As a man, have you ever felt ripped off when it came to your body type? Ever looked at someone else and though, "Why is he so lucky to have a natural body type like that?" Well I can say that I have, and the same is true for most men even if they're too proud to admit it. Well, some things can't be changed, but the trick is to understand your body type and find out how to properly work with it to maximize your results.

You may not be happy with the body type that you have been born with, but one thing is for sure you don't have to settle if you don't want to.

There are three basic body types for men, and while they are certainly not cookie cutter molds, chances are you will somewhat fall into one of these categories.

The three basic body types are Ectomorph (very skinny), Endomorph (naturally large) and Mesomorph (these are the guys that you are jealous of). Your genes determine how you are born and what general category you fall into, but they don't necessarily determine where you will finish.

Ectomorph body type:

You know you fall into this category if you really have trouble gaining any weight. You have likely been very skinny for your whole life. Just gaining a pound or two is very difficult for you. Often, it doesn't matter if you eat doughnuts and fried chicken all day, you simply won't gain weight.

Believe it or not, it can be harder to combat this than overweight. The problem is there is a lot of information and products out there to help combat obesity, but there is very little out there to help combat skinny genes. Just to be clear, the answer isn't eating doughnuts and fried chicken; it is paying attention to your diet in a healthy manner and implementing some techniques for changing your metabolism so you keep your gains.

Weight training is a critical part of your path to success. But you do not just want to go to the gym and work for hours, this will lead to overtraining and will actually stunt any muscular growth that you thought you would see. And cardio is a killer to this body type, so there is no need to spend hours on a treadmill. Instead, you need to perform small bouts of effective cardio, along with intense short bouts of strength training, and introduce a good deal of protein into your daily eating regimen.

Endomorph body type:

The opposite of ectomorph is endomorph. You know that you fall into this category if you are overweight or even obese. If you were to pick up a doughnut or piece of fried chicken, you would probably feel yourself getting heavier. This can be a difficult body type to have because there is so much attention drawn to overweight people in today's society.

To combat this body type, you literally have to change your metabolism. This sounds impossible, but it is not at all.

To change your metabolism, you have to first change your diet. You need to include a lot of bright colored vegetables and fruit and also a bunch of lean proteins. Don't fall for any kind of scam diet plan that leaves you eating only protein. These diets will actually leave you in worse shape after you see some results. They are called crash diets for a reason; because you will crash and burn after you're gone through them.

Second, you need to focus on muscle building cardio and strength training. For many people it seems counter-intuitive, but to truly change your metabolism you need to pack on some muscle.

This works in a couple ways: by packing on muscle using intense workouts you burn calories and build good base. Also the muscle you build act like a "furnace," burning calories and fat off your body while it is at rest.

So by simply converting 5 lbs of fat into muscle, you literally burn an extra 200-300 calories a day, You can do the math to see that by doing this a couple times a week you will be well on your way to your dream body.

Mesomorph body type:

The Mesomorph body type is really the luckiest of the group. This is the body type of many pro athletes and fitness models. Your body will burn fat off and build muscle like those with the other types dream of.

I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, because if you are interested in building a great body you probably already have. I will just give one word of caution. As it is possible to "change" your body type from one of the others, it is also possible to change to one of the others. If you don't use the gifts that the gene pool has given you, you may be slowly changing your metabolism in the wrong direction.

Ectomorph, Endomorph or Mesomorph

While it is possible to have a great body no matter where you start, you need to understand that there are varying degrees of these particular body types. But this information identifies some of the basics of how to combat each general kind of body. Your metabolism level does not dictate where you will end up—you do!