Best Cycling Body Types (Ectomorph?) | Bike Fitter Explains

mate I'm the Ecto of morphs in the top shelf for those who don't know what is an ectomorph an ectomorph so ah look these there was a bloke I think he was a biologist or something or it might have been a psychologist by the name of William Sheldon back in the 1940s came up with these three categories of body types an ectomorph a mesomorph and an endomorph and we'll deal just with the ectomorphs at the moment now most of his research was a bit wacky it was all about trying to predict psychological traits based off the person's physical traits and most of it's been disproven over the years but the classification of the body types or these somata types we call them is still kind of relevant in the way that we're talking about now which is sort of biology and metabolism and catabolism of protein and so forth so look ectomorphs they're one end of the bell curve and I am very much an ectomorph right very lean very high metabolism long in the limbs often short in the Torso I find it extremely difficult to gain muscle mass and I have a very low body fat and that's like the quintessential like ectomorph you you don't really get any more ectomorph than me okay if you're looking at pro riders like there's there's very few there's a couple of pro writers who if you want to look at their body type and and you know to get an idea of what a re-electomorph looks like look at Chris from and look at probably the number one is Hugh carthy right here Kathy I think is I think he must be about six foot four and he'd be he'd be 60 kilos or 61 or 62 right just a bean Pole right so ectomorphs um now you're you're a bit different you're definitely more of a meter morph right so you've got reasonably good muscle strength muscle bulk you don't you don't have to work super hard at the gym just to put on 500 grams of leg Mass over a six month period you know you can shed and gain muscle mass easily and you have a very sort of efficient metabolism in that sense so you're kind of the other end of the spectrum right so we're good good examples of the two Polar Opposites coming back to ectomorphs um the people in the gym call call us hard gainers it's very very difficult for us to gain muscle mass our metabolism tends to gear towards High carbohydrate lots and lots of energy going in and easy catabolism of our muscle system so if I I've noticed this over the years if I don't recover after a hard ride with a surprisingly large amount of protein I catabolize or I I my body eats my muscle fibers to try and repair them so you can your body can break down your muscle fibers into protein chains and amino chains and if I don't Hammer myself with protein after a really hard ride I catabolize my muscle system really badly hence why I'm an ectomorph that's why that's how you stay like this so high catabolic uh predisposition is definitely a um definitely a sign that you're an ectomorph so you know these categories they're not really discrete categories everyone's kind of a blur of all these things and you can change your body type a little bit and all this sort of stuff but there is definitely a genetic imprint which kind of makes you who you are so you know we tend to have a very poor Sprint um but a good cardiovascular engine right so I have a really really good 20-minute effort but my 10 second 30 second one minute is pretty bad now I've been working on that a lot by doing leg weight training jacking up the protein intake and Sprint training and so forth and I've got it a fair bit better but it's always going to be my weakness right so you know at the opposite end of the spectrum you might see someone like Caleb Ewan who's a classic classic mesomorph like really powerfully built really short limbs you know really muscular despite the amount of riding that he does and this guy's got a great Sprint but not such a great 20-minute effort right so the the different sort of somata types have different pros and cons people like me tend to be really good with their cardiovascular ability but really bad with their neuromuscular ability so um how do you deal with being an ectomorph if you're if you're a bike rider you need to eat a surprising amount of protein which is what I found um I I run on carbs I'm a really hard Fast Metabolism but on the days particularly where I don't train a lot on the bike where I don't have a high carbohydrate demand I have been going hard on the protein like essentially not quite a ketogenic diet but just really heavy protein to prevent the catabolism of my protein chains which makes me so late and this has actually allowed me to build a bit of muscle mass so um since I saw you last actually probably six months ago or so when we did our last series here I've probably put on about a kilo and a half of leg Mass wow and it's I did notice your jeans were a bit tighter yeah mate and they've shrunk in the wash but what that has done so I've been smashing the leg weights at the gym I've always known I should do this but I finally got off my butt and done it right leg weight the gym really really hard ridic to the point where I can barely walk the next day right I do this every Monday lots and lots of protein Monday Tuesday Wednesday and then I train the cardiovascular system on the bike later on in the week right polarizing this sort of stuff and my Sprint has gone from a lowly 840 850 Watts for five seconds to a to a lowly 990 Watts okay so I've bolstered my Spring by like 12 just by gaining a couple of kilos and not being in constant catabolic States and I'm not ripping up my muscle are you going for a thousands I'm looking for the four digits I figure if I can show Craig Wiggins a file with me hitting a thousand Watts you know I I think he'll be very happy with it okay and and I'm very I need to get above your maximum spring what's yours 1125 or something it's not that great so I've got a few few months to go for that one so look lots of protein on those times when I weight train and the weight training is critical to bring the muscle mass up right and lots of protein afterwards remember when you're an ectomorph you can't really as you know to use a bit of uh iffy language here you can't polish a turd right I'm never going to be winning crit races with my Sprint unless it's an uphill Sprint right because I'm very light but my my weakness has always been my neuromuscular ability on the bike so lots of repeated hard surges would blow me up because I wasn't that strong but my cardiovascular ability was great so a long sustained effort so they always say train your weaknesses and race to your strengths you've I've been training my weakness which has always been my neuromuscular efforts and always pretty much with ectomorphs that is the case so you need to work on your weaknesses build your neuromuscular power protein on those days leg weight training in particular for me I've found once a week going really hard is is the way to go but other people go like twice a week and not as hard and Jack the protein up on those days after to try and just bring that muscle mass up a little bit it doesn't take much but then once you're not in that catabolic state it turns out you have a lot more energy on the bike as well and so you know be wary if you're a fast metabolism ectomorph of just carbs you know because I can eat stupendous amounts of carbohydrates and not put on half a kilo and other people look sideways at a burrito and they're two kilos heavier right so the ectomorphs can kind of eat anything and do anything and they stay the same way and you you know this is both a blessing and a curse it's mainly a blessing I'm not complaining but it does make it hard to stay in those surgy fast Bunch rides with lots of neuromuscular efforts compete in the Sprints at the end of a hard ride that kind of stuff because you just become so bad at those neuromuscular efforts duty of physiology and your metabolism so in a positional sense for these people you know we try and optimize their aerodynamics for cardiovascular you know ability because that's where they're going to be winning races and doing better than other people so we look at running low seat Heights rearward click positions try and work on their flexibility to get them low because that's really those those five ten twenty minute efforts that's where they're going to be above and beyond everyone else and that's what we tend to work on we don't try and optimize their position much for sprinting because they're not going to be winning races in a Sprint anyway right like I said before it's very difficult to polish a turd but you do need when you're an ectomorph to work on your weaknesses because they will working on these things will leave you with a much higher neuromuscular capacity which means you'll be a lot less cooked when you get to the end of that Bunch ride where there's been a lot of spikes in your load so that you'll be in much better condition to to to win the race cardiovascularly yeah so um that's been my experience being a severe ectomorph look it's great it's good and bad you know I'm not complaining but um I've never I've never barged off like 63 kilos uh and now I've managed to jack myself up to 64 and a half oh yeah getting big making getting rich and uh the neuromuscular ability is a million times better and so that's how I've done it and that's certainly been I look I'm not certainly not a uh a a nutritionist or anything but my experience with the protein is very large amounts particularly in the days after the weight training and immediately after hard rides much more than you would think yeah so that's one of the keys so hopefully that um helps anyone out there who's like me yeah yeah so we'll all be jacked and ripped like you one day mate [Music] thank you

Channel: Road Cycling Academy

Views: 26,223

Keywords: Cycling, Training, Bike, Fit, Bikefit, Roadcycling

Id: HiRnxAKFgUo

Length: 9min 59sec (599 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 04 2023