I am extremely ectomorphic. My goal is to gain as much bulk as possible, but I don’t want to get too fat. I weigh about 155 and wish to get to about 185 in the next year. Should I be doing cardio along with my weight training?

Answer:

I was in a very similar situation as you when I first started training, although I was even skinnier if you could believe that! I weighed a paltry 125 lbs when I first wrapped my hands around a barbell! So, in other words, I feel your pain, and can fully appreciate your question. As for my response... I would have to say no, you should not do any cardio at this time. As an ectomorph struggling to add muscle and bodyweight the last thing you want to do is burn more calories and further increase your already racing metabolism through cardio. You want every calorie you ingest to be pointed toward muscle repair and growth, even if you store a little added body fat along the way. The best way to avoid adding too much extra adipose tissue while gaining size is to make sure that you are eating a relatively “clean,” high calorie diet. Try to get the bulk of your calories from foods like steak, eggs, milk, chicken, fatty fish, protein powders, rice, pasta, potatoes, whole grain breads, fruits and vegetables. While the occasional pizza, ice cream, burgers and pancakes will not hurt you, make foods like this the exception and not the rule. Another important point about cardio and the ectomorph that I want to make is that in my experience, those with this body type tend to have more limited recovery ability than most - not as much in regards to individual muscles as to systemic recovery. This means that as an ectomorph, overtraining is more of a concern than with other body types. Thus, the addition of cardio on top of weight training is not a good idea for us naturally skinny types (at least in the early bulking stages), as an overabundance of exercise will make too far an inroad into our recovery ability, which will all but bring gains in muscle to a screeching halt!

So, my advice to you is to train hard and heavy no more than four days per week, eat at least six clean, high calorie meals per day, utilize reliable supplements like creatine, beta-alanine, glutamine, etc, and sleep 7-9 hours every night. That is your simple and most reliable equation for muscle growth.