Know Your Gym Lingo

know your gym lingo
10 Sep
admin Blog ,

Stepping into the weightroom may be intimidating,  especially when you take out your earbuds and hear a completely foreign “Gym Lingo” language. Some of the sayings may be pretty self explanatory, but some make no sense at all! Here are 20 gym terms and phrases to up your “Gym Rat” vocabulary!

  1. Gym Rat: someone who spends a lot of time exercising in the gym.
    1. Used in a sentence: “She is a major gym rat.”
  1. Prep: “preparing”, act of making and setting up meals for a period of time.
    1. “I spent my Sunday evening meal prepping for the week.”
  1. Macros: “Macronutrients” protein, carbs, and fats
    1. “I have to check the macros on that protein bar before I eat it.”
  1. Gains: can be used for multiple things, muscle development, fat loss, etc”
    1. “Wow! My muscle gains are really showing today!”
  1. Pump: When blood gets sent to the muscle fibers during a workout, resulting in the muscles to appear larger
    1. “I gotta focus so I can get that pump in!”
  1. Failure: performing an exercise until you can no longer continue, giving an exercise your all
    1. “I squatted until failure yesterday, today I am so sore!”
  1. Plateau:  Periods of paused progression in the gym
    1. “I am hitting a plateau at the gym, I need to start adding more weight to my lifts”
  1. Rep/ Set: “Repetitions” the number of times you do a specific exercise within a set/ set is a cycle of  exercises
    1. “I did 12 reps of burpees for 4 sets in class this morning.”
  1. Free Weights: weights not connected to a machine or other piece of equipment, dumbbells, barbells, plates
    1. “My workout consisted mainly of free weights today.”
  1. Load: Adding more plates onto the barbell
    1. “I loaded each side of the bar with 25s”
  1. Clips: Circle shaped attachments used to keep plates from sliding off the barbell
    1. “I never forget to add clips onto the barbell when I use the squat rack.”
  1. AMRAP: “As Many Rounds As Possible”
    1. “Today I finished off my workout with a 5 minute AMRAP”
  1. Max Out: Highest weight lifted, weight of completed one exercise for one rep.
    1. “I maxed out my squat today at 180 pounds.”
  1. Work In: Used when sharing a piece of equipment with someone. One person will use the machine during the other’s off set (and vice versa)
    1. “Can I work in?”
  1. Spot: Assisting someone if needed during their workout, often used if a person in reaching for a max out
    1. “Do you mind if I can get a spot?”

Adrien Geelan, Certified Personal Trainer at Evolve Fitness

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