A Beginner’s Guide to Gym Terminology
Every area of life has its own lingo, and the gym is no exception. We’ve put together a list of lifting words that most often confuse newbies, so read on to find out what you might be missing.
Equipment
Barbells
A barbell is a bar on which you load weights, either empty (“empty bar”) or loaded (“225 pound barbell”).
The standard Olympic size barbell is 20 kilograms, but in many American gyms it is 45 pounds. (20 kg is 44 pounds, so it doesn’t really matter which one.) There are many other barbells available, including 15 kg Olympic women’s barbells, EZ curl bars with ergonomic curves, and more. We have a guide to all of this here .
cable machine
A cable machine has a thin rope or cable that connects the weights to a handle through one or more pulleys. You can usually choose the attachment you want to use as a handle, as well as the ability to move the pulley to your desired height. Rows, push-ups, cable flights, and cable crossovers are a few exercises you can do on a cable machine. Here’s the list again .
Clips or collars
When you’re loading weights onto a barbell (or adjustable dumbbell), it’s helpful to have something to hold the weights on so they don’t slide around. This could be a spring clip, similar to a clothespin, or a round collar with a snap on it.
Dumbbells
Dumbbells are smaller arm weights used in the gym. They usually come in pairs and cannot be taken apart. (For home gyms, however, you can buy adjustable dumbbells that have their own little plates on each end.) They’re so named because some kettlebells historically used for strength training were shaped like bells (think of a kettlebell, but bigger… bell-shaped), and because they didn’t make noise, they were silent or “dumb.” Dumbbells are usually “fixed”, with each dumbbell weighing a specific amount, but there are also adjustable dumbbells , popular in home gyms, that allow you to adjust the weight on the fly.
Free weights
Free weights are barbells and dumbbells in the gym, not machines. These are “free” weights because they are not attached to anything; you can take them and do whatever you want.
Kettlebells
These are round weights with a handle on top. You can use them for most of the same exercises you can with dumbbells (like rows or overhead presses), but you can also use them for swinging or performing more complex movements like kettlebell snatches.
Cars
The opposite of free weights would be a machine. There are cable machines where you hold a handle that is connected through a cable and pulley to a stack of weights; There are other types of selector machines in which you insert a pin into a stack of weights and then perform the exercise in any way specified in the instructions (for example, you can push or pull a set of handles or move a pad with your feet). And then there are plate machines, where you take a plate off a rack somewhere in the gym and put it on the machine yourself.
Plates
Weight plates are heavy round discs that are usually attached to the ends of a barbell. In American gyms, the largest ones typically weigh 45 pounds.
You can show off your exercises by saying how many full-size weight plates are on each end of the bar. One hundred and thirty-five pounds (45 pounds per side on a 45-pound bar) is a “one weight” lift. Two hundred twenty-five is “two plates.” Three hundred fifteen is “three plates” and so on.
Weight Lifting Basics
Scheme
A pattern, sometimes called a giant set, is where you perform several exercises (usually three to six), doing one set of each, then go back to the top of the list and start again. (These are called “circuits” or “rounds” because you continue to go through the list in a circle. While they can save time, the goal of circuit training is often to keep your heart rate high so you get some cardio stimulation, even if the focus is on strength training.
Complex lift
A compound lift is one that uses many muscles at the same time. For example, when squatting, the quads (on the front of your thighs) receive the most stress, but your glutes, adductors, hamstrings, and core all contribute. This is different from an isolation elevator.
Refusal
If you lift to failure, it means you are physically unable to do another rep. You can do 10 biceps curls, 11, 12, three – no, that’s it, you can’t finish the thirteenth rep. You have “reached failure” in this exercise.
You don’t have to go to failure, but it’s a good way to make sure you’re really getting as much work out of each set as possible. It’s also common to stop for a few reps before failure – in our example, stopping at 10 reps would still give you a good workout. Stopping at five wouldn’t be very productive.
On larger exercises like squats, you may not want to allow true physical failure too often. This way, you can continue until a technical failure occurs – in other words, do as many reps as you can while maintaining good form.
Isolation elevator
An isolation lift is designed to isolate only one muscle or group of muscles. Although the squat is a compound exercise that works the quadriceps and several other muscles, an example of an isolation exercise for the quadriceps would be the leg extension machine.
Interest
Sometimes lifting programs will tell you to perform a set at, say, 80% of your max. This instruction assumes that you know your maximum, or 1RM. So, if you can bench press 100 pounds once, you might be asked to do a set of five reps at 80%, which is 80 pounds.
Representatives
We don’t usually lift weights just once; we pick it up and set it down several times. Each of these individual 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 rep, you can still call it a “repetition” because when you’re in the gym for an hour, your brain starts to melt a little. “It was a good reputation,” you might say after a heavy single. We all know what you mean.
Rest
If your program asks you to rest between sets, that means you’re sitting and doing nothing. Really. Depending on the exercise, you can rest from 30 seconds to five minutes. Read my explanation here about how long to rest and why.
RPE
A rating of perceived exertion on a scale of 1 to 10. 10 means full lift, you couldn’t do more. (If you went to failure, that’s a 10.) A nine means you could have done one more rep but stopped there. Eight means you could do two more reps, and so on. For compound exercises such as squats, sets are often performed at seven or eight RPE. No one bothers to track RPE below six or so.
Sets
A group of repetitions 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 reverse the numbers. If you’re not sure, ask.
Superset
You can combine the two exercises by performing a set of each before resting. This can save time at the gym. Most often, a superset involves two exercises performed with opposing or unrelated muscles: you could superset a bench press with a barbell row, or even a squat with an overhead press. Typically, after you’ve done both exercises, you’ll rest for a while and then repeat them again.
Weightlifting
Weightlifting isn’t just about lifting weights —it’s the name of a sport that competes in the Olympics, where people suddenly lift a barbell from the floor to their head. They will do this in one movement called a snatch or a two-step process called a push. To avoid confusion, it is sometimes called “Olympic weightlifting” or, if you’re a CrossFitter, “Olympic lifting.” Weightlifters typically drop barbells from above (intentionally or not), so they need rubber bumpers and plenty of platform space.
Ways to lift weights
1RM, 3RM, 5RM
These are one rep max, three rep max and five rep max respectively. (You can substitute any number. Want to find 6RM? Do this.)
In other words, 1RM is the maximum weight you can lift in one repetition. When someone asks, “How old are you?” they are asking for your 1RM. This weight can also be called your “maximum” or “best,” as in, “My best bench press is 150 pounds.”
The rest are “repeatable highs.” You might know you can lift 225 pounds for five reps, but that’s it, you know you can’t get a sixth with that weight. (Maybe you tried a sixth and failed.) That’s a 5RM.
AMRAP
As many repetitions as possible. Or, if you’re doing a multi-exercise workout, this could mean as many sets (of the entire circuit) as possible. Sometimes any of these can be written as AMAP (as many as possible). If you’re leaning towards technical failure rather than actual failure, I’ve seen this called “AMAP (as beautiful as you like)”.
Drop sets
When you perform a set to failure, your muscles don’t completely fail; they just can’t lift that particular weight anymore. This is why bodybuilders sometimes use drop sets, “shedding” some of the weight so they can 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 pick up 15-pound dumbbells, and so on.
EMOM
Every minute, every minute. For a 10-minute EMOM, you’ll start the stopwatch, perform an exercise (say, 10 kettlebell swings), and then rest for the remainder of the minute. The faster you do the exercises, the more time you will have to rest. (If you do an exercise every two minutes, this is sometimes written E2MOM.)
Forced repetitions
This is another strategy to continue to overcome past failures. Instead of lifting another weight, have a spotter help you lift the last few reps of your set. Let’s say you do as many reps on the bench press as you can; your spotter will then place their hands on the bar and use them to help you do a few more reps. The last few reps are “forced.”
Negatives
A negative repetition of an exercise is when you simply perform the descending or eccentric portion while using assistance (often a spotter) to return to the top of the repetition. Negative pull-ups (jumping onto the top of the bar and then lowering yourself down) are a good way to build strength so you can do even more pull-ups.
spotting
Spotting someone on an elevator means standing nearby, ready to help if they fail. In the bench press, you can notice this when standing at the head end of a person’s bench. You keep your hands near (but not on ) the bar. If they can’t complete a rep, you grab the barbell and help them place it safely back on the rack.
Some exercises, such as the press and squat, are common. Others, such as deadlifts and Olympic lifts, are not possible. Spotting is primarily for safety, but can also be used to force reps (more on this below).
Submaximal
Submaximal training is work that does not go to failure. Your program may ask you to lift a certain weight until you feel like you have two reps left. 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 workouts can be less strenuous than lifting to failure.