Do you always struggle to gain weight? No matter what you do, you always feel like it’s impossible for your body to build muscles? You spend the entire day eating and training but you see no results? If you fit all these criteria then you’re probably an ectomorph and you need a specific ectomorph workout plan.
If you’re new to weightlifting, I know how frustrating this can be. Building muscles, in general, is hard, being an ectomorph and trying to build muscles is even harder!
Being an ectomorph, I’ve struggled with this my entire life but I managed to break the cycle as you can see in the picture :
And here I proudly present to you:
The Perfect Ectomorph Workout Plan
But before we get into that, we need to get over 5 main principles every ectomorph needs to follow in order to see better results.
The Ectomorph Training Principles:
Principle 1: Implement Compound Movements
Compound movements are exercises that focus on training more than one muscle group, like a deadlift for example which strengthens the upper and lower back, glutes, and hamstrings.
Doing compound movements comes with many benefits, besides being extremely efficient, it can burn more calories, elevate heart rate, improve strength and flexibility and gain more muscle mass in general. Examples of basic compound movements are deadlifts, squats, and pull-ups.
Principle 2: Your workout should always be short
And by short, I mean no more than 1 hour. But during that hour, ectomorphs should put in their all, focusing on hard and heavy exercises. And at the end of the 1-hour session, if you still feel like you have energy to spare then you didn’t train hard enough.
Principle 3: Avoid Doing Too Much Cardio
I know what you’re thinking, cardio has A LOT of benefits, it gets your blood flowing, lowers your body pressure, improves your sleep, and much more. But in terms of muscle building, it only improves and strengthens tiny muscle fibers which you can’t hit normally with those weight-lifting exercises, but this comes with a costly price of burning a lot of calories, a price which you can’t afford as an ectomorph because you need every tiny bit of those calories.
What I like to personally do, is to do a cardio session 1 to 2 times per month and preferably not doing it in the gym but somewhere outside (personal preference).
Principle 4: Do Not Train Two Days In a Row
I see a lot of ectomorphs that make this mistake, they think that training every day will give them better results. This is actually such a bad idea! As an ectomorph, your muscles and body in general absolutely NEED time to rest. So avoid over-training and instead train only 2 to 3 times per week.
Principle 5: Lift Heavy Weights
As an ectomorph, you shouldn’t be scared of those heavyweights at all, on the contrary, to build muscles and increase your strength, lifting heavy weights is the best option for you and comes with many benefits, besides helping with building confidence, getting stronger and improving endurance, ectomorphs tend to have muscle fibers that adapt better with heavyweight and can provide huge growth potential.
The Ectomorph Workout Plan
Creating a workout plan that adapts to the ectomorph body type takes a lot of time, effort, and trial and error. So instead of following this workout plan as it is, try adapting it according to your body. The more training you do, the more you’re gonna learn how to make your own workout plan, just make sure to follow all the ectomorph principles.
What I like to personally do, is to vary between a full-body workout and a split workout each week. Because if you do the same thing, your body and muscles will get used to it and the results will start to slow down.
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
| Workout 1 or 1′ | Rest | Workout 2 or 2′ | Rest | Workout 3 or 3′ | Rest | Rest |
Full-Body Workouts
| Exercise | Set | Reps | |
| 1 | Bench Press | 5 | 6-8 |
| 2 | Squat | 5 | 6-8 |
| 3 | Pull-Up | 5 | 6-8 |
| 4 | Dumbell Curl | 5 | 8-10 |
| 5 | Sit-Up | 2 | 16-20 |
| Exercise | Set | Reps | |
| 1 | Incline Bench Press | 5 | 6-8 |
| 2 | Deadlift | 5 | 6-8 |
| 3 | Bent-over Barbell Row | 5 | 6-8 |
| 4 | Dumbell Curls | 5 | 8-10 |
| 5 | Sit-Ups | 2 | 16-20 |
| Exercise | Set | Reps | |
| 1 | Bench Press | 5 | 6-8 |
| 2 | Squat | 5 | 6-8 |
| 3 | Pull-Up | 5 | 6-8 |
| 4 | Dumbell Curl | 5 | 8-10 |
| 5 | Sit-Ups | 2 | 16-20 |
Split Workouts
| Exercise | Set | Reps | |
| 1 | Bench Press | 5 | 6-8 |
| 2 | Shoulder Raise | 5 | 6-8 |
| 3 | Dumbell Press | 5 | 6-8 |
| 4 | Push-Up | 5 | 8-10 |
| 5 | Dips | 2 | 16-20 |
| Exercise | Set | Reps | |
| 1 | Dumbell Curl | 5 | 6-8 |
| 2 | Tricep Pushdown | 5 | 6-8 |
| 3 | Lat Pulldown | 5 | 6-8 |
| 4 | Pull-Up | 5 | 8-10 |
| 5 | EZ Bar Curl | 2 | 16-20 |
| Exercise | Set | Reps | |
| 1 | Squat | 5 | 6-8 |
| 2 | Deadlift | 5 | 6-8 |
| 3 | Lunge | 5 | 6-8 |
| 4 | Leg Press | 5 | 8-10 |
| 5 | Leg Curl | 2 | 16-20 |