Ectomorph - thin, linear appearance- great bar workers-not as strong/power as the 2 below. great flexibility.
Endomorph - big bones, round face, large trunk and thighs-great all-arounders-good strength and power-less flexibility than ectomorph.
Mesomorph - broad shoulders, narrow waist, naturally large muscles and fast metabolism-great tumblers and vaulters. awesome power & strength. even less flexibility.
and keep in mind that all things being equal, either fast or slow muscle twitch can affect the physical performance outcome within all 3 groups.
and having your feet on the ground is good enough to develop good bars.it's not that you must be able to do perfect press handstands. i'll bet tam'smom's daughter can do one maybe just not very good.
just want to reinforce this...kids must do press handstands [in a row], kip cast handstands [in a row] and rope climb [without their legs] or they will be doomed on bars. these are the staples of elite development at the ranch. and they have been so for 50 years before anyone knew there would be a 'ranch' or a 'round lake'.
Haha! Unfortunately not too much like any of them! The ectomorph is easier to pick, the difference between endomorph and mesomorph is not so obvious to me. The endomorph examples you gave didn't look big-boned with large trunk and thighs to me, they looked more curvy. The mesomorph examples looked more stocky with big thigh muscles and shoulder muscles. I think my DD and I are probably endomorph, although we are not especially big-boned or round-faced and we don't have large trunks and thighs. But we are quite curvy, with well-defined but not especially large muscles. We are both narrow-shouldered, which is not ideal for a gymnast. I'm pretty sure I'm a fast-twitch kind of girl, I used to win or place in sprints and high jump in school sports way back in ancient history. Sorry to hijack the splits thread, the body type and muscle type information is very interesting!maybe you can tell which one you're more like now?
Ectomorph - thin, linear appearance- great bar workers-not as strong/power as the 2 below. great flexibility.
Endomorph - big bones, round face, large trunk and thighs-great all-arounders-good strength and power-less flexibility than ectomorph.
Mesomorph - broad shoulders, narrow waist, naturally large muscles and fast metabolism-great tumblers and vaulters. awesome power & strength. even less flexibility.
and keep in mind that all things being equal, either fast or slow muscle twitch can affect the physical performance outcome within all 3 groups.
I don't seem to be any of these types. Why would that be?I'm the most powerful (50 chin-ups with barely a sweat) and flexible (2 foot overspilts down!)on the team. Physically I look like Mesomorph. ???
yes, you can tell before they reach puberty. and, from my other post in skills and drills:
okay...here goes.
skeletal muscles consist of bundles of individual muscle fibers called myocytes. each myocyte contains many myofibrils which are hairlike strands of proteins called actin and myosin which hold on to one another and pull. this is what shortens a muscle and causes a muscle contraction. without the process you have no 'twitch' at all.
there are 2 types generally speaking. slow twitch type 1 and fast twitch type 2 muscle fibers. and these muscle fibers can be further categorized as type 2a and type 2b. and each fiber type has its own unique ability to contract in certain ways. muscles have a genetically determined combination of fast and slow fibers both. the average would be 50/50 slow and fast in most muscles that are used when we move.
slow twitch muscles are super efficient at using oxygen to create more 'fuel' known as ATP. ATP is adenosine triphosphate which is a major source of energy for cellular reactions that occur in muscle tissue. kinda like those "rods" that sit in a nuclear reactor. the more ATP that is produced means the longer a person can go with extended muscle contractions over a long period of time before fatigue sets in. this describes your typical marathon runner or marathon cyclist.
fast twitch muscles are more efficient producing short bursts of strength and speed because fast twitch fibers use anaerobic metabolism to produce fuel. and this metabolic process will find the muscle fatigue more quickly. this describes the sprinter, a top tiered gymnast and Michael Jordan. Larry Bird and Michael Jordan both had huge vertical jumps. and even though Larry Bird was taller, Michael Jordan could get to a measurement peak faster than Bird. And because Jordan was so strong he could jump higher also. but thru their entire career Bird was more minutes on the court and Jordan took more breaks. fast twitch muscle fibers will generally create the same amount of force in a muscle contraction as that of slow muscle fiber but get their name due to the ability to fire more rapidly.
type 2a fibers are a combination of both. but type 2b fibers are the gladiator fibers to end all. these fibers excel at producing the fast and powerful bursts of unbridled speed that you see in certain athletes in certain sports that are more likely the result of preordained genetic make up. if you put Bird and Jordan on the 100 meter dash who do you think will win? but what if you put them both in a 5K? Jordan wins the sprint and Bird wins the marathon...both hands down. it's biology.
finally, you ask how this would be determined. medically speaking there are tests and measurement comparisons and muscle biopsies for just about everything. but for us? you'll know it when you see it. the double back on floor that looks labored and slow yet still has a deductionless outcome vs. the opposite of labored and slow with a deductionless outcome but wins by .025. they just look different...understand? or the famous 2 step slam dunk 2 feet above the rim performed by Jordan and others biologically similar compared with the 4 step push thru the defense running in sand like labored movement of Bird to accomplish the same task only 1 foot above the rim and whose play action took 3 times longer on the clock.
ahhhhh...the wonder of human biology.
And it's not just that we're not moving up, we're getting kicked out! I'm like freaking out about it...I'm a prep-opt novice and as a late starter I was REALLY inflexible. I had none of my splits down. Eventually, after half a year, I got all three splits down. But now I have another problem. Our coach is requiring all of prep-opt to get their 5" over splits down by May.
