Gym Jargon – Words, Phrases, & Slang
Here’s a quick reference guide to various words, phrases, or slang you might hear at the gym. There aren’t any secrets or pearls of wisdom here, just some basics that you may not know if you’re new to grappling, health, and fitness.
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Bands – Rubber elastic band that provide resistance during workouts. Similar in function to weights, but activates many smaller stabilization muscles.
Barbell – A literal bar that holds weights on either side. Used for training large muscle groups. Think of a bench press.
Bulking – A phase in an athlete’s progression where they maintain a caloric surplus to gain weight and muscle mass. Opposite of cutting or shredding.
Cardio – Short for cardiovascular exercise. Of or having to do with the heart and lungs.
Cheat Day – A day where you allow yourself to eat calorie-dense, inefficient foods to maintain your sanity on a diet.
Circuit – A form of exercising where you rotate exercises between sets instead of taking a rest and starting a new set of the same exercise. Once you’ve finished the circuit (number of different exercises for that session) you take a break before completing another circuit.
Compound – Compound exercises work multiple muscles or muscle groups at the same time. Opposite of isolation exercises.
Creonte – Portuguese for traitor. Someone who dishonors or defects from their gym.
Cutting – A phase in an athlete’s progression where they maintain a caloric deficit to lose weight and get leaner or ‘camera ready’. Synonymous with shredding, opposite of bulking.
Dumbell – A small bar with weights on both ends intended for one-handed uses.
DOMS – Acronym for ‘Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness’, the common phenomenon where you feel fine after a heavy workout but wake up the next morning sore and stiff.
Electrolytes – Nutrients that help send signals from your brain to your muscles. I wrote a whole article about them here.
Failure – As in, training to failure, means doing enough reps of an exercise that your body physically cannot perform another. The idea is to burn out the muscle and induce hypertrophy.
Form – The proper way to execute an exercise. Using correct form will help prevent injury and give you better gains.
Gains – Short for performance gains, usually regarding strength, speed, or endurance.
HIIT – Short for High Intensity Interval Training. The gist of it is that you execute bursts of extreme activity for a short period followed by lighter cool-down periods. In theory, this prepares you for high-intensity performance such as the rigors of competition.
Isolation – Isolation exercises target a specific muscle or group and train it exclusively. Opposite of compound exercises.
Kettlebell – A weightlifting tool that looks like a cannon ball with a handle. Offers a wide variety of exercises with a single piece of equipment.
Macros – Short for macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fat).
Maxing Out – The highest amount of weight you can do one full rep at. Also known as one rep maximum.
Micros – Short for micronutrients, the nutrients apart from macros that we need to survive and function at peak efficiency.
MRV – Acronym for Maximum Recoverable Volume.
Negative – Doing ‘negatives’ focuses on the eccentric, or lowering phase, of an exercise. Instead of putting your effort into getting your chin over the bar during a pull up, you slowly let yourself down to a dead hang from having your chin over the bar, for example.
Oss – An overused phrase in the jiu-jitsu community that has many meanings. It can be a greeting, a sign of respect, a thank you, an acknowledgment of understanding, or something else. Kind of parody at this point.
PB – Acronym for Personal Best. Synonymous with PR.
Porra – Loosely translates to ‘damn’ but gets used out of context quite a lot.
Porrada – Portuguese for ‘brawl’. So the common phrase ‘Every day porrada’ means ‘everyday brawl’ or basically go hard every day.
PR – Acronym for Personal Record. Synonymous with PB.
Progressive Overload – When we slowly increase our weight or reps as we continue our exercise program. This proves we’re gaining strength and is necessary to continue gaining strength.
Reps – Short for repetitions. The number of times you execute and exercise within a set. For example, one might do eight reps of an exercise over three sets for a total of twenty-seven reps.
RIR – Acronym for Reps In Reserve.
ROM – Acronym for Range Of Motion.
Sets – The number of times you perform a set number of reps during exercise. For example, one might do three sets of an exercise with eight reps each, for a total of twenty-seven reps.
Shredding – A phase in an athlete’s progression where they maintain a caloric deficit to lose weight and get leaner or ‘camera ready’. Synonymous with cutting, opposite of bulking.
Spot – A spot, or spotter, is someone who oversees another person’s exercises to make sure they remain safe. If, for example, a weight becomes too much for you during a set, your spotter can catch the weight and prevent you from getting injured.
SRA – Acronym for Stimulus Recovery Adaptation. Dr. Mike has a great video explaining this.
Super Set – A set of reps you do immediately after another exercise to increase the intensity of your workout, with no rest period between.
Swole – When you look ripped, buff, shredded, or otherwise studly. A shortened version of ‘swollen’.
