阿诺.施瓦辛格健身百科全书-Book2-Chapter02.pdf

c H A p T E R 2 Learning Your Body Type ANYONE WHOHASspent time at a beach, swimming pool, or gym locker room can attest to the fact that human beings are born with a variety of different physical characteristics. Some are taller or shorter, lighter or darker, wider or narrower in the shoulders, longer and shorter in the leg; they have higher or lower natural levels of endurance, differing types of muscle cells, more or fewer muscle and fat cells. One popular method of categorizing all these various body types rec- ognizes three fundamentally different physical types, called somatotypes: The ectomorph: characterized by a short upper body, long arms and legs, long and narrow feet and hands, and very little fat storage; nar- rowness in the chest and shoulders, with generally long, thin mus- cles. The mesomorph: large chest, long torso, solid muscle structure, and great strength. The endomorph: soft musculature, round face, short neck, wide hips, and heavy fat storage. Of course, no one is entirely one type but rather a combination of all three types. This system of classification recognizes a total of eighty-eight subcategories, which are arrived at by examining the level of dominance of each basic category on a scale of 1 to 7. For example, someone whose body characteristics were scored as ectomorphic (2), mesomorphic (6), and endomorphic (5) would be an endo-mesomorph, basically a well- muscled jock type but inclined to carry a lot of fat. 163