BODY TYPES - TYPES OF BODY MESOMORPH, ENDOMORPH, ECTOMORPH

BODY  TYPES

Everyone is born with a specific body type and body shape. Depending upon one's genetics, as well as one's exercise routine and diet, one's body shape may be quite different from others.

• HIPPOCRATES  ( BEFORE 400 B.C ) the Greek physician was perhaps the first to classify people on the basis of certain body characteristics.   He designed two fundamental physical types are following:- 

1. Phthisic Habitus :- Long, thin body and Dominated by the vertical Dimensions.
2. Apoplectic Habitus :- Short, thin individual, strong in Horizontal Dimensions.

• HALL (1779) recognized four body types :- 

1. ABDOMINAL 
2. MUSCULAR 
3. THORACIC   (long slender)
4. NERVOUS     (cephalic) 

• ERNST KRETSCHMER  his technique of body classification received with eminence in 1925, revived the Greek terms :- 

1. Pyknic :- Stocky, fat, compact and round body.
2. Asthenic :- Thin, small, weak, slender build without strength. 
3. Athletic :- Robust  and heavy musculature 
4. Dysplastic :- unproportionate body and do not belong to any of the three types mentioned above.

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• According to William sheldon there are three body types mention in his book "the varieties of human physique" in 1940. 

                  Somatotype is a taxonomy developed in the 1940s, by American psychologist William herbert sheldon, to categorize the human physique according to the relative contribution of three fundamental elements, somatotypes, named after the three germ layer of embryonic development the endoderm, (develops into the digestive tract), the mesoderm, (becomes muscle, heart and blood vessel) and the ectoderm (forms the skin and nervous system). In his 1954 book, ATLAS OF MEN, sheldon categorized all possible body types according to a scale ranging from 1 to 7 for each of the three "somatotypes" where the pure "endomorph" is 7-1-1, the pure "mesomorph" 1-7-1 and the pure "ectomorph" scores 1-1-7.

ECTOMORPH  

• Narrow hips and clavicles 

• Lean and Thin 

• Small Joints ( wrist/ankles)

• Thin build

• Stringy muscle bellies 

• Long limbs

MESOMORPH

• Wide clavicle 

• Athletic 

• Narrow waist 

• Thinner joints 

• Long and round muscle bellies 

ENDOMORPH

• Blocky

• Fatty, Roundness

• Thick rib cage 

• Wide/thicker joints 

• Hips as wide (or wider) than clavicles 

• Shorter limbs