Gym Slang, Part 1

Does it ever feel like people in the gym are speaking another language? You might hear phrases like pull day, reps, AMRAP, gains, etc. In today’s post, I’m breaking down a few common gym terms.

1RM: stands for “one rep maximum.” This term is used for the heaviest amount of weight you can currently lift for only 1 repetition. Keep in mind this is different than a PR, which is the heaviest weight you’ve ever lifted. See below for more on that.

AMRAP: an acronym for “as many repetitions as possible.” When you’re doing an AMRAP set, you’ll continue the exercise until you physically can’t anymore. This technique is popular with Crossfit gym programming.

Bulking: when an athlete is in a caloric surplus to gain more muscle.

Cutting: the opposite of bulking, cutting is simply reducing calories to lose weight.

Drop Set: typically a finishing set (or sets) in which you reduce the weight and continue lifting until failure. Drop sets are an effective way to increase training intensity and endurance.

Pull Day: working your back, biceps, and forearms.

Push* Day: working your chest, triceps, shoulders. I have an asterisk here because, fun fact, muscles actually can’t push. They can only pull. Pushing goes against their molecular structure, but people use this term anyways.

PR: an acronym for “personal record,” aka someone’s personal best. It’s used to describe the most weight someone has ever lifted.

Reps: aka repetitions, this is the number of times you perform one complete exercise. For example, 3 sets of 10 squats is 30 total squats.

I hope this was helpful. Be sure to stay tuned for more parts of this series! Special thanks to @karlieraephotography for the photo.