Originally Posted by EricT

I'll let the others give more specific advice. I want to stick to some of the ideas you have presented that I think are the crux of your problem.

I'll do it in numbered format

1. You are not an ectomorph. You actually look great and as you say, you are muscular. Even if somatotyping was scientific, which it is not, you wouldn't really fit the profile.

However, somatotyping is pseudoscience bunk and goes no where near providing a foundation from which to give mass building advice.

Get rid of the labels now and it will save you a lot of aggravation in the future. Once you gain 50 pounds and go around calling yourself an ectormorph you'll just look like a boob anyway, lol.

2. "I have a fast metabolism". This is related to the ectomorph label. People who do not gain weight and are "skinny" tell themselves they are an ectomorph and that they eat and eat and eat but never gain a pound (or lose a pound which is good).

I guarantee you do NOT eat as much as you think you do. Start journaling your food intake and tracking your calories. Forget supplements for now and stick to getting your diet in check which for you is going to be about eating more.

3. You haven't really trained for mass AT ALL based on what you've said. Pullups are great and if you want to do bench press and all of that but do not just focus on upper body. If you lay a foundation now that includes lots of lower body work your results will be better in the future.

4. Yes, your schedule is all wrong and yes you were wrong to focus on biceps and triceps. Pullups and bench alone won't cut it either although that would be a big improvement. Pushups are great btw and you don't need to stop doing them but they have limited mass building potential unless you can up the difficulty level.

5. I can understand why you would want people to see that you had some muscle even in your strength clothes. But if you think about it, you are just blessed with some natural lean mass. I'm not saying you haven't done anything but it doesn't sound like you've put in tons of hard work. And it will be hard work.


From what I can see and from what I've read, this is a fairly simple fix. You have a good place from which to start you just haven't actually started yet.