Training Basics
- Rep
- One complete movement of an exercise, like lowering a weight and lifting it back up once. Short for repetition.
- Set
- A group of reps done in a row without stopping, followed by a rest. "3 sets of 10" means ten reps, three times.
- Rest period
- The break between sets. Longer rests let you lift more on the next set; shorter rests save time and raise your heart rate.
- Warm-up
- Light activity and easier sets before training to raise body temperature and practice the movement before heavy lifting.
- Form
- How an exercise is performed: body position, path of the weight, and control. Good form makes lifts safer and more effective.
- Range of motion
- How far a joint moves during an exercise. A full range usually trains the muscle better than short, partial reps.
- Tempo
- How fast each part of a rep is performed, often written as four numbers, like 3-1-1-0.
- Training to failure
- Continuing a set until you can't complete another rep with good form. Useful sometimes, but not needed on every set.
Load & Progress
- One-rep max
- The heaviest weight you can lift for exactly one rep with good form. Often written 1RM.
- Progressive overload
- Gradually making training harder over time — more weight, reps, or sets — so the body keeps having a reason to adapt.
- Volume
- How much training you do, usually counted as hard sets per muscle per week. A key driver of muscle growth.
- Intensity
- How heavy the load is relative to your max. In everyday gym talk, also how hard a set feels.
- RPE
- Rate of perceived exertion: a 1–10 score for how hard a set felt, where 10 means you couldn't do another rep.
- RIR
- Reps in reserve: how many more reps you could have done when you stopped a set. 2 RIR means two left in the tank.
- PR
- Personal record: your best-ever performance on a lift, like the most weight or the most reps. Also called PB.
- Plateau
- A stretch of weeks where progress stalls despite training — the lifts, or the body, stop changing.
Exercises
- Compound exercise
- A movement that uses several joints and muscle groups at once, like a squat or pull-up. The backbone of most programs.
- Isolation exercise
- A movement that works one main muscle through one joint, like a bicep curl or leg extension.
- Squat
- Lowering the hips by bending the knees and hips, then standing back up — usually with a barbell on the upper back.
- Deadlift
- Lifting a loaded barbell from the floor to standing by driving through the legs and hips.
- Bench press
- Lying on a bench and pressing a barbell or dumbbells up from the chest. The main upper-body pushing lift.
- Overhead press
- Pressing a weight from the shoulders to straight overhead while standing or seated. Also called the shoulder press.
- Pull-up
- Hanging from a bar and pulling your body up until your chin is over it. A key back and arm exercise.
- Free weights and machines
- Two kinds of equipment: free weights (barbells, dumbbells) move freely; machines guide the weight along a fixed path.
Programs & Splits
- Program
- A written plan for your training: which exercises, sets, reps, and weights, on which days, and how they progress.
- Split
- How a training week is divided up — which muscles or movements are trained on which days.
- Full-body workout
- A session that trains all the major muscle groups, usually done two or three times a week.
- Push pull legs
- A split that groups training into pushing days, pulling days, and leg days. Often called PPL.
- Bro split
- Gym slang for a split that trains each muscle group on its own day, once a week — chest day, back day, arm day.
- Periodization
- Planning training in phases that change over time — like volume blocks, then heavier strength blocks — instead of doing the same thing forever.
- Deload
- A planned lighter week of training to let fatigue fall away, so you come back stronger.
- Training frequency
- How often you train — either how many sessions a week, or how many times each muscle is trained per week.
Muscle & Body
- Muscle hypertrophy
- Muscle growth: individual muscle fibers getting bigger through training. What gym slang calls "gains".
- Strength
- How much force your muscles can produce — in the gym, usually how much weight you can lift. Related to, but not the same as, size.
- Muscle fiber
- A single muscle cell. Fibers come in slow-twitch (endurance) and fast-twitch (power) types.
- Muscle group
- A set of muscles that work together and are trained together, like the chest, back, quads, or glutes.
- Pump
- The swollen, tight feeling in a muscle during a workout, caused by extra blood and fluid. Temporary, and not a measure of growth.
- Mind-muscle connection
- Focusing your attention on the muscle you're training while you lift. Seems to help most on light, isolation exercises.
- Body recomposition
- Losing fat and building muscle at the same time. Most realistic for beginners and people returning to training.
- Bulking
- A phase of eating more than you burn on purpose, to build muscle faster. From the gym side: train hard so the extra goes to muscle.
- Cutting
- A phase of eating less than you burn to lose fat. From the gym side: keep lifting heavy so you keep your muscle.
- Creatine
- A natural compound that helps muscles make quick energy. As a supplement, it reliably improves strength and power in training.
Cardio & Conditioning
- Cardio
- Exercise that raises your heart rate for a sustained time, like running, cycling, or rowing. Short for cardiovascular exercise.
- HIIT
- High-intensity interval training: short bursts of very hard effort alternated with rest or easy periods.
- LISS
- Low-intensity steady-state cardio: easy, steady exercise at a pace you can hold for a long time, like brisk walking.
- Zone 2
- Steady cardio at an easy-to-moderate effort — you can talk but not sing. Builds your aerobic base.
- VO2 max
- The maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during hard exercise. A key measure of aerobic fitness.
- Heart rate zones
- Five ranges of heart rate, from very easy to all-out, used to describe and plan how hard cardio should be.
- Conditioning
- General fitness for sustained or repeated hard effort — being in shape to work hard without gassing out.
Recovery
- DOMS
- Delayed onset muscle soreness: the stiffness and ache that shows up a day or two after training. Not a sign of a good workout.
- Recovery
- The process of rebuilding after training. Muscles actually grow and get stronger during recovery, not during the workout.
- Sleep
- The most important recovery tool: when the body repairs and adapts to training. Most adults need 7–9 hours.
- Overtraining
- Training far beyond what you can recover from for a long time, leading to a long drop in performance. True overtraining is rare.
- Mobility
- How well you can move a joint through its full range under control. Different from flexibility, which is passive range.
- Stretching
- Lengthening a muscle to improve flexibility. Static stretching holds a position; dynamic stretching moves through it.
- Injury and soreness
- Soreness is a dull, spread-out ache that fades in days; injury is sharp, specific pain that affects movement or lingers.
- Protein
- A nutrient made of amino acids that muscles use to repair and grow after training. From the gym side: the raw material for gains.