I’m a skinny ectomorph trying to bulk up/add as much muscle mass as I can. I read from authors like Berardi that for us ectos the optimal workout is about 45-60 min. to get fast twitch muscle fibers going without getting endurance fibers going. But most authors also say a 10 min aerobic warm-up and some say a 10 min aerobic cool down are necessary. Do the warm-up and cool down count as part of the 45-60 min? If not, then you’re doing almost 80 min of exercising. Won’t that target endurance fibers? Thanks for any advice you have.
10 mins for either is way too long. And in fact you can do something more beneficial than just an aerobic warm-up to prepare you for weights.
You can either just do the exercise you’re about to do with much lighter weight, or you can run through a quick dynamic warm-up of (all done jogging) of arm circles, high knees, butt kicks, grapevine (carioca), etc or add in some multidirectional movements like lunges, lateral lunges, lunge with backward rotation (think lunge while rotating back at a 45* angle).
As far as the cooldown, the better shape you’re in the quicker you can make the cooldown. I’ll usually only do 2-3 minutes if I’m doing cardio, and none if I’m doing weights (maybe some foam rolling or something like that)