOMORPH WEIGHTLIFTING

ECTOMORPH WEIGHTLIFTING

 it's about bench press, deadlifts, ectomorphs, proportions, squats,weightlifting

There are two things us ectomorphs often forget when it comes to weightlifting. The first is that when we first start taking it seriously, well, we’re still novices. We can’t be expected to perform lifts that require high degrees of athleticism – athleticism that we don’t necessarily have yet. We can develop mobility, strength, stability and power simultaneously with size, so that’s not the end of the world. We do need to learn how to move and lift while we’re getting bigger though, otherwise we’re setting ourselves up for building an imbalanced body that looks funky, performs poorly and is vulnerable to injury. Hardly what we’re trying to accomplish by hitting the gym.

The second thing we forget is that we don’t have the same bone or muscle structures that most bodybuilders and powerlifters have. Most of those guys have highly specialized bodies, accomplished both through decades of training … and also their genetics. They’re often bornwith proportions that suit the lifts they do. Just like the tallest guys are drawn to basketball, weightlifters typically gravitate towards the lifts that they naturally excel at. This means that the guys you’re watching do the bench press are often the worst ones to get your cues from – the lift is very different for them. They’ve got big muscle bellies, short thick bones, stubby limbs and barrel chests. We’ve often got long tendons, long slim bones, long lanky limbs and shallower rib cages. Taking their cues is like asking a 7’2 guy how to dunk a basketball – he may very well say “uh just reach up and put it in.”

Overall we’re just longer people. We make better decathletes than shot-putters; better quarterbacks than linebackers. Hardly anything to be upset about. It’s not like thin guys can’t kick ass at athletics and build amazingly powerful bodies … but we do need to take a different approach, and it’s not the approach you’d likely see the biggest guys in the gym taking.

So let’s talk about lifting like ectomorphs so we can turn ourselves into big strong ripped athletic dudes. Time to turn to the physics of lifting. Let’s dig into the three main lifts a little bit: