A Beginner’s Guide to Gym Terminology
Every hobby has its own jargon, and lifting is no exception. We’ve put together a list of weight-related words that are most often confusing for beginners, so read on to find out what you might be missing.
Representatives
We usually don’t lift weights just once; we take it and put it on several times. Each of these exercises is a repetition , or “repetition” for short. You can do eight reps at a time, or 12, or five. Even if you only do one exercise, you can still call it repetition, because when you’re at the gym for an hour, your brain starts to melt a little. “Good reputation,” you say after the heavy single. We all know what you mean.
Sets
A repetition group is a set. For example, you can do five sets of three reps. This is usually written as 5×3 (sets x reps), although some people change the numbers. If you are not sure, ask.
Refusal
If you are doing small lifts, such as biceps curls, you will often do them “to failure” – until you can physically lift the weight another time.
In large exercises such as squats, it is not always safe or even desirable to perform the exercises to the point of physical failure. So you can run into a technical glitch – in other words, do as many reps as you can while you can keep in good shape.
Submaximal
Submaximal training is work that never goes to failure. Your program may ask you to lift a certain weight until you feel like you have two reps in the tank. This means that you would choose a weight that you could lift 10 times if you had to, but following the instructions, you will only lift it eight times. Submaximal training can be less tiring than pushing your exercises to failure.
AMRAP
As many reps as possible. Or, if you are doing a workout with multiple exercises, that could mean as many rounds as possible (out of the entire circuit). Sometimes any of them can be written as AMAP (as much as possible).
EMOM
Every minute, every minute. In a 10-minute EMOM, you start a stopwatch, do an exercise (say 10 kettlebell swings), and then rest for the remainder of the minute. The faster you climb, the more time you will have to rest.
1PM, 3PM, 5PM
These are one, three, and five repetitions, respectively. (You can replace any number. Want to find 6RM? Do it.)
In other words, 1RM is the maximum weight you can move in one rep. When someone asks, “How much bench do you have?” they ask for your 1RM. This weight can also be called your “maximum” or “best”, for example, “my best bench press is 150 pounds.”
The rest are “repeated highs”. Maybe you know you can do a 225 pound deadlift in five reps, but that’s about it, you know you can’t get a sixth with that weight. (Maybe you tried the sixth and failed.) This is 5RM.
RPE
The rate of perceived stress. In climbing, 10 means total lifting, you could not have done more. Nine means you could have done another rep, but you stopped there. Eight means you could have done two more reps, and so on. For difficult exercises like squats, sets are often done with seven or eight RPEs. Nobody tries to track RPEs below six or so.
Interest
Sometimes lifting programs tell you to do a set of, say, 80% of your maximum. This guide assumes that you know your best. So, if you can bench 100 pounds once, you may be asked to do a five-rep set at 80%, which is 80 pounds.
Superset
You can superset the two exercises by doing each set before resting. This will help save time at the gym. More often than not, a superset involves two lifts with opposite or unconnected muscles: you can superset a bench press with a barbell or even a squat with an overhead press. Usually, after you have done both, you will rest a little and then do them again.
Scheme
A circuit, sometimes referred to as a giant set, is a superset with a large number of components. Maybe you will do four or five exercises in a circle. While this can save time, the goal of circuit training is often to keep your heart rate high so you get some cardio, even if the focus is on strength training.
Spotting
Noticing someone in the elevator means standing on the sidelines and being ready to help if they fail. In the bench press, you do this from the head of the bench. Keep your hands close to (but not on ) the bar. If they are unable to complete the rep, you grab the barbell and help them safely put it back on the rack.
Some exercises, such as the bench press and squat, are common. There can be no others, such as deadlifts and Olympic exercises. Spotting is mainly for safety, but can also be used for forced reps (more on these below).
Free weight
Free weights are barbells and dumbbells in the gym, as opposed to machines. These are “free” weights because they are not attached to anything; you can pick them up and do whatever you want.
Cars
The opposite of free weights would be an exercise machine. There are cable cars in which you hold a handle, which is connected by a cable and a pulley to a stack of loads; There are other types of selectable machines in which you insert a pin into a stack of weights and then perform the exercise in any way indicated in the instructions (for example, you can push or pull a set of handles or move a pillow with your legs). And there are plate-loading machines where you take a plate off a rack somewhere in the gym and put it on the machine yourself.
Plates
Dumbbells are heavy, circular discs that tend to load the ends of the barbell. In American gyms, the largest are usually 45 pounds.
You can show off your exercise by telling how many full-length plates are on each end of the bar. One hundred thirty-five pounds (45 pounds on each side on a 45 pound bar) is a “one cymbal” lift. Two hundred twenty-five are “two plates.” Three hundred and fifteen is “three plates” and so on.
Barbells
A barbell is a bar onto which you load cymbals, either empty (“empty bar”) or loaded (for example, a “225 lb bar”).
The standard Olympic size barbell is 20 kg, and in many American gyms it is 45 lbs. (20 kilograms is 44 pounds, so it doesn’t matter which one.) There are many other dumbbells, including the 15kg women’s Olympic bar, the ergonomic EZ-curl and more. We’ve got a guide to it all here .
Dumbbells
Dumbbells are lighter arm weights in the gym. They usually come in pairs and cannot be disassembled. (However, you can buy adjustable dumbbells for home gyms, which have their own little plates at each end.) They are so named because some of the dumbbells historically used for strength training were bell-shaped (think kettlebells, but more. .. in the shape of a bell), and because they did not make noise, they were quiet, or “dumb”.
Clips or collars
When you load dumbbells onto a barbell (or an adjustable dumbbell), it is convenient to have something to support the weights on them so they don’t slide. This can be a spring clip that looks like a clothespin, or a round collar with a snap on it.
Negative
A negative rep is when you simply do a downward or eccentric part, using help (often belaying) to get back to the top of the rep. Negative pull-ups (bouncing to the top of the bar and then lowering down) are a good way to build strength and do even more pull-ups.
Drops sets
When you do a set of reps to failure, your muscles are not yet fully surrendering; they just can’t lift that particular weight anymore. Therefore, bodybuilders sometimes use drop sets, “shedding” some of the weight in order to do the exercise again with something lighter. You can use 25 pound dumbbells, then put them back and do a few more reps with 20 pound dumbbells, then 15 pounds, and so on.
Forced repetitions
This is another strategy for getting rid of past failures. Instead of taking on a different weight, ask your spotter to help you lift the last few reps of your set. Let’s say you do as many reps of the bench press as you can. Your supervisor will then grab the barbell and guide you through a few more reps. The last few are “forced” representatives.