Stick Suggestion; Fitness Jargon and Vocabulary

[Marc Greve]

Let's make a sticky forum thread on various terms from fitness talk.

I see many people posting fitness and exercise related questions. They then get advice by fitness buffs that are riddled with unknown terminology. The original poster never thinks to ask clarifying questions and life goes on.

Note; Admins - feel free to change the title accordingly.

So let's keep this clean and concise.

I'll go first with what little fitness jargon I have picked up:

Rep = A single "time" of using your muscles. One push-up, for example.

Set = Doing as many reps of any given exercise your body can handle.

[SmellyOrc]

1RM = 1 Rep max, speaks for itself.
PR = Personal record, again speaks for itself.

[빈센트]

Training to failure - If your last rep of the last set is an extreme struggle such that you can't work that muscle anymore after that set, then you've probably trained to failure.

For example, if 170 is my max bench and I do about 8 reps on my last set. If after that set, I've exhausted my chest so much that I can't bench 170 anymore, I've trained to failure.

Don't do that often.

[Jessica Adlin]

Good idea, Mark. Sometimes one (like me) forgets that the language one uses is actually jargon, containing words that aren't part of common usage...so setting up a thread to clarify will be helpful...and a good reminder to me to not assume that people know what I'm talking about!!

In the sake of clarification, I just wanted to add/modify to your definitions of reps and sets.

Originally Posted by Marc Greve

Rep = A single "time" of using your muscles. One push-up, for example...

Set = Doing as many reps of any given exercise your body can handle.

Reps (short for repetition) are the number of times you do a given exercise within a set (or before you take a rest)...this number usually depends on your fitness goals.

Set = doing a series of reps continously, without rest between reps. It isn't necessarily doing as many reps as you can handle...the number of reps in a set is often a predetermined number, again, based on your fitness goals.

Increased muscle strength, muscles size, muscle endurance, and general toning are examples of different goals each requiring a different numbers of reps and sets to achieve. For example, for muscle strength, one typically does few reps (4-8) with heavier weights were as for general toning one might to 12-15 reps.

Reps and sets are usually referred to as a pair. If you are looking at a written workout, sets come first:

3 x 12 bicep curls = 3 sets of 12 repetitions.

Not to belabor a point...

[bylto]

Good idea I'm definitely guilty of this.

PWO - post-workout. This is when you might be asking what to consume after you workout e.g. after weight training a whey protein and simple carbohydrate shake like glucose is great for growth and recovery. PWO shake.