To the neophyte, strength training is straightforward: pick up a weight, put it down, get strong.
Spend a few weeks or months on the internet or chatting up your new fit-buddies, and you come to realize there’s a whole lot of science, art, and jargon overdue the unveiled simplicity: compound exercises; plyometrics; supination; RPE; 1RM; ATG.
To help you icon out what the gym bros and fitness nerds are yapping about, we’ve put together a cheat-sheet of weightlifting terms that breaks it all lanugo for you.
So next time someone recommends that you “Try to PR on the final pyramid set of your recipe movements the final mesocycle surpassing deload,” you’ll know what they’re talking about.
FORM/MOVEMENT
Ass to grass
A movement performed in squat variations wherein the knees and hips flex fully, and the glutes are tropical as possible to the floor. Often synoptic as ATG.
Compound movement
An exercise that involves significant movement of two or increasingly major joints. Examples include squats, lunges, deadlifts, pull-ups, and presses of all kinds.
Concentric movement
A type of muscle wrinkle in which a working muscle goes from a lengthened to a shortened position. In strength training, it’s the part of the move at which the weight (or your bodyweight) moves upward, as in the ‘pushing’ portion of an overhead press.
Eccentric movement
A type of muscle wrinkle in which a working muscle goes from a shortened to a lengthened position. In strength training, it’s the part of the move at which the weight (or your bodyweight) moves downward, as in the ‘lowering’ portion of an overhead press.
Flexion
A movement in which a joint goes from an unshut to a sealed or wilting position, as in a biceps curl or sit-up.
Extension
A movement in which a joint goes from a sealed to an unshut or lengthened position, as in a triceps extension or a deadlift.
Functional movement
A movement, exercise, or drill that resembles, or helps to improve, activities regularly encountered in everyday life. For instance, delivering groceries or hoisting luggage into an overhead bin.
Grip strength
The capacity to grasp, hold, pinch, carry, and hang from objects of various shapes, sizes, and weights using primarily the strength of your fingers and hands.
Grip strength is a component of many variegated gym movements, including farmer’s carries, rows, deadlifts, pull-downs, pull-ups, and, to a lesser extent, presses, and is considered an indicator of unstipulated health and a reliable predictor of longevity.
Hip hinge
A movement in which both hip joints flex (bend) while the spine remains braced and rigid. A Romanian deadlift is an example, as is the set-up position for the standing row.
Isolation movements
Exercises that involve significant movement of just one major joint. Examples include lateral raises, triceps extensions, and biceps curls.
Isometric exercise
An exercise that places tension on one or increasingly muscle groups, but requires minimal movement at any major joint. Examples include the wall sit and the plank.
Lengthening
The act of extending, relaxing, or releasing a muscle or muscle group. In the forward wrench stretch, for example, the hamstring muscle group on the backs of the thighs lengthens as you fold forward.
Shortening
The act of tensing or contracting a muscle or muscle group. In the curl exercise, for example, the biceps muscles of the upper arms shorten as you raise the weight.
Lifting to failure
Performing an exercise until you are unable to complete flipside repetition.
Technical failure refers to performing an exercise until you are unable to well-constructed flipside full repetition with good form.
Absolute failure refers to performing the exercise until you can no longer move the weight at all, and usually involves performing several partial repetitions — sometimes with the help of a training partner — until your muscles are completely exhausted.
Supination
The act of turning your hand or foot upward or outward so that the palm or sole is pointing up. In a dumbbell curl, supinating your hand as you raise the weight results in greater tension on your biceps muscles.
The term moreover applies to the whole body, when an exercise is performed on one’s when (supine).
Pronation
The act of turning your hand or foot downward or inward so that the palm or sole is pointing down. The term moreover applies to the whole body, when an exercise is performed on one’s stomach or facing lanugo (prone).
Time under tension (TUT)
The time taken to well-constructed all phases of a strength-training exercise, sometimes expressed as a four-digit number, with each digit referring to the time taken to well-constructed a specific portion of the movement.
So a pushup with a 4210 tempo would be a set of pushups in which you take four seconds to lower yourself towards the floor; two seconds holding the “down” position; one second to push yourself when up, and zero seconds — no time — in the “up” position. Each rep of the pushup would requite your chest, shoulders, and triceps seven total seconds under tension.
WORKOUT DESIGN
Active recovery
Light, easy movement performed on non-exercise days — or between or without training sessions on workout days — intended to stimulate circulation, relieve soreness, and enhance recovery. Examples include foam rolling, easy swimming, walking, stretching, dynamic warmups, and yoga.
Bulking
A training woodcut focused on towers muscle mass, usually involving heavy, recipe exercises, uneaten protein and calories, and a focus on rest outside the gym.
Calisthenics
Repetitive exercises involving bodyweight only. Examples include push-ups, squats, jumping jacks, and sit-ups.
Cutting
A training block focused on losing fat, usually involving reduced calories, unfurled focus on protein consumption and strength training, and an accent on spare low-intensity exercise outside the gym.
Deloading
A short period — usually a week — of reduced volume and intensity in a strength-training program, usually pursuit a week or increasingly of high-intensity and high-volume training.
Density training
A training style focused on completing as many reps, sets, and/or exercises as possible in a given period of time. Example: performing as many rounds as possible of 10 reps each of push-ups and squats in 10 minutes.
Drop set
A set of a strength training exercise performed immediately without one or increasingly medium to heavy sets in which you drastically reduce the weight used in order to remoter frazzle a muscle.
Dynamic stretching/warmup
Light warmup moves, performed with bodyweight only, to increase cadre temperature, loosen joints, increase circulation, and reduce injury. Examples include upper kicks, jumping jacks, and walking lunges.
Full-body training
A training woodcut or program in which you work all the major muscles of the soul in each workout.
Muscular endurance
The topics of a muscle to contract repeatedly under tension surpassing fatiguing.
One-rep max
The value of weight you are capable of lifting, for a single repetition at maximal intensity, in a given strength-training exercise.
Overtraining
In strength training (as opposed to endurance training), working out at a level of volume and/or intensity from which you are unable to recover from one workout to the next.
Symptoms include increased resting heart rate, reduced heart rate variability, lack of motivation, and hampered progress.
Periodization
An approach to training which focuses on variegated goals — strength, power, endurance, recovery — in training blocks lasting four to 12 weeks, throughout the training year.
An example is the Super Blocks concept, in which you work out in three-week blocks, each focused on a particular speciality of fitness, separated by one-week deloads (see above).
Power
The topics to express strength quickly. A 100-meter sprint or a long jump are tests of power. In physics, power is expressed as gravity x acceleration, so the stronger you are and the faster you move the increasingly powerful you are.
Plyometrics
Jumps, throws, and calisthenics moves designed to develop sturdy explosiveness and power, and enhance strength.
PR (Personal record)
An individual’s performance in a lift or other exercise that represents their weightier effort to date. Examples in strength training could include performing increasingly pull-ups in a row than you’ve overly washed-up without dropping from the bar, or lifting increasingly weight for a single repetition than you overly have in a deadlift.
Progressive overload
Systematically increasing the reps, weight, and/or volume of a strength training program over time in order to uplift strength, muscle mass, endurance, and other components of fitness.
Pyramiding
A strength training strategy in which the weight increases incrementally in an exercise over several sets while repetitions inversely decrease, often culminating in a single all-out set of five or fewer reps.
Reps
A single trundling of a strength-training movement, including — if workable — lowering, lifting, and/or isometric holds.
Sets
A rep or group of reps of an exercise performed in succession to increase some speciality of fitness. Usually expressed withal with the rep count of the exercise, as in, “Three sets of 10 reps,” or, simply, “3 x 10.”
Split training
As opposed to full-body training (see above) a split program focuses on variegated muscle groups or movements on variegated days of the week, or days within a trundling of workouts.
Some examples include “push-pull” in which the lifter performs movements that involve pushing exercises on some days, and pulling exercises on others; “upper-lower,” in which the lifter works upper soul some days and lower on others, and “body part splits,” in which the lifter works just one or two individual muscle groups — say, stovepipe or when or legs — each workout.
Strength
The worthiness to exert gravity to overcome resistance. In physics, strength is expressed as gravity x loftiness — so the increasingly gravity you can exert, and farther you move the resistance, the stronger you are.
Super setting
Alternating sets of at least two exercises, when to back, usually to save time, or to increase the workload on a given muscle group.
Undulating periodization
A variation of the standard periodization (see above) model in which you vary the focus of the workouts within the same training woodcut in order to reduce stress, and create a stimulus for broader adaptation.
So, instead of focusing on endurance for four weeks, hypertrophy for four weeks, and strength for four weeks, you might perform two endurance workouts, two hypertrophy workouts, and two strength workouts each week for a six- or eight-week period.
Volume
The total value of work performed in a given workout, week, or training block. Sometimes expressed as “weight lifted x sets x reps,” but often short handed as “number of working sets.”
METABOLISM/ENERGY/NUTRITION
Amino acids
The building blocks of dietary protein, which form the raw materials for muscle- and tissue-building within the body.
Anaerobic vs. aerobic
In biology, aerobic reactions are those that require oxygen, and anaerobic ones do not. So, many trainers and exercisers refer to endurance activities (running, swimming, cycling, etc.) as aerobic, and strength and power activities (strength training, sprinting) as anaerobic.
In truth, few if any physical activities are purely one or the other; most activities lie on a spectrum somewhere between the two extremes.
ATP (Adenosine triphosphate)
The primary fuel that powers biological worriedness in the body. Energy in supplies (carbohydrate, fat) is converted through metabolism into this energy to perform work.
Broscience
Scientifically unproven training and nutritional advice, often delivered by people with few if any legitimate credentials, in person or on social media.
EPOC (Excess post-exercise oxygen consumption)
The tendency for the soul to protract urgent energy above your baseline metabolic rate without the conclusion of a workout.
EPOC is somewhat higher without high-intensity activities like sprints and circuit training than lower-intensity ones, but, undisciplined to some older research, not a major freelancer to caloric shrivel or fat loss.
Hypertrophy
Lactate
An often-misunderstood and mischaracterized fuel source for muscle contraction, produced and burned during prolonged high-intensity strength or endurance training.
RPE (Rate of perceived exertion)
A subjective scale, expressed as a number from six to 20 or one to 10, of how nonflexible a person is working relative to their maximal capacity.
ANATOMY
Biceps
The muscles on the fronts of the upper arm, responsible for flexing (bending) the elbow.
Glutes (gluteals)
The “butt muscles” on the backs of the hip joints responsible for extending the hips.
Lats (latissimus dorsi)
The thick muscles on the sides of the torso responsible for drawing the stovepipe when and down, and helping to proffer the lower back.
Pecs (pectorals)
The chest muscles, responsible for drawing your upper stovepipe towards, and past, your part-way line.
Quads (quadriceps)
The muscles on the fronts of your thighs, responsible for extending your knee joint.
Traps (trapezius)
The kite-shaped muscle on your upper back, responsible for drawing your shoulder blades upwards, backwards, and downwards.
Triceps
The muscles on the backs of your upper arms, responsible for extending (straightening) your elbows.
Abduction
The act of moving an arm or leg yonder from the part-way line of the body.
Adduction
The act of moving an arm or leg toward the part-way line of the body.
Anabolism
All metabolic activities that involve growth, or the assembling of smaller biological components into larger ones. Muscle growth, which involves the construction of new muscle tissue from amino acids, is one example.
Atrophy
Muscle loss or breakdown.
Body composition
A measurement or the proportion of soul fat in a person relative to their overall soul mass.
Muscle webbing type
A way of categorizing the long, parallel, hair-like fibers that subsume muscle tissue. (See moreover fast twitch and slow twitch).
Recomposition
Changing the relative proportion of soul fat and muscle tissue in the body, with minimal transpiration in total soul mass.
Catabolism
Metabolic activities that involve breakdown, or the breaking of larger biological components into smaller ones. Fat loss, which involves the breaking of fat tissue into triglyceride fuel, is one example.
DOMS (Delayed onset muscle soreness)
Soreness in muscles felt many hours — or sometimes days — pursuit a nonflexible exercise session.
Fast twitch
A type of muscle fiber, moreover known as type II, that’s large and light in color, and responsible for fast, high-effort, high-exertion movements like all-out sprints and heavy lifts.
These are distinguished from slow-twitch, or type I, fibers, which are slimmer and darker, and responsible for slower, lower effort movements like jogging and lighter, faster lifts.
Midline
An imaginary part-way line that bisects the soul vertically.
Mind-muscle connection
The mental awareness of the whoopee of your muscles as they lengthen and contract, shown to modernize the effectiveness of a strength-training program.
Muscle imbalance
A difference in the relative strength of muscles on two sides of the soul or two sides of a joint, believed to play a role in posture and susceptibility to injury.
Range of motion
The direction and stratum to which a joint or a series of joints move — or are capable of moving — in a particular exercise or stretch.
Sarcopenia
Loss of muscle mass stemming from disease, aging, or disuse.
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