Ectomorph Training Ideas???

[Superdoo]

A 10.minute bike ride is not pushing yourself with cardio. Your stated method is a great way to stay a winded ectomoph who can carry 100 pounds 200 yards. Why ask for advice and then ignore it?

I don’t think my clarification response to you would count as ignoring you.
I’m out of shape enough right now that my heart rate remains high from start to finish.
cardio will have its place down the road.
I’m also not so sure a ten minute bike ride would do much for anyone’s cardio unless they’re pushing themselves.

 

[Mike Islander]

I don’t think my clarification response to you would count as ignoring you.
I’m out of shape enough right now that my heart rate remains high from start to finish.
cardio will have its place down the road.
I’m also not so sure a ten minute bike ride would do much for anyone’s cardio unless they’re pushing themselves.

Not ignoring me. Ignoring every person here encouraging you to do aerobic cardio. You are also posting things that aren't accurate and don't reflect the advice. For example, your comment that hard cardio is going to steal muscle. Nobody recommended you do cardio hard enough to burn your muscle.

Strength and aerobic cardio exercise together is by far the most effective way to improve your health and to get you fit for hunting. I think you don't like aerobics and are finding excuses not to do it. Your objections don't address the actual advice and instead sound like rationalizations to keep you from having to do aerobics. That's what I mean by ignoring advice.

I'm happy for you that you're definitely working out. There's no question it will improve your health and improve your hunting. I wish you the best of luck in both cases.

 

[mtwarden]

I agree that true aerobic base building is essentially about total mileage/volume, but a ton of low intensity steady state work is how you become an ectomorph, not how you stop being one.

If I were making a recommendation to a guy who wanted to put on functional weight and still be able to ruck, it would be something along the lines of heavy basic barbell lifts twice per week with two conditioning sessions. The first would be a long-ish duration low intensity steady state effort. The other conditioning session would be interval work.

If someone was extremely limited on time, I´d cut the aerobic work before the strength training. In a relatively untrained person, strength training will provide some degree of conditioning. The reverse isn´t true.

I must be the exception then. I put on 2000-ish miles on the trails every year, strength train twice a week and I'm no where near an ectomorph (albeit not any where near an endomorph either).

 

[Mike Islander]

I must be the exception then. I put on 2000-ish miles on the trails every year, strength train twice a week and I'm no where near an ectomorph (albeit not any where near an endomorph either).

2000 miles of hiking is definitely exceptional. LOL

 

[P Carter]

I must be the exception then. I put on 2000-ish miles on the trails every year, strength train twice a week and I'm no where near an ectomorph (albeit not any where near an endomorph either).

Ditto. I put on around 2,000 “cardio miles” (last year 1500 run/hike and 500 bike) strength trained twice a week, and sat at 5’ 11” and between 168 and 171 pounds for the past 6 years. Before that I didn’t keep track of yearly mileage,
but I was ultra running so it was more miles and less strength, but I still went down only to about 165.

A good aerobic base isn’t going to eat your muscles or anything scary other than give you a good aerobic base. Now, if you’re severely time limited then the discussion of trade offs is warranted. And it’s all an interesting and worthwhile discussion. But it seems to me that it wouldn’t be wise to completely jettison aerobic work, just like it’s not wise to completely jettison strength work

 

[*zap*]

#1- get your diet right....
#2- 1 hr low intensity cardio to start 5x a week. If your hr is high doing that then you have aerobic deficiency syndrome and need to address that.

Aerobic Deficiency

Aerobic Deficiency Syndrome (ADS) is the result of doing too much training at a high intensity while neglecting the all-important aerobic base.

www.uphillathlete.com

#3- good strength training program 3x a week to start.
#4- eat right, sleep 8+ hrs each day.
#5- commitment, discipline and judgement. Commit to your program, use discipline to stick to 'the program' and judgement for when to take off, do more, change the program.

Realize that the whole thing is very simple yet also very complicated.....eliminate the complicated from your mind and concentrate on the simple for a year or so. After that you can re-group and re-evaluate your situation so you can alter your training program.

If your thin it will take time to build more lean muscle mass but imo that will be better than just putting on pounds of body fat. If your aerobic capacity training is getting better and your getting stronger your doing things right. Remember diet and sleep. For muscle mass macros may be best in this %.
Muscle Gain:

• 500-1000 calories over maintenance daily
• High protein (30-35 percent of total calories)
• High carbs (45-50 percent of total calories)
• Low-moderate fat (15-25 percent of total calories)

 

[Hoodie]

I must be the exception then. I put on 2000-ish miles on the trails every year, strength train twice a week and I'm no where near an ectomorph (albeit not any where near an endomorph either).

Genetics will play a large role in this. The level of performance you´re looking for on each end of the spectrum will as well.

Would you be more competitive in a local half marathon or a local powerlifting meet? Knowing nothing else beyond what you´ve told me about your training, if I had to bet my life savings I´d guess the former.

If you were able to look at the entire population, I guarantee you running mileage would not correlate with lean body mass. Look at collegiate 5k runners (who do tons of mileage for the sake of aerobic base building) and then look at collegiate weightlifters.There are some very apparent morphological differences.



This is an unavoidable reality of physiology.

Training for anything comes down to stimulus, recovery, adaptation. The adaptation that will occur is specific to the demand imposed. When you go out and do your long day in a typical mid to long distance running program, you are not telling your body: ¨Get bigger, get stronger.¨

Concurrent training for maximal strength and aerobic work comes down to making smart compromises. The interference effect is something pretty much everyone in S+C agrees exists to some degree.

The Interference Effects of Training for Strength and... : The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research

ned S and E training programs 5 days · week−1; the control (C) group did not train. After 8 weeks, the E and S+E groups had similar gains in endurance running performance, the S group had no change, while the C group showed a decline. No strength gains were noted in the C or E groups, but...

journals.lww.com

This isn´t doom and gloom for average folks. You just have to learn how to program both things in such a way that they interfere minimally with one another, and the one that needs to be prioritized gets prioritized. Alex Viada (despite his dubious mile time claims) has a good book on this.

It also depends on what level of performance we´re talking about. Squatting 255 is totally totally doable on a high mileage running program for most of us mortals. Squatting 405 not so much.

Which is more important would depend on a specific athlete´s situation. If a guy is trying to stop being an ectomorph, his squat is more important than his 10k time.

 

[Hoodie]

We also need a generally agreed upon idea of what an ectomorph is.

5ft9-5ft11 and 155-165lbs is not what I would consider a large man. That´s an ectomorph.

OP is 6´2¨ and 172.

He could easily be 200+ with plenty of conditioning for typical backpack hunting scenarios.

 

[Hoodie]

Not ignoring me. Ignoring every person here encouraging you to do aerobic cardio. You are also posting things that aren't accurate and don't reflect the advice. For example, your comment that hard cardio is going to steal muscle. Nobody recommended you do cardio hard enough to burn your muscle.

Strength and aerobic cardio exercise together is by far the most effective way to improve your health and to get you fit for hunting. I think you don't like aerobics and are finding excuses not to do it. Your objections don't address the actual advice and instead sound like rationalizations to keep you from having to do aerobics. That's what I mean by ignoring advice.

I'm happy for you that you're definitely working out. There's no question it will improve your health and improve your hunting. I wish you the best of luck in both cases.

I think ¨hard cardio¨ (If by hard we mean glycolytic interval work) is probably less likely to be catabolic for the OP than extensive low intensity steady state work.

To back this up I would point to the very apparent differences in physical size between collegiate 800m runners and collegiate 10k runners.

Iḿ not saying an aerobic base in unimportant by any means, but I think getting/maintaining one is tougher to do while trying to make significant gains in body mass.

This is also assuming we´re talking about real aerobic base building, like a competitive runner would do. 30 minutes of LISS cardio after you hit the weights isn´t going to shrivel you up or anything. 60mpw+ of running is a different discussion.

 

[LionHead]

I don't think conditioning is going to make him big and strong at all. There is an approach to this that isn't much different than on season, off season sports training.

Sounds like he needs to get stronger now, and for the next several months, and years

"Cardio" or conditioning comes on rather quickly and goes aways quickly, in comparison to strength which is a persistent adaptation but also takes a long time to build.

Unfortunately you can't serve two masters.

If he's weak(er) improving strength will improve his muscular endurance by making sub-maximal efforts less taxing.

Improving his "cardio" will NOT increase his strength and won't make the pack in or out any easier.

Strength train 3x per week with big basic barbell exercises none of that body builder shit. Curls won't help you on a pack out but squats, Deadlifts, and pullups will.

Then practice your sport.
There's 2 things specific to hunting in the physical space, rucking and shooting your weapon. Everything else is general strength and conditioning.

Lift, ruck, shoot.

Simple





Sent from my moto g power using Tapatalk

 

[mtwarden]

Is the OP's goal to squat 405 and gain weight or to be conditioned for a big game hunt?

If it's the later, I stand by what I've stated- get moving, not to be competitive at a 10k, but to allow oneself to hunt hard all day in the mountains. Strength train two to three times a week, concentrating on the standard compound lifts. Eat healthy and eat a lot.

I would agree that 6' 2" and 172 is most likely leaning ectomorph.

 

[Salmon River Solutions]

For me to put on weight I have to do a very high protein diet, and exercise regularly. I hover around 175 lbs and I’m 6’1”... At my biggest I was 210 lbs but my mobility was crap because I put on too much muscle too fast without keeping up with stretching. I was eating 300+ grams of protein a day and lifting 7 days a week. I did almost 0 cardio though, and was very strong, but in terrible shape.

If I ever have any free time to myself again I will start dieting and exercising regularly, but right now I work almost constantly.

 

[Hoodie]

OP´s stated goal, as I interpreted it, is to not be an ectomorph.

He can spend 12-13 weeks doing the Starting Strength novice linear progression (while eating correctly) and easily put on 30lbs of good body weight. If he does it correctly heĺl probably end up squatting in the low 300s for a set of five. Every male I´ve helped through that program has hit that at a bare minimum.

Then, after that brief 3 month interval during which his strength will likely more than double, he can shift his emphasis to more conditioning work.

Strength is low-hanging fruit that pays massive dividends. An untrained individual can go in on day one squatting 135x5. He can add 5lbs to that 3x per week and literally be more than 2x as strong as he was starting out three months later; provided he brings his testicles with him to the gym and has the discipline to eat correctly (which is where most fail.)

No one is cutting their 5k time in half in three months.

I find most people don´t actually realize how fast you can get strong if you do things right. Plenty of time for conditioning once you´re big and strong.

 

[mtwarden]

If his goal is simply not to be an ectomorph, then I would agree with your post.

I erroneously assume being a backcountry hunting forum that folks are looking to the fitness forum for advancing their fitness as it relates to that.

 

[Mike Islander]

If his goal is simply not to be an ectomorph, then I would agree with your post.

I erroneously assume being a backcountry hunting forum that folks are looking to the fitness forum for advancing their fitness as it relates to that.

I was just realizing the exact same thing. Ask a question about fitness on this forum and the answers are likely to be colored by the context of hunting and packing out game.

 

[Hoodie]

Some anecdotes about strength and rucking:

The course I had to go through for my MOS was very rucking intensive. The fasted runner in my first class (I was fortunate enough to repeat the final phase because I´m a moron) had a 5k time in the mid 16:00 range.

He was one of the slowest ruckers.

In both my first class and the one I graduated with the Iron Man (student with the highest average score in all physical events) was the strongest guy. One guy was around my height (5ft10) and 220. The other was 5ft8 or so and probably 195. I´d say the average student was closer to 165.

There was a very noticeable trend for smaller guys to be at the head of the pack during runs, and for bigger guys to perform better during rucking events. The heavier the pack weight, the more that seemed to hold true.

I started out a light, fast guy who sucked with a ruck on my back. Eventually I cut my running down significantly and made the effort to get strong and gain weight.

I doubled my squat and took my bodyweight from 165 to 200.

Doing so cut my 12 mile 50lb ruck time down from around 2:45 to 2:15. My 3 mile run time went from 18:12 to 20:30, during a period where I did zero running (I did do both low intensity steady state and interval work on a stationary bike).

This is obviously an N=1 thing, but I think far too many people discount strength.

In the words of Mark Rippetoe ¨A bigger motor doesn´t slow the car down.¨ That line of reasoning has its limitations, but it´s pretty useful for most normal people.

 

[Hoodie]

Podcasts | Pandora

Discover your favorite Podcasts from a variety of categories including Daily News, Music, Business, True Crime, Comedy, Politics and more. Listen to Podcasts on Pandora.

www.stitcher.com

This is a really good listen. My personal observations jive with this guyś research.

Mike Prevost: Ruck Training Programs - PART 1 - On Target Publications

Interested in the potential offered by ruck training? Because of its history as a means of military conveyance, there’s plenty of information out there on rucking. Mike Prevost sorts through it with you to help get you started.

www.otpbooks.com

Here he sums up the key take-aways from a study on military rucking performance:

1. Height is an advantage. Taller soldiers take longer strides. They can also walk faster before having to change to a jog or run.
2. Strength is an advantage. This is perhaps the biggest factor, especially for heavy loads. Upper body strength and lower body strength are both very important. For the upper body, core stability/strength as well as shoulder strength are important. For the lower body, hips are the most important, followed by strength around the knee joint and ankle.
3. Aerobic fitness is an advantage, but not at the expense of strength. In this case, it is absolute, rather than relative aerobic capacity that is important. Relative = relative to bodyweight. Those who can produce the most power in non-load bearing activities (i.e., rowing, cycling) would likely do well at rucking. Skinny, fast runners are not likely to do well when loaded down with a ruck.
4. Body fat reduces performance.
5. Lean body mass improves performance (but reduces run performance). This is different from running, where increasing lean body mass does not help performance.
6. Unloaded running ability is not important. This might seem counter intuitive but when you combine #s 2, 3 and 5 from above, it makes sense. However, most research used relatively heavy loads to test the relationship of running with ruck ability. It is likely that as loads get lighter (i.e., less than 20% of bodyweight), running ability is much more relevant.

 

[mtwarden]

no one has discounted strength training that I've seen

rucking heavy loads is an important part of hunting and I don't discount it at all, but harvesting always comes first or you don't get to ruck any heavy loads

mountain hunting typically equates to long (long) days of climbing/descending and toiling over/under/around blowdown and other sundry obstacles, with welcomed lulls sitting and glassing

the above can't be gleaned very well in a gym, it takes time on feet

I'm not talking about skinny fast runners, running a 5k or 10k or sprinting 400m, I'm not talking even talking about running- I'm talking about time on your feet and lots of it- if it's in the mountains, all the better

you want to get good at running a 5k, then you better run (a lot)
you want to squat heavy weight, then you better squat (a lot)
you want to get good at moving though the mountains, you definitely want to move through the mountains

 

[Hoodie]

No argument there. Nothing replaces time on your feet with a pack on your back.

The beautiful thing about taking the most sports specific approach (actually being in the mountains) is that you can get a lot of scouting done at the same time. If that isn´t a recipe for success, I don´t know what is.

Plus, specific trainable attributes like strength, aerobic capacity, etc. aside, everybody knows the most important thing for rucking heavy loads is having a healthy appreciation for suffering

 

[mtwarden]

true that!