Why are Arnold Schwarzeneggar and Zyzz so many people's heroes if they used steroids?

How fat you are is your diet. If you wanted to make yourself an ectomorph, train and run a marathon. I'm naturally very broad shouldered, yet training and running the marathon, I looked ectomorphic

How much muscle mass you can carry is genetic, stuff like wrist circumference inferes that. But it doesn't affect you unless you want to be on the Olympia stage



See above



Skeletal shapes is muscle mass not really on your ability to gain fat, eat, etc



That's like <1% of the population. If you infer that, you can infer anything



Depending on your exact type of hyperthyroidism - take your meds and you're pretty much normal



<1% is not a valued concept for fitness advice really.

Just believe us. They don't exist.

Lmao. Most unhelpful
I feel the sassiness!

But my point is, as people are at their baseline, either mesomorphic or ectomorphic, surely that gives validity and value of those terms. In that, without training, some are very muscular and have sturdy bodies whilst others are thin and have low levels of muscle. I understand that it can change to some degree - with marathon training you would become more ectomorphic, but I would assume nowhere near the extent (or with the ease) that a naturally ectomorphic person would.

Do we also not differ in the amount of certain type muscle fibres we have as well, which lends weight to the notion of 'phenotypes'?

Again, pinch of salt - not looked at this stuff in forever.

Edit: That isn't to say people are one or the other, but somewhere along a continuum.

Yeah real helpful.

Somatotypes are on the list of "things real lifters must aggressively deride whenever possible", even if they don't know why, other than that's what other real lifters do. Same with the word toning that seems to offend some people so much. It's kind of like reverse bro science.

Somatotypes was about more than just body composition, it was also about

a) certain genetic physical characteristics such as clavicle length, wrist circumference, hand size, skull shape, among others.
b) certain personality traits associated with the classifications that Sheldon derived from the above characteristics.

Now, to the extent of my knowledge (and I'm not expert), it is "b" that has been widely debunked. His research methods have also been called into question. I've never seen scientific refutals of the assertion that people are born with different builds or of Sheldon's classifications of the physical characteristics, but maybe somebody with more knowledge on the subject could provide a link to some (@Angry cucumber)?

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Quite, but I suffer from hyperthyroidism which resulted in an inability to gain weight, however I do agree.

How do people know zyzz was on steroids? Also he wasn't even that built so surely you can get like that without taking steroids.

Ectomorph - doesn't eat enough
Mesomorph - somewhere about right
Endomorph - fat

Just means you'd have a very high TDEE really, so you'd have to eat a LOT to gain weight. A guy at the gym I chat to has been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, he's currently bulking on 6000 calories a day! It's working though, he's gaining muscle and bodyfat gain has been minimal.

It's apparently also becoming a done thing in circles of steroid-users to use synthetic thyroid hormones to boost thyroid activity and metabolism in order to improve nutrient partitioning and facilitate more "favourable" weight gain. This probably wouldn't work without the steroids though I imagine.

Prettu sure those definitions are to do with rate of metabolism and difficulty of gaining mass rather than how much u eat.

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Could you explain what you meant about your phenotypes point?

Skeletal shapes is muscle mass not really on your ability to gain fat, eat, etc

Yeah real helpful.

Somatotypes are on the list of "things real lifters must aggressively deride whenever possible", even if they don't know why, other than that's what other real lifters do. Same with the word toning that seems to offend some people so much. It's kind of like reverse bro science.

Somatotypes was about more than just body composition, it was also about

a) certain genetic physical characteristics such as clavicle length, wrist circumference, hand size, skull shape, among others.
b) certain personality traits associated with the classifications that Sheldon derived from the above characteristics.

Now, to the extent of my knowledge (and I'm not expert), it is "b" that has been widely debunked. His research methods have also been called into question. I've never seen scientific refutals of the assertion that people are born with different builds or of Sheldon's classifications of the physical characteristics, but maybe somebody with more knowledge on the subject could provide a link to some (@Angry cucumber)?

The phenotype characteristics, which have in the past been made to 3 classifications; thin set, wide set, and... for a reason I find difficult to understand... fat.

The former (thin, wide; ecto and meso respectively) I can think that they would be relatively useful and valid descriptors of body types in general. Along a continuum I would assume all people would sit somewhere, often leaning towards one or the other to a reasonable degree - depending on genetics and physical activity.

I would imagine that physical activity would make you go more one way or another from your baseline; but inferred that your baseline would sort of make it more difficult to be ectomorphic if say, you are mesomorphic at baseline, and maybe put limits (to a moderate degree) on your performance in physical activity related to your opposing natural phenotype (long distance running/weight lifting).

Sorry if any didn't make sense.

Absolutely, nothing to do with your ability to gain fat or eat as I pointed out, but skeletal shapes and the amount of muscle mass you carry are two different things. Some of us are born with broader clavicles and wider rib cages, narrower pelvises, "thicker" joints and so on than others. An ecto would be defined as, narrow clavicle region, small hips & waist, think joints; an endo would be defined as the opposite, maybe also with narrow clavicle region; a meso would be inbetween. As I said though, the susceptibility to fat gain is BS.

Thanks for the insight.
I would imagine that any link to psychological traits would be highly controversial. Its an interesting notion though - as hormone levels do highly impact both physical development in terms of strength and cortical development (in terms of male like psychological characteristics due to brain differences - which I remember to be a point focused on by Baron Cohen with regards to Autism - to digress).
Though I always thought endomorph and mesomorph were useful descriptors for a sort of continuum approach to physical characteristics. I think that most people tend to be in between, rather than fully one or the other.

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I currently try to take on 6500, with roughly 250g of protein, mind you I consume a fair amount of empty calories too, creatine is very helpful as well.

really? Seems a bit dangerous as it could permanently alter bio chemistry surely? Couldn't favourable weight gain be achieved by clean bulking rather than IIFYM bulking?

And the original author of the whole idea thought so too.

"Sheldon created his very interesting Atlas of Men (Macmillan Pub Co; 1970) in which all possible body types are graded in a scale from 1 (low) to 7 (high), based on the degree to which they matched these types; with 4 as average)...
...On this scale, the extreme or pure mesomorph has a score of 1-7-1, the pure endomorph 7-1-1, and the pure ectomorph 1-1-7. Most people of course are a combination of types"

Yeah. The fat one I just don't get

Jeez, that's a lot of food Sounds like you're on track though and know how to get creative with your calories to squeeze them in, just a case of increasing them a little bit each week if weight gain isn't happening, if you can.

From what I've read, actually, there are a tonne of studies to suggest that thyroid function returns to normal quickly after the cessation of exogenous thyroid hormones, regardless of duration and dosage; whereas with steroids, you're of course potentially screwing up your testicular function, among other things. It's a risk that has to be considered but I guess the reward outweighs the risk for many.

I firmly believe that the difference in results between "clean" and "dirty" bulking are going to be negligible. I've lost 3lbs of weight per week during my last cut eating dirty", surely if it made a difference that level of weight loss wouldn't have been possible A carbohydrate gets converted into glucose or glycogen, be it a clean or dirty carb. Same with fats, they get used as energy where needed, no matter if it's olive oil or grease from a pizza. Proteins should be taken note of, quality is important and some are more bioavailable than others as well as holding better amino acid profiles, but carbs and fats needn't be fussed over. I still believe in eating mostly good, whole foods for the sake of energy and health, but I certainly eat my share of rubbish