You are right about the different body types.

There are different ways to look at body type classification

Most people use the Endomorph/Mesomorph/Ectomorph classification system.

Ectomorphs are tall and skinny, without much muscle or fat. Think model or basketball player

Endomorphs carry more fat and may or may not carry a good amount of muscle mass.

Mesomorphs carry a good amount of muscle without much body-fat. This is your proto-typical “jock” body-type.

However, very seldom does anyone fit exactly into a specific body-type mold.

You may be a mesomorph on your lower body and an ectomorph on your upper.

In your case, your ability to add muscle mass to your legs tells us that you are a mesomorph in that region.

So, if you want to avoid having big muscular legs, you should definitely avoid hypertrophy training.

I would recommend:

Sprint training using bodyweight only – hill sprints, bike sprints, elliptical, treadmill, etc…

See this post

This will improve the anaerobic endurance of your leg muscles while giving your metabolism a kick in the pants.

I would also keep up with your cardio training.

Both of these training protocols improve different aspects of strength/endurance without encouraging hypertrophy(size)

If you find that your legs are still bulking up with the sprint training, you may need to dump the sprints and only add in some hill work during your cardio sessions.

I would be curious to see how your body reacts to the sprints.

Keep in touch

First off, thanks for this wonderful blog!!

My question is this: Don’t you believe that there are some body types that are ‘lanky’ and some that are ’stocky’? I would say I’m of the ’stocky’ build, even though i have a normal weight. I’m a 26 y/o female who works out aerobically 30 mins every day (running or eliptical), but doesn’t lift. When I did (back when i was a competitive athlete), I found that I build bulky muscle VERY quickly, especially on my legs. Even a very small layer of fat over that would quickly make it look like I gained weight (in fat). Since then, I’m afraid to go back to lifting because I do feel like I will bulk up a lot with just a little lifting. Any comments/suggestions?
Thanks!

When I am teaching someone to clean, we always start with a PVC plastic tube as our barbell.

I also usually start with high pulls instead of a full clean.

The biggest problem I run into is joint mobility. If people are stiff through the hips, power cleans can be a little tricky.

For them, I would work on joint mobility and hanging cleans with a pvc pipe.

Depending on the length of time required to open up the hips, I would either move to increasing the weight on the high pulls or bringing in the power clean movement with PVC.

The clean is the one that everytime I see it I still wonder how they are doing it. Do you have some tips for first timers on that one to avoid back injury?

Nice job.