Gym Lingo: 75 Gym Terms You Need for Smarter Training | Legion

Here’s our list of 75 must-know workout terms.

A training method where you perform as many reps as you can in a given time frame or until you reach failure.

Example: “I finished the workout with a 10-minute AMRAP of push-ups. I managed to do 40 reps!”

A long metal bar used for weightlifting, that allows you to add weight plates on each end.

Example: “The overhead press is an exercise where you press a barbell from shoulder height overhead, then lower it again.”

Workout lingo used by gym bros to describe a mental or physical state in which you give maximum effort and intensity during a workout. 

Example: “I was exhausted after my first few sets of squats—I had to go full beast mode to finish them.”

A workout routine where each session focuses on a specific muscle group, such as chest, back, shoulder, arms, or legs, often called the “bro split.”

Example: “All the great bodybuilders followed a body part split, but I prefer upper/lower.”

Fitness term for tensing your core muscles and increasing pressure inside your abdomen to stabilize your spine during exercises like squats and deadlifts.

Example: “Always brace hard before a set of heavy deadlifts.”

Gym lingo for informal or anecdotal fitness advice often lacking scientific support. Gym bros frequently spread broscience in weight rooms and on social media, where new weightlifters often mistaken it for legitimate information.

Example: “I read that if you don’t chug a protein shake during your workout, you start losing muscle, but I think it might be broscience.”

A piece of gym equipment that uses adjustable pulleys and cables to allow you to perform a wide range of exercises. It provides constant tension throughout an exercise’s range of motion, which trains your muscles slightly differently than free weights. 

Example: “He used the cable machine for triceps pushdowns and face pulls.”

The portion of a rep where your muscle contracts and shortens, such as when you stand up in the squat.

Example: “The concentric phase of a biceps curl is when you lift the dumbbell towards your shoulder.”

A planned reduction in training intensity or volume, usually for a week, to help you avoid burnout from training.

Example: “After six weeks of intense training, I scheduled a deload week to let my body recover.”

Muscle pain and stiffness that you experience 24-to-72 hours after intense or unfamiliar exercise. It’s caused by small tears in the muscle fibers that occur during the workout.

Example: “I just started lifting weights again last week and I’m suffering from pretty bad DOMs.”

Gym slang for deltoids. The delts cover your shoulder joints and have three sections or “heads:” the anterior deltoid (“front delt”), the lateral deltoid (“side delt”), and the posterior deltoid (“rear delt”). They move your upper arm forward, upward, and backward.

Example: “The overhead press is my favorite exercise for training my delts.”

A short bar with weight on each end, typically used in pairs for strength training.

Example: “He grabbed a pair of dumbbells to do lunges.”

A training technique where you perform an exercise until failure, then immediately reduce the weight by 10-to-20% and continue for more reps until you fail again.

Example: “Drop sets are a good way to get more training done in less time.”

The part of a rep where the muscle lengthens, such as lowering the weight during a biceps curl.

Example: “Don’t let the dumbbell fall during the eccentric phase of the biceps curl—controlling it may boost muscle growth.”

A barbell with a zigzag shape that reduces strain on the wrists during exercises like biceps curls and skullcrushers.

Example: “He prefers using the EZ bar for curls because it’s easier on his wrists.”

The point during a set when you can no longer do another rep with proper form. 

Example: “I never train to failure—I always stay 1-to-3 reps shy of it.”

The technique you use when performing an exercise. “Proper form” is gym terminology for the correct way to perform an exercise to maximize its effectiveness and minimize injury risk.

Example: “Maintaining proper form is crucial for avoiding injuries.”

The number of times you train a specific muscle group within a set period, typically a week. 

Example: “He increased his training frequency to four days per week to see if it would accelerate his progress.”

A workout routine in which you train several upper and lower body muscle groups in each session.

Example: “I love doing full-body workouts—I find them easier to recover from than other types of training.”

Gym slang used to refer to increases in muscle size or strength.

Example: “If you’re not seeing gains, you might not be training hard enough.”

Gym slang term for steroids, also referred to as “juice,” “roids,” or “sauce.” 

Example: “He’s made a lot of progress lately, but some people are saying it’s because he’s on gear.”

Gym slang for the gluteal muscles, the group of muscles that make up the buttocks, including the gluteus maximus, medius, and minimus. 

Example: “Squats and deadlifts are great exercises for building strong glutes.”

Gym slang word for well-developed arm muscles, particularly the biceps.

Example: “He’s been working on his guns all summer, and it shows.”

Gym slang for a person who spends a significant amount of time at the gym, who’s also often obsessed with working out and improving their physique. Gym rats typically buy into broscience.

Example: “He’s a total gym rat—he practically lives at the gym.”

Gym term for a form of cardio where you alternate between short bursts of intense activity and brief recovery periods. 

Example: “He alternates between 30 seconds of sprinting and 30 seconds of walking for his HIIT sessions.”

The scientific term for an increase in muscle size. In a fitness context, hypertrophy occurs when you lift weights, causing small tears in muscle fibers that heal and grow back bigger.

Example: “There are two kinds of muscle hypertrophy: myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic.”

A bench set at an angle, typically between 30 and 45 degrees, used for exercises like the incline bench press that target the “upper chest” more effectively than the flat bench press.

Example: “He set up the incline bench for incline dumbbell presses to target his upper chest.”

Gym word referring to how hard someone is training. In weightlifting, you can measure it in a number of ways, with the most common being percentage of one-rep max, RPE and RIR.

Example: “Measuring your weightlifting intensity as a percentage of your one-rep max is a useful tool for periodizing your workouts.”

The textured, patterned grip on a barbell or dumbbell designed to provide extra traction between your hand and the handle and make it easier to hold heavy weights securely.

Example: “To find a grip width that works for most people, rest your pinky or ring finger on the rings in the barbell’s knurling.”

A training technique where you intentionally shorten an exercise’s range of motion, performing only the portion of each rep where your muscles are most stretched.

Workout term referring to the idea that by intensely focusing on a muscle as you train it, you can increase its activation and subsequent growth.

Example: “He visualized his biceps contracting during each curl to strengthen his mind-muscle connection.”

A size or strength difference between muscle groups or individual muscles. For example, one biceps might be bigger than the other, or your pecs might be more developed than your upper back.

Example: “Most weightlifters want to know how to spot, correct, and prevent muscle imbalances.”

The process your body uses to repair, grow, and strengthen muscle fibers.

Example: “Consuming protein after a workout helps boost muscle protein synthesis.”

Gym slang for “natural,” used to refer to someone who builds muscle and strength without using performance-enhancing drugs.

Example: “He claims to be natty, but he’s so big I don’t know if I believe him.”

The heaviest weight you can lift for a single rep of a given exercise through a full range of motion with proper technique.

Gym slang for the pectoral muscles, the large muscles on the chest that are responsible for pushing movements like the bench press, push-up, and dip.

Example: “He focused on the flat and incline bench press to build big, well-balanced pecs.”

Gym vocabulary used to describe someone’s best performance on an exercise or activity—their heaviest squat, fastest one-mile run, or longest swim, for example. 

Example: “I just hit a new PR on my deadlift—300 pounds for a single rep!”

Gym term for gradually making your workouts more challenging over time to force your body to become bigger, stronger, faster, or fitter.

Example: “Progressive overload is the primary driver of muscle growth.”

A popular workout routine that divides training sessions into three categories: push exercises (chest, shoulders, triceps), pull exercises (back, biceps), and legs.

Gym slang for the quadriceps, the group of four muscles located at the front of the thigh: the rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, and vastus intermedius. They are mainly responsible for extending (straightening) the knee.

Example: “Squats are the king of quad exercises.”

The movement capacity of a joint or muscle during an exercise. For example, a full-depth squat that lowers the hips below the knee uses a larger range of motion than a squat that stops before the thighs break parallel with the floor.

Example: “Using a full range of motion is crucial for maximizing growth.”

A scale that measures how hard you feel you’re working during a set, typically from 1 (extremely easy) to 10 (max effort).

Short for “repetition,” a single complete movement of an exercise, such as lowering and lifting the bar in a bench press. 

Example: “A set of 10 reps means performing the same movement 10 times without resting.”

The number of reps you aim to perform in a set expressed as a range. For example, 4-to-6 reps or 6-to-8 reps.

Example: “He trains in the 4-to-6 rep range for most compound exercises.”

A measure of how many more repetitions you could perform before reaching muscle failure. For example, an RIR of 2 means you stopped when you felt you could have done two more reps.

Example: “If you have two reps in reserve, it means you could have done two more reps before failure.”

A day dedicated to recovery and not performing intense exercise. Rest days help muscles recover, prevent overtraining, and reduce the risk of injury.

Example: “He takes a rest day every Tuesday and Thursday to let his muscles recover.”

The time you rest between sets in a workout.

Example: “She rests for 3 minutes between sets of squats to allow her muscles to recover.”

A gym term used to describe a physique with extremely low body fat and highly defined muscles. 

A group of repetitions performed consecutively without rest. For example, you might do one set of 10 reps of the bench press. 

Example: “I start my pull workout with three sets of deadlifts.”

A gym term used to describe a physique with extremely low body fat and highly defined muscles. 

Example: “He’s only been dieting for a couple of weeks and he already looks shredded”

Gym term for a person who assists someone during an exercise. The spotter’s roles are to ensure the lifter stays safe and to help complete reps if the lifter struggles or fails.

Example: “I always ask for a spotter before I attempt a bench press PR.”

A training technique where you perform two exercises back-to-back with little or no rest in between. 

Example: “Supersets are a great way to shorten your time in the gym without hurting your performance.”

Gym slang, short for “swollen,” describing an extremely muscular physique. 

Example: “Thor was looking pretty swole in the latest film, but I think that’s because he’s on a boatload of gear.” 

Gym slang for the trapezius muscles, the large muscles extending from the back of your neck to your shoulders and upper back. The traps play a key role in movements like deadlifts and rows, and they help stabilize the shoulder and neck.

Exercise: “Rows are a great exercise for developing your traps.” 

Gym lingo for the triceps brachii, the three-headed muscle on the back of the upper arm, located between the shoulder and elbow. Its primary function is to extend the elbow, but it also assists in some shoulder movements.

Exercise: “Skullcrushers are my favorite triceps exercise.”

A workout routine that divides training sessions into two categories: upper body exercises (those that train the chest, back, shoulders, and arms) and lower body exercises (those that train the quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves). 

Example: “He follows an upper/lower split routine, training his upper body on Mondays and Thursdays and his lower body on Tuesdays and Fridays.”

Gym word referring to the total amount of work someone is doing. In weightlifting, you can measure it in a number of ways, with the most common being volume load (weight lifted x sets x reps), total number of reps, and total number of hard sets. 

A short bout of low-intensity cardio or a few easy sets of weightlifting performed before a workout to prepare your muscles for the heavier training to come. 

Example: “She warmed up with a couple of light sets before starting her hard sets.”

A training plan that divides workouts by muscle groups or movement patterns across different days of the week. Common examples include the upper/lower split, push pull legs split, and body part split. 

Example: “His workout split includes push and pull days and a day dedicated to legs.”