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Body Types
Body typing, formally known as somatotyping, is the attempt to classify body shapes into specific categories in order to identify features associated with diet and training success, as well as potential genetic limitations.
The history of somatotyping goes to back to the pioneering work of William Sheldon who proposed three basic body types or somatotypes. Sheldon reasoned that everyone could be classified as some combination of these basic types and attempted to correlate personality features with those types.
While the connection to psychological attributes is tenuous at best; from a fitness perspective, the three body types have survived and guide dietary and training recommendations to this day. Except for the extreme examples of Sheldon's three basic body types, advice for mixtures (where most individuals seem to fall) is haphazard at best. In addition, other workers have expanded on Sheldon's work (with regards to specific dieting advice) and identified four body types that encompass the Sheldon set of three and one apparent extra type (sometimes limited to females). Many of these investigators have tried to tie these physical characteristics to other aspects of physiology such as glandular function along with personality traits.
Unfortunately, previous descriptions of body types do not adequately describe the variety of the human form and distract from the ultimate goal, which is to identify and quantitate elements that contribute to an individual's underlying body type that is unchangeable once maturity has been reached. Instead, a different methodology will be proposed here to definitively describe an individual with a designation that is constant over time regardless of fluctuations in overall weight and muscle mass.
Background On Sheldon
William Sheldon described three general body types referred to as Ectomorph, Mesomorph, and Endomorph. Sheldon derived these names from the three basic cell types that develop into the various tissues and organs of a mature adult during embryogenesis. He reasoned that dominance of one cell type would lead to adult features that reflect this dominance in terms of outward appearance and correlate with personality. It's important to remember that Sheldon was seeking to characterize personality from a person's appearance.
Ectomorphs:
Ectomorphs are described as tall and thin with a delicate build and small bones. They are lightly muscled and typically have trouble gaining weight either in the form of fat or muscle. In terms of physical activity, they may perform well in endurance events. Sheldon also suggested that due to lack of muscle and body fat, ectopmorphs excelled at mental tasks. Obviously, Sheldon stereotyped ectomorphs as introverted, bookworm types.
Mesomorphs:
Mesomorphs are described as muscular or athletic individuals with hard, angled, mature appearing bodies. They gain muscle quite easily, but add little or no fat. From a psychological standpoint, mesomorphs are action oriented, rather than mentally focused. Mesomorphs are stereotyped as dumb jocks.
Endomorphs:
Endomorphs are described as larger individuals with a rounded and softer appearance. They are believed to have trouble losing weight, especially fat. While Sheldon described them as gaining muscle easily, others have regard them as non-athletic with little musculature. Sheldon believed that their focus was on the gastrointestinal tract with little interest in activity resulting in the stereotype of an easy going, lazy, overweight person.
Obviously, none of Sheldon's categories are overly appealing. In addition, Sheldon relied on visual inspection of the individual to assess their dominant somatotype, which can clearly change over time with weight fluctuation and exercise. Heath and Carter later, developed a more quantitative system rather than visual inspection that Sheldon relied on. In this system, skin fold thickness is used to determine the extent of endomorphy, a height/weight 1/3 ratio (a cubic relationship, different from the body mass index or BMI) or ponderal index is the measure of ectomorphy, while measurements of elbow and knee bone breadths plus arm and calf girths (corrected for skin folds) measure mesomorphy. Body typing as applied today analyzes specific body types associated with specific athletic activities using the Heath-Carter scale to grade an individual for each of the three types.
The major criticism of Sheldon is that he worked largely from appearance. He used photographs to type people. For body typing to be useful, it should not merely rely on appearance. Rather, body typing must reflect underlying features that are unchangeable in the individual. In other words, as an individual gains or loses weight, his underlying body type should not change. An emaciated endomorph should not turn into an ectomorph; yet, with the Heath-Carter system, this is exactly what happens since the ponderal index will increase as weight declines and the resulting body type score will assume more of an ectomoprhic character (because of less weight) and less endomorphic character (because of thinner skin folds).
Another way of stating this is that according to Heath-Carter, an endomorph that becomes lean is less of an endomorph, since the degree of leaness (as defined by skinfold thickness) varies opposite to the degree of endomorphy. This simply cannot be logical. If endomorphs are suppose to have trouble losing weight, while ectomorphs have trouble gaining weight, Heath-Carter suggests that once an endomorph loses weight, their weight problems will be over since they cease to be endomorphic and acquire the ectomorphic weight gain dilemma. Experience argues against this concept in favor of a constancy of body type. Most hardgainers are always hardgainers and those with trouble losing weight must always be vigilant especially when their weight is reduced.
Somehow, the body type must reflect aspects of the physical body that are beyond the control of the individual. The Heath and Carter system is fundamentally flawed since measurements rely on potentially controllable parameters that can be changed over time. All the measures in the Heath-Carter scale rely on attributes that are controllable to some extent by the individual: ectomorphy uses weight, endomorphy uses skinfolds, and mesomorphy uses muscle girths.
Heath-Carter presents more of a snapshot of where someone is right now, rather than an assessment of what their genetic potential and limitations may be. The real value in body typing is not to assess what sports are ideal for an individual with their current status, but rather to assess their genetic potential and customize diet and exercise training routines to work towards an ideal with their specific body type
Body typing, formally known as somatotyping, is the attempt to classify body shapes into specific categories in order to identify features associated with diet and training success, as well as potential genetic limitations.
The history of somatotyping goes to back to the pioneering work of William Sheldon who proposed three basic body types or somatotypes. Sheldon reasoned that everyone could be classified as some combination of these basic types and attempted to correlate personality features with those types.
While the connection to psychological attributes is tenuous at best; from a fitness perspective, the three body types have survived and guide dietary and training recommendations to this day. Except for the extreme examples of Sheldon's three basic body types, advice for mixtures (where most individuals seem to fall) is haphazard at best. In addition, other workers have expanded on Sheldon's work (with regards to specific dieting advice) and identified four body types that encompass the Sheldon set of three and one apparent extra type (sometimes limited to females). Many of these investigators have tried to tie these physical characteristics to other aspects of physiology such as glandular function along with personality traits.
Unfortunately, previous descriptions of body types do not adequately describe the variety of the human form and distract from the ultimate goal, which is to identify and quantitate elements that contribute to an individual's underlying body type that is unchangeable once maturity has been reached. Instead, a different methodology will be proposed here to definitively describe an individual with a designation that is constant over time regardless of fluctuations in overall weight and muscle mass.
Background On Sheldon
William Sheldon described three general body types referred to as Ectomorph, Mesomorph, and Endomorph. Sheldon derived these names from the three basic cell types that develop into the various tissues and organs of a mature adult during embryogenesis. He reasoned that dominance of one cell type would lead to adult features that reflect this dominance in terms of outward appearance and correlate with personality. It's important to remember that Sheldon was seeking to characterize personality from a person's appearance.
Ectomorphs:
Ectomorphs are described as tall and thin with a delicate build and small bones. They are lightly muscled and typically have trouble gaining weight either in the form of fat or muscle. In terms of physical activity, they may perform well in endurance events. Sheldon also suggested that due to lack of muscle and body fat, ectopmorphs excelled at mental tasks. Obviously, Sheldon stereotyped ectomorphs as introverted, bookworm types.
Mesomorphs:
Mesomorphs are described as muscular or athletic individuals with hard, angled, mature appearing bodies. They gain muscle quite easily, but add little or no fat. From a psychological standpoint, mesomorphs are action oriented, rather than mentally focused. Mesomorphs are stereotyped as dumb jocks.
Endomorphs:
Endomorphs are described as larger individuals with a rounded and softer appearance. They are believed to have trouble losing weight, especially fat. While Sheldon described them as gaining muscle easily, others have regard them as non-athletic with little musculature. Sheldon believed that their focus was on the gastrointestinal tract with little interest in activity resulting in the stereotype of an easy going, lazy, overweight person.
Obviously, none of Sheldon's categories are overly appealing. In addition, Sheldon relied on visual inspection of the individual to assess their dominant somatotype, which can clearly change over time with weight fluctuation and exercise. Heath and Carter later, developed a more quantitative system rather than visual inspection that Sheldon relied on. In this system, skin fold thickness is used to determine the extent of endomorphy, a height/weight 1/3 ratio (a cubic relationship, different from the body mass index or BMI) or ponderal index is the measure of ectomorphy, while measurements of elbow and knee bone breadths plus arm and calf girths (corrected for skin folds) measure mesomorphy. Body typing as applied today analyzes specific body types associated with specific athletic activities using the Heath-Carter scale to grade an individual for each of the three types.
The major criticism of Sheldon is that he worked largely from appearance. He used photographs to type people. For body typing to be useful, it should not merely rely on appearance. Rather, body typing must reflect underlying features that are unchangeable in the individual. In other words, as an individual gains or loses weight, his underlying body type should not change. An emaciated endomorph should not turn into an ectomorph; yet, with the Heath-Carter system, this is exactly what happens since the ponderal index will increase as weight declines and the resulting body type score will assume more of an ectomoprhic character (because of less weight) and less endomorphic character (because of thinner skin folds).
Another way of stating this is that according to Heath-Carter, an endomorph that becomes lean is less of an endomorph, since the degree of leaness (as defined by skinfold thickness) varies opposite to the degree of endomorphy. This simply cannot be logical. If endomorphs are suppose to have trouble losing weight, while ectomorphs have trouble gaining weight, Heath-Carter suggests that once an endomorph loses weight, their weight problems will be over since they cease to be endomorphic and acquire the ectomorphic weight gain dilemma. Experience argues against this concept in favor of a constancy of body type. Most hardgainers are always hardgainers and those with trouble losing weight must always be vigilant especially when their weight is reduced.
Somehow, the body type must reflect aspects of the physical body that are beyond the control of the individual. The Heath and Carter system is fundamentally flawed since measurements rely on potentially controllable parameters that can be changed over time. All the measures in the Heath-Carter scale rely on attributes that are controllable to some extent by the individual: ectomorphy uses weight, endomorphy uses skinfolds, and mesomorphy uses muscle girths.
Heath-Carter presents more of a snapshot of where someone is right now, rather than an assessment of what their genetic potential and limitations may be. The real value in body typing is not to assess what sports are ideal for an individual with their current status, but rather to assess their genetic potential and customize diet and exercise training routines to work towards an ideal with their specific body type