15 Common Gym Terms Defined

When you are diving into the health, fitness, and gym world, there are a lot of terms that are thrown around by veterans of the practice that newer people might not know of. If you are newer on your health and fitness journey, this can make your experience much more confusing and intimidating. Most of these terms you will have committed to memory just by reading their meaning once. So, for the rest of this article I’ll explain what some common fitness terms mean so that you have an easier understanding going forward.

Resistance Training

This means doing any motion against resistance. Weight training, such as leg press or bench press is an example. However, other movements other than weights are also included in this such as push-ups, resistance band, suspension bands (TRX), etc.

Hypertrophy

In actuality, hypertrophy is a term used to define growth of any tissue in the body. However, in the gym space, when someone brings up the word hypertrophy they are generally referring to growth of muscle tissue, which is the primary adaptation gained from weight training.

Superset

A superset is when you do two different movements back and forth between each other. For example, if you were to do a set of bench press, then a set of rows, and then bench presses again, then you would be doing a superset. A superset is specifically when you alternate between opposite muscle groups.

Compound Set

A compound set is the same thing as a superset except that it is for the same muscle group. An example of this would be alternating between pull ups and rows, which are both back exercises.

Progressive Overload

You might have heard people say that you need to practice progressive overload in order to achieve hypertrophy. Progressive overload is simply a fancy word for saying doing more over time. For examples on how to achieve this, check out our article: Progressive Overload: The Key to Making Progress.

Volume

Volume in the gym refers to how much work you are doing. This can be easily thought of as sets x reps x weight. When it comes to progressive overload, people generally refer to increasing one of these variables over time.

Failure

Hitting failure on a set means that you can no longer perform the movement with good form. In other words, your muscles are “failing” to get the weight up. You might here some people say to take an exercise 80% to failure or some other percentage. This would mean doing 8 reps on an exercise if the most you can do with good form is 10 reps.

Drop Set

A drop set is when you take an exercise to failure, drop the weight, and then keep going. It is something that is generally easiest when using a machine with a weight stack, such as a cable machine. This is a technique that makes it easy to add a lot more volume to your workouts in a short time.

AMRAP

This is an acronym that stands for “as many reps as possible.” You might hear someone say to “push-ups AMRAP for 45 seconds.” This would mean that you do as many push-ups as you can in 45 seconds. This is slightly different than hitting failure, because say you can only do push-ups for 30 seconds straight. If the exercise demands 45 seconds, then you take a quick breather at 30 seconds and then keep going to get more before the clock hits 45 seconds.

EMOM

This acronym stands for “every minute on the minute.” Say for example someone said 5 back squats EMOM for 5 minutes. This would mean that at every minute mark (0:00, 1:00, 2:00, etc.) you would complete 5 back squats. When doing this, generally as the later minutes come around, it will take you longer to complete the reps and so you will get less rest time because the next minute mark is approaching.

METCON

MetCon is a short way to say, “metabolic conditioning.” This is really a combination of resistance exercise and cardio. It is normally synonymous with “circuit training.” For example, say you did 5 deadlifts, 10 push-ups and then an 800-meter run non-stop for 3 rounds, trying to finish it in as little time as possible. This would be an example of a MetCon.

Flexion and Extension

This is an anatomical term that means a shortening angle of a joint. For example, your biceps are responsible for flexion of your elbow joint, your hamstrings are responsible for flexion of your knee joint, and your hip flexors are responsible for flexion of your hip joint.

Extension is the opposite of flexion, meaning an increasing joint angle. Your triceps are responsible for extension of your elbow joint, your quadriceps are responsible for extension of your knee joint, and your glutes are responsible for extension of your hip joint.

ABduction and ADduction

Abduction refers to movement away from your body. So, when you do a side raise with a dumbbell, you are performing abduction. Another example is when you use that machine where the pads are on the outside of your thighs and you spread your legs apart against that resistance.

Adduction refers to movement closer to the midline of your body, so using that machine where the pads are on the inside of your thighs and you bring your legs closer together against that resistance is an example of this.